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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
White Rock through the Ages: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006-present)
I apologize for the long hiatus in this White Rock series, but I hope this entry will be worth the wait.
What's up in the solar system for the week of May 5
Here's what's happening on active planetary missions this week.
The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Powers into Winter, Opportunity "Shoulders" Injury
With winter settling in on the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet, the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) spent April working on their respective science campaigns and hunkering down in brutally chilly nights that are seeing temperatures drop to around -95 degree Celsius. As the month comes to an end at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum, there is good news and there is bad news.
What's up in the solar system for the week of April 28
I thought it would be fun to start the week by taking stock of what's going on with all the active planetary missions out there.
A bit of fun with Mars Express images of Phobos
I recently found the focus to work on a big project: namely, downloading and examining every Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera image of Mars' two moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Shadows cast from Victoria's capes and bays
This is from the
The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Takes in Home Surroundings, Opportunity Roves to Cape Verde
Brandishing the trademark resilience that has endeared them to millions of people around the world, the Mars Exploration Rovers kept their robotic noses to the grindstone through March, soldiering on into their third Martian winter with slightly more power than predictions anticipated and enough proven mettle to dodge a budgetary pothole on Earth that might have taken one of them out of action. Now, 50 months after Spirit defied the odds and bounced safely to an upright landing and Opportunity followed with the impossible scoring of a 300-million-mile hole-in-one, the twin robot field geologists are driving the MER mission into new territory once again.
White Rock through the ages: Mars Express (2004-present)
When we last visited White Rock on Mars, both Mars Global Surveyor and 2001 Mars Odyssey were mapping the planet.
Spirit, seen from space
The HiRISE instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter really is a spy camera in space. Check out this sequence of nine images from the HiRISE archives, which Doug Ellison pulled together into an animation covering more than a year of Spirit's mission.
Mars Budget Cuts
Exploring another planet is an expensive business. We all know this, but sometimes it hits home harder than others. Today was one of those times.
LPSC: Thursday: Rovers, Titan, Mars, Venus Express, Neptune
I spent a large portion of the day at the Lunar and Planetary Institute's library and presented my own poster during the poster sessions, so my coverage of Thursday's sessions is limited.
Mars Climate Sounder Collects 20 Millionth Sounding
Last week Mars Climate Sounder collected its 20 millionth sounding at Mars. Mars Climate Sounder is scanning without problems, collecting science observations of the atmosphere of Mars. Mars Climate Sounder has now been observing Mars for over 17 months (three quarters of a Mars year and also approximately three quarters of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter primary science mission).
White Rock through the ages: 2001 Mars Odyssey (2001-present)
In the fourth installment in my look at one spot on Mars as seen through the eyes of different spacecraft, we finally get to a mission that is still operational: 2001 Mars Odyssey.
The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Settles into Winter Spot, Opportunity Descends Deeper into Victoria Crater
With fall slowly passing in the southern hemisphere of Mars and winter looming on the horizon, the Mars Exploration Rovers carried on with business as usual in February, working as much as possible before the reduced sunlight and beyond-frigid temperatures of the dreaded season set in.
Mapping Meridiani: Part 2
Last time, I gave some of the background information about my research. Now, armed with that knowledge, we can press forward and talk about what I do.
Mapping Meridiani: Part 1
The mantra of Mars exploration is
White Rock through the ages: Mars Global Surveyor (1997-2006)
We first spotted the strange bright feature colloquially known as
Opportunity watches the clouds drift by
Opportunity is now following a rather leisurely autumn schedule, according to the latest update on the mission website. Some of the work Opportunity is doing involves staring skyward, looking for patterns in the clouds that pass overhead at this time of year. One of the guys at unmannedspaceflight.com has put together some nifty animations of the wispy cloud patterns.
Finding images from Mars
There have been so many missions to Mars, which have sent back so much data, that figuring out how to find images of places on Mars can be really overwhelming.
Have a happy day on Mars
I thought this was a fun image to kick off the weekend. This isn't the first happy-looking crater to be photographed from Mars, but I really like this one; it's more goofy.