Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of June 2010

How does Lutetia compare to the other asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft?

Almost a week after Rosetta flew past Lutetia, the asteroid is now a distant pinprick of light to the spacecraft, and the science team is getting down to the business of analyzing their data.

Carnival of Space #162

The 162nd Carnival of Space is live over at Skymania, so go check it out!

Cassini eyes Janus

Four times a year, the Cassini mission releases three months' worth of data gathered from Saturn and its moons to NASA's Planetary Data System.

3D Anaglyph: Troughs or vents in Cerberus Fossae?

OK, it's time to look silly in your red-blue glasses again! When Tanya Harrison sent me those awesome 3D views of Olympica Fossae from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's CTX camera, she sent me two other sets of 3D landscapes on Mars.

Rosetta's Lutetia pictures

I saw these pictures for the first time just 10 minutes before boarding my flight back home, and forced myself to download everything I could find as quickly as possible without pausing to actually look at them.

Lutetia -- and Saturn!!

A quick post of just one of the gorgeous images from Rosetta's flyby of Lutetia today; for more, see the Rosetta Blog. But this one was just too pretty to wait for.

Rosetta Lutetia flyby successful; approach images posted; high-res images yet to come

All appears to be going very smoothly on Rosetta through, and after, its flyby today of asteroid (21) Lutetia.

Where to watch the Rosetta flyby of Lutetia

A quick post to gather information on where to watch the events of today's flyby of asteroid (21) Lutetia by Rosetta.

Rosetta approaches Lutetia (OSIRIS image)

Rosetta's Lutetia navigation campaign complete

Rosetta's most important job over the last few months has been to observe how the position of asteroid (21) Lutetia shifts against the background of fixed (fixed, that is, as far as Rosetta can see) stars.

Where my stories come from

The stories I write about originate in space, of course, but as I was wrestling with what to write about in the couple of weeks before my vacation, it occurred to me that a lot of you might not know what tends to trigger space writers to choose what to write about.

A brush painting for Hayabusa

Upon James Aldridge's return from Japan, he posted several albums worth of amazing photos, including several of their calligraphy instructor, well-known artist Aiko Tanaka, creating a gestural brush painting to commemorate Hayabusa's return.

Three days to Lutetia for Rosetta!

On July 10, 2010, at 15:44:56 UTC, the Rosetta spacecraft will fly within 3,162 kilometers of the largest asteroid yet visited by a spacecraft.

Sharpest-ever images of Daphnis

As promised last week, Cassini has delivered its best photos yet of the tiny moon Daphnis, the ringmoon that is responsible for carving out the skinny Keeler gap at the outer edge of Saturn's A ring.

Photo inside the Hayabusa sample capsule

A look inside the Hayabusa sample capsule

A very brief item posted on the Hayabusa website included two pictures of the interior of its sample return capsule, one of which shows a particle.

What's up in the solar system in July 2010

June 2010 was certainly busy with Hayabusa and IKAROS action, so I really needed a vacation.

The solar system, in jewelry form

A couple of months ago, someone on Twitter sent me a link to an article about Laura Cesari's bead jewelry inspired by the solar system. I thought it was awfully cool.