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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Dust on, dust off: Before-and-after comparisons of rover decks on Mars
Curiosity and Opportunity self-portraits show one rover accumulating dust, the other losing it. Check out these cool before-and-after comparisons.
Pretty pictures: Rosetta's comet is now acting like one!
New photos from ESA's comet-chaser show its destination comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, developing a coma.
Curiosity update, sols 610-630: Drilling work at Windjana
Finally, a new drill site! For the first time in nearly a year, Curiosity has put drill bit to rock and acquired a new sample of Martian material for her analytical instruments to chew on. Scientific data collection at Windjana is now complete; Curiosity drove away last night, on sol 630.
The Case of the 5-Millisecond Cosmic Radio Burst
Everyone loves a good mystery. In astronomy, there is nothing more exciting than an unexplained signal.
A Reluctant Dance Towards Europa
For the last two years, NASA has been the shy partner refusing to get on the dance floor, and Congress has been the aggressive partner insisting on a dance now. The dance is the continuing attempt by Congress to have NASA commit to a mission to explore Europa, and NASA’s attempts to delay a mission well into the 2020s.
A new Earthrise over the Moon from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's pushframe camera
Earth's brilliant colors shine above the drab lunar horizon in this new
What’s Seeping on Mars? Recurring Slope Lineae
HiRISE team member Matt Chojnacki tells us about the discovery and formation of these mysterious features forming on Mars in the present day.
Field Report From Mars: Sol 3650 – May 2, 2014
Opportunity is closing in on the next important outcrop area on the rim of Endeavour crater.
Another Day in the Solar System
One day, five worlds.
New Horizons: Updates From the April 2014 Science Team Meeting
New Horizons team member Simon Porter reports on the state of the mission and Pluto system science from the recent science team meeting at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
Wow, an Increase of $170 million for Planetary Exploration
The House revealed details of its draft NASA budget today, including an increase of $170 million to Planetary Science above the White House's request for 2015, putting it within spitting distance of our goal of $1.5 billion.
A Martian analemma
A Mars year's worth of Sun images from Opportunity demonstrates Mars' orbital motions as reflected in the changing apparent position of the Sun: the analemma.
How Weird Is Our Solar System?
Earth and its solar system compatriots all have nearly circular orbits, but many exoplanets orbit their stars on wildly eccentric paths. Is our home system strange? Or is our sense of the data skewed?
The House Proposes an Extra $435 million for NASA next year
Budget season is in full swing in Washington, D.C., and we're starting to see indications of how NASA will fare this year. I have to say, things are looking pretty promising.
Image processing trick: Removing interline transfer smear from Curiosity photos
Curiosity took a new self-portrait on sol 613. This post contains a tip for would-be Curiosity image processors on how to make their Curiosity mosaics better: removing the smearing effect of bright objects in MAHLI photos.
When will we know which is bigger, Pluto or Eris?
We don't currently know whether Pluto is the biggest thing in the Kuiper belt or not. When will New Horizons give us the answer?
This is the post where you can comment about the IAU planet definition
An attempt to corral the discussion of the IAU planet definition in one place on planetary.org, so that we may be free to actually discuss Kuiper belt observations and scientific results on posts elsewhere on this site.
Another Pale Blue Dot — Uranus Spied By Cassini
The Cassini mission has already returned an array of images of other solar system members from Saturn orbit: Earth (and the Moon), Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. It’s time to add another world to that list!
Highlights From OSIRIS-REx Science Team Meeting #6
The OSIRIS-REx Science Team gathered at the University of Arizona from April 22–24, 2014 for their sixth meeting. Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta discusses a few of the highlights.
Green Bank Telescope Helps Out an Old Friend
The Green Bank Telescope has been called into emergency service to play radar ping-pong on a close-by asteroid with Arecibo Observatory’s 100-meter William E. Gordon radio telescope.