Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

The paper I'm writing about today,

Emily Lakdawalla

Spirit had been communicating on a once-per-week schedule in recent weeks. During the designated time for the rover to communicate with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter passing overhead on March 30, Odyssey heard nothing from the rover.

A.J.S. Rayl

March seems to have come in like a lamb and gone out like a lion on the Red Planet this year as the Mars Exploration Rovers trudged deeper into their fourth winter. While Opportunity finished up work at Concepcin Crater and shifted into gear back on the road to Endeavour Crater, Spirit finished up winter preparations and carried out a limited winter agenda before shifting, it appears, into hibernation mode.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's how to watch the class on how to access Voyager data through the Planetary Data System, which I conducted to a small audience this morning.

Marc Rayman

Our interplanetary adventurer still has a great deal of ion thrusting to complete before it can begin its orbital exploration of Vesta next year.

Emily Lakdawalla

This new map of Saturn's moon Mimas -- representing data captured by the CIRS thermal infrared spectrometer during Cassini's February 13, 2010 flyby -- is just baffling.

Emily Lakdawalla

Just a little update here to post a Navcam panorama from Opportunity showing that the rover successfully arrived yesterday at the doublet crater she's been aiming for since she left Concepcion a couple of weeks ago.

Emily Lakdawalla

I heard some absolutely terrific news about the MSL mission yesterday.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa's mission team has successfully shifted the little spacecraft's approach trajectory from the day side to the night side of Earth, a critical maneuver for the survival of the sample return capsule.

Emily Lakdawalla

I am just drowning in data right now, and I couldn't be happier.

Emily Lakdawalla

I saw this image at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference so am happy they released it: a view of Opportunity sitting on the north rim of the little, fresh Concepción crater, taken on sol 2153 (February 13, 2010).

Emily Lakdawalla

An update on Hayabusa posted to the JAXA website by project manager Junichiro Kawaguchi.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's a lovely amateur-produced color image of Jupiter's moon Callisto, or, as its artist Daniel Macháček calls it,

Emily Lakdawalla

There was a piece of the Lunar-Reconnaissance-Orbiter-spots-the-Lunokhods story that I was intrigued by but just didn't have the time this week to investigate properly.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Akatsuki spacecraft (also known as PLANET-C or Venus Climate Orbiter) arrived this evening, Japanese time, at the Tanegashima Space Center.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's been a little while since I posted any Cassini pictures just because they were pretty, so here's a few recent ones, produced by amateurs from the images available on the Cassini raw images website.

Emily Lakdawalla

I am delighted to report that within a day of the first view of Luna 21 and Lunokhod 2 since the end of that mission in 1973, the sister mission, Luna 17 and Lunokhod 1, has also been found.

Emily Lakdawalla

Yesterday I posted a bit of a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera image showing the tracks of the Russian Lunokhod 2 rover. Today, I can post for you an image showing the rover's final resting place

Emily Lakdawalla

It's the second time I've posted with this provocative title. This time, it's in response to a new paper published last week in Science.

Emily Lakdawalla

Now here is an unusual image of Phobos, Mars' moon.