en-us http://planetary.org/blog/ A guide to interesting stuff going on in space science, space exploration, and space advocacy. 15 Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:16:33 GMT Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:16:33 GMT http://www.planetary.org/_img/rss/logo.jpg 127 111 http://planetary.org/blog/ blog@planetary.org (Emily Ladakawalla) Copyright © 2010 by The Planetary Society. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002654/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002654/ Most of you have probably heard by now of two small asteroids, both in the neighborhood of 10 meters in diameter, recently discovered on trajectories that pass unusually close to Earth. They were discovered on September 5 by the Catalina Sky Survey, and have since been observed by numerous amateur and professional astronomers. Neither poses any risk to Earth; even if they were on collision courses, which they are not, they would be too small .... Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:31:15 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002653/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002653/ Deep Impact is rapidly approaching its next -- and final -- target, comet Hartley 2, which it will fly by on November 4. On September 5, it began shooting photos of the comet, and the first of these images was just released. From a distance of 60 million kilometers, the photo clearly shows Hartley 2 as being cometary, a fuzzy dot in the center of the photo. This is the first of more than 60,000 images it's expected to take over the next two .... Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:51:38 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002652/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002652/ EDIT 4:15 pm: Added a 3d anaglyph to the bottom of the post. Imagine this landscape: you're walking across an unusually smooth lunar surface, an impact melt sheet on the floor of a relatively recently formed crater. Suddenly, a pit opens before you, leading to a floor six meters below you. Crossing the pit is a thin, arching bridge of solid lunar rock. Taking a chance on an unusual walk, you venture out onto the platform, which is 7 meters .... Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:28:52 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002651/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002651/ by Susan Lendroth Lou Friedman handed off the keys to the Planetary Society -- and a few worlds as well -- to new Executive Director Bill Nye, all captured in a tongue-in cheek video. Bill also presented Lou, a dyed-in-the-wool Yankees fan, with a special retirement gift from himself, the staff and the board -- two original seats from Yankee Stadium. After trying them out with his wife Connie, Lou later quipped, "Hmmm -- maybe I will REALLY .... Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:01:32 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002650/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002650/ Coincidentally, two new images of Neptune were posted today, from two very different sources. One came from Earth. It was from the Hubble Space Telescope, our most impressive eye on objects in the sky, in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths anyway. Although Hubble has great eyesight, Neptune is very far away from Earth -- never closer than 29 astronomical units -- so it's a relatively small ball in Hubble photos. Still, the photo is detailed .... Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:39:33 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002649/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002649/ by Lu Coffing Perhaps it was an impossible dream: the staff wishing that all of our members and supporters could attend the Planetary Society Open House. If you didn't attend in person -- or even if you did -- we invite you to join us on a virtual tour, a video showcasing our new headquarters and some of our staff. To properly set the scene, you should be munching on an ice cream cone while enjoying the video. Now imagine that the temperature .... Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:12:46 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002648/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002648/ A couple of weeks ago Paul Schenk posted a few really cool videos to his personal blog. Paul's subspecialty is the topography of icy moons, and he's been doing a lot of work on the moons of Saturn lately. My favorite of the three videos he posted recently flies along the famous equatorial ridge of Iapetus, with its weird, rounded mountain peaks and icy white flanks. (I should note that even though the flanks are shown bright white here, .... Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:09:52 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002647/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002647/ by Bill Nye Is Venus the forgotten planet, or just one that's hard to figure out? Absorbing the presentations at the Venus EXploration Advisory Group (VEXAG) meeting in Madison, Wisconsin in the U.S. this week, I can tell you Venus is both. Many people around our world of space explorers seldom think about Venus. This is evidenced by the relatively small number of missions that have made the trip to the hot acid planet, and by the exiguity of .... Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:01:06 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002646/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002646/ Here's our monthly checkup with the Dawn mission, contributed by Marc Rayman, the mission's Project System Engineer. Thanks Marc! --ESLClick to enlarge >Marc RaymanBy Marc Rayman Dear Papardawnzzi, Dawn's journey ever-deeper into the asteroid belt continues to go well, as the spacecraft carries out its familiar routine of thrusting gently with its ion propulsion system. But the interplanetary traveler has changed some of its habits, .... Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:34:42 GMT http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002645/ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002645/ by Bill Nye It can't be easy to bring Nobel Prize laureates and high government officials together over the same issue. But two Planetary Society board members, Scott Hubbard and John Logsdon, have done it – and produced a letter to Rep. Bart Gordon, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee, expressing concern about that committee's proposed budget for NASA that is signed by 14 Nobel winners and 14 former NASA .... Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:41:40 GMT