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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
An Ongoing Odyssey
Twelve years on, Mars Odyssey just keeps sending great images.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Roves to Solander West, into Winter Campground
The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission stepped up preparations for the coming Martian winter in September as Opportunity rounded the northern tip of Solander Point and drove into what will be her campground at Endeavour Crater for the next six months or so. It's been nearly a year in the planning. Now, from the rover's first look around, this winter could turn out to be one for the books.
DPS 2013: Some quick updates on Mercury
Some notes from the first day of the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting on Mercury.
Congratulations to LADEE on arrival at the Moon!
After a one-month journey from Earth to the Moon, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) safely entered orbit at 10:57 UTC today, October 6.
Gaia Prepares for Ultimate Galactic Census
The European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft is set to embark on a five-year, billion-star census next month.
Photos: India's Mars Orbiter Mission arrives at launch site
ISRO posted five photos from the momentous day of the Mars Orbiter Mission's shipment to Sriharikota.
Google+ Hangout with ESA about Europe's Mars exploration
The European Space Agency invited me to join Mars Express project scientist Olivier Witasse, and spacecraft oeprations manager Michel Denis for a Hangout on Europe's recent and future exploration of Mars and Phobos.
Government shutdown closes 3 of 4 National Radio Astronomy Observatories
The shutdown of the federal government continues to claim casualties. Today, the Green Bank Telescope, Very Large Array, and Very Long Baseline Arrays all shut their doors, blinding us to the radio sky and scuttling long-term research projects.
NASA's MAVEN Mission Spared from Shutdown
Launch preparations will resume for NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, due to launch to Mars on November 18th. Work had previously been suspended, potentially causing the spacecraft to miss its once-every-26-month launch opportunity.
Super cool Phobos and Deimos animations from Mars Express
I've been delving in to the Mars Express image archive this week, checking out its images of Phobos, and found a couple of really cool time-series of images to assemble into animations.
On Gandhi's birthday, India ships Mars spacecraft to launch site
Several Indian news sites posted a press wire article this morning indicating that India's Mars Orbiter Mission departed its assembly and testing facility in Bangalore today and is now on the way to the coastal launch site, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, a journey of about 400 kilometers.
Yes, there seems to be a hole in Curiosity's left front wheel, and no, that's not a problem
Some brand-new images just arrived from Curiosity on Mars, and two of the most recent are Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of the wheels. Today's images contained two little surprises.
LADEE has finally left Earth
When LADEE launched on September 6, it launched into Earth orbit. Today, it is finally on a path that will take it to its October 6 lunar orbit insertion. Its operation is continuing normally in the face of the U.S. government's shutdown yesterday, as is that of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter achieves imaging of comet ISON from Mars
Yesterday, the much-anticipated comet ISON made its closest pass by Mars. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera is the first to achieve a positive detection of the somewhat-fainter-than-expected comet in its photos.
Origami Nanosats: The Future of Space Telescopes?
We interview Dr. Franck Marchis from the SETI Institute about nanosats that can unfold in space to create sensitive telescopes that are orders of magnitudes cheaper than current hardware.
The "Starship Century" Beckons
The Benford brothers provide inspiration and hard fact in their excellent new anthology about interstellar travel.
[Updated] A Government Shutdown Could Delay MAVEN's Launch to Mars
NASA confirmed that a government shutdown could affect pre-launch processing of the MAVEN spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch to Mars on November 18th.
Dawn Journal: Sixth anniversary of leaving Earth
On the sixth anniversary of leaving Earth to embark on a daring deep-space expedition, Dawn is very, very far from its erstwhile planetary residence. Now humankind's only permanent resident of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the seasoned explorer is making good progress toward the largest object in that part of the solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Ceres.
Gravity assist
With the recent announcement by NASA that the 36 year-old spacecraft Voyager 1 has officially entered interstellar space at a distance from the sun about four times further than Neptune's orbit, and with Voyager 2 not far behind, it seems worthwhile to explore how humans managed to fling objects so far into space.
Cometary Science at EPSC
Recently, almost a thousand researchers gathered in London for Europe’s annual meeting of planetary scientists. Here's a report from one session on cometary science.