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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Spirit gets brushed off
There was great news last night from Mars Exploration Rover mission operations: Spirit seems to have enjoyed another
The original "Puddles on Mars" story has been retracted
Today, New Scientist and researcher Ron Levin retracted the
Windows Onto the Abyss: Cave Skylights on Mars
Today's set of image releases from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE team included this one, of a fairly bland-looking lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons. Bland, that is, except for a black spot in the center.
Millions of soundings yield clues to Mars' weather
Two months after the start of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's primary science phase, the Mars Climate Sounder instrument has already acquired more than four million soundings, building toward a vast data set on the three-dimensional structure of Mars' atmosphere over the full Martian year of the orbiter's nominal mission.
Rosetta Was Here
This amazing view was captured by the CIVA camera on Rosetta's Philae lander just four minutes before its closest approach to Mars on February 25, 2007. The spacecraft was only 1,000 kilometers above the planet.
Autumn comes to Mars' north pole
It's easy to forget that Mars is another such world with cloudy weather and seasonally varying climate. This lovely image release from the CRISM instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter brings that point home.
New Horizons update and a website roundup
I've just posted a very detailed timeline of New Horizons' encounter with Jupiter -- take a look!
New Horizons is targeting Jupiter!
New Horizons' Jupiter encounter is officially underway!
An Odyssey THEMIS image of Gale Crater, Mars
This week's releases from the Mars Odyssey THEMIS team included a gorgeous one of the layered interior of Gale crater.
New items on the website: Rover update and Stardust@home
I just wanted to point out a couple of new items on the website.
Get used to this view
Get used to this view of Home Plate and Husband Hill, because Spirit will be seeing a lot of it over the next 8 months, whenever power levels permit the rover to eke a little bit of science activity out of the day.
A debate in Meridiani Planum
There was a big news splash about two articles that appeared in Nature about Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site. The articles suggest two theories for the formation of the layered sulfur-rich deposits at Meridiani Planum that do not involve standing liquid water.
NOW Mars is spectacular
Back in August, there was a false alarm being circulated by email that Mars was going to be super-close to Earth on August 27.
An opportunity for Spirit to see Earth and Venus together?
I received the following question by email last week:
"Mars Spectacular!"
Apparently there is a bogus email circulating around the Web with the following text:
Martian Orbiter Takes Pictures of Neighboring Crafts Passing By
During April 2005, the Mars Global Surveyor happened to pass relatively close to Odyssey and Mars Express. What resulted were remarkably clear pictures of human-made spacecraft orbiting and alien world.
NASA Names Gusev Crater Hills After Apollo 1 Crew
NASA Headquarters issued a press release late yesterday announcing that the agency is memorializing the Apollo 1 crew -- Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee -- by naming the hills surrounding the first Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's landing site after the three astronauts.
Opportunity Scores "A 300-Million-Mile, Interplanetary Hole-In-One"
Although it did appear from the very first images returned that the second Mars Exploration Rover had landed inside a small crater when it arrived at Meridiani Planum last Saturday night, that belief was confirmed with further analysis yesterday.