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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Voting is Fixed!
There were some issues with the voting widget on the University Science Writing competition, but they have been resolved, and it turns out it was counting the votes all along! So go vote for my post if you haven't done so yet today!
Data from Kaguya's prime mission to the Moon has been released
Yesterday, the Japanese space agency announced the public release of the data from the primary mission of the Kaguya (a.k.a. SELENE) lunar orbiter.
Cassini's Enceladus encounter, with bonus Tethys
Raw images from Cassini's close pass by Enceladus today started appearing on the JPL raw images website, and some less-compressed versions of a few of them showed up on the CICLOPS website.
Dawn Journal: Taking Up Residence in the Asteroid Belt
Dawn has devoted another month to thrusting with its ion propulsion system, ever with its sights set on its rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011.
Vote Early and Often!
Remember when I mentioned a few weeks ago that I submitted a blog post about MSL as an action-adventure hero to ScientificBlogging's science writing competition?
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Overcomes Setbacks and Waits for Extraction Orders, Opportunity Takes a Magical Meteorite Tour
The Mars Exploration Rover mission logged another textbook-rewriting month in October 2009 with more discoveries of geologic gems, new robot achievements balanced with equal amounts of challenges and frustrations overcome, topped off with special honors.
Fun Friday photo: Titan and Rhea
Cassini recently captured a series of images documenting Rhea passing behind Titan.
Einstein still rules
News from 7.2 billion light years away demonstrates that some things in this shifting universe are relatively reliable.
Gorgeous high-res image of the Apollo 17 landing site
The LROC team posted today a new image of the Apollo 17 landing site, captured after Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had gotten in to its 50-kilometer mapping orbit, so this is much more detailed than the previous view.
HiRISE sees Phoenix in the Martian spring
These Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE images of the defunct Phoenix lander in the early dawn light of northern spring have been out for some time, but no one had accomplished the difficult task of locating the Phoenix hardware in them until this week.
Arizona Daily Star reports MRO managers working to avoid "unlikely but potentially fatal scenario"
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been in safe mode for nine weeks, since August 26, the date of the fourth in a series of safing events.
What "phase angle" means
As is probably obvious by now, I love playing with spacecraft image data. I am always looking for excuses to dive into space image archives to unearth images of stuff in space that haven't really been seen by very many people before.
Carnival of Space #126, plus more from Jupiter's moon Io
The 126th Space Carnival is live over at Jason Perry's always-excellent (if rather narrowly focused) Io blog The Gish Bar Times.
Send your name to Venus with Venus Climate Orbiter (PLANET-C), now known as Akatsuki
The Japanese space agency's science missions have an abundance of names. They start out with a programmatic name, like MUSES-A, PLANET-A, etc. -- which might be like calling NEAR
Spinning spokes in Saturn's rings
Here's a neat animation captured last month by Cassini and assembled by Mike Malaska: spokes in Saturn's B ring.
Window onto an abyss: Cave skylight on the Moon
This just in: researchers on JAXA's Kaguya lunar orbiter have discovered an open pit on the Moon that is likely a window onto a sublunar world -- a skylight into a subsurface cavern.
Saturn shadows shift with the seasons
So many goodies on the Cassini raw images website lately! I am especially excited when Cassini takes photos through red, green, and blue filters so that it's possible to create views that look roughly like what you'd see with your own eyes.
Fun for Sunday: Titan and Tethys pas de deux
Checking in on Cassini's raw images this weekend, there are several nice shots to play with, including the many frames from which I tossed together this cute animation.
Opportunity's world of dunes and rock
Opportunity's been making tracks lately, with brief stops to check out a couple of meteorites. I thought this view of its surroundings on sol 2,034 (a couple of days ago) was neat.
Here comes Rosetta!
Heads up! ESA's Rosetta comet-chasing mission is going to buzz by Earth again in less than a month.