Blogs

Door 31 in the 2010 advent calendar

Emily Lakdawalla • December 31, 2010

Time to open the thirty-first (and next-to-last) door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system are these dark-rimmed craters?

SOHO's 2000th comet

Emily Lakdawalla • December 29, 2010

SOHO was launched more than 15 years ago to study the Sun, primarily; but a side benefit of its constant observation of the Sun has been its ability to notice "sungrazers," comets that are on deadly close approaches to our star.

All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of August 2014, in color, albedo linearly scaled

365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: Small Worlds

Emily Lakdawalla • December 27, 2010

Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, Small Worlds, about the smaller denizens of the solar system visited in the past year, and due to be visited in the next.

Deep Impact at Hartley 2: Two weeks after the flyby

Emily Lakdawalla • November 18, 2010

Today the Deep Impact/EPOXI science team held a press briefing that followed up on their very successful flyby of two weeks ago, a status report on what they can say so far about the science that's coming out of the encounter.

Asteroids and comets to scale, including Hartley 2

Emily Lakdawalla • November 18, 2010 •

Just in time for today's Deep Impact press briefing, which you can watch on NASA TV in a few minutes: I've updated my montage of all the asteroids and comets that have been visited and photographed to include Hartley 2.

Deep Impact high-resolution view of Hartley 2

In which I finally write up last week's Deep Impact Hartley 2 press briefing

Emily Lakdawalla • November 09, 2010

On Thursday, November 4, at 13:50 UTC, Deep Impact flew within 700 kilometers of comet Hartley 2. Hartley 2 is the smallest and most active of the five comets that have been directly by a spacecraft, and the first to be visited within the lifetime of its discoverer.