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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
The June 3 Jupiter Impact: 22 hours later
Time to take stock of what happened a day ago. The worldwide, round-the-clock nature of planetary science is both exhilarating and challenging!
Hubble turns 20
Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. It's hard to believe it's been going strong for so many years.
What it looks like when a CME explodes toward us
The animation I posted yesterday, of a huge coronal mass ejection exploding away from the Sun, caused several people to ask if it could do Earth any harm.
Stellar explosion
The Sun just spat out a huge coronal mass ejection, an event made visible by the watchful cameras on SOHO.
Quaoar: A rock in the Kuiper Belt
The paper I'm writing about today,
Unbelievably spectacular flight through Candor Chasma
This is one of the things that came out during LPSC last week and all I could do at the time was Tweet it—so here it is in blog form: the most unbelievably spectacular 3D animation of a bit of Mars I've seen yet, produced by Adrian Lark.
Calypso coolness
Cassini got pretty close to Calypso yesterday, on the way in to Mimas. Calypso is one of the smaller moonlets of Saturn.
Way-cool Martian flyovers by Doug Ellison
Doug Ellison has been playing with Martian digital terrain models recently, to great effect.
Mars Express animation of Phobos' shadow transiting Mars
For the first time ever, Mars Express' Visual Monitoring Camera has imaged the shadow of Mars' moon Phobos crossing the surface of Mars.
Awesome New Mars Flyovers
Check out these awesome flyovers of Mars, generated by Doug Ellison of UnmannedSpaceflight!
Odyssey's going to start listening for Phoenix
It's been the second most popular question I get from readers:
Asteroid 2867 Steins
This description of asteroid 2867 Steins is based upon an article published in the January 8, 2010 issue of Science by H. Uwe Keller and numerous coauthors and on a related press release.
Spirit's still "extricating"
It's been two months, now, that extrication efforts have been going on. It's discouraging that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit isn't out of the trap.
400 Years of the Galilean Satellites
It was 400 years ago today that Galileo discovered smaller planets attending the planet Jupiter.
Awesome Cassini mutual event movies
I love posting animations of Cassini images that I compose from frames grabbed from the mission's raw images website, but they are shoddy compared to the versions that eventually come out from the mission's imaging team.
Cassini VIMS sees the long-awaited glint off a Titan lake
The Cassini mission announced today the first observation of a specular reflection off of a lake on Titan. A specular reflection is a mirror-like flash, and you only get one when you have a mirror-like surface -- very, very smooth.
Watch that front wheel spin!
Holy cow, look at that right front wheel spin. I am alternately amazed and horrified by this animation.
A teeny weeny bit of movement in Spirit's right front wheel
The ever-vigilant Doug Ellison just posted this animation, which really actually does show a teeny tiny bit of motion in the right front wheel. If you don't notice any motion, look closer.
Awesome Mars Express view of Phobos and Deimos together
My inbox was exploding this morning with messages about a tremendously cool animation released this morning by ESA's Mars Express team. It shows Phobos crossing Deimos, in what's known as a
The Norway Spiral
I had a fun conversation with Paul Harris just now on his show at KTRS about the crazy spiral that showed up in Norwegian skies yesterday.