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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
The 45th Division for Planetary Sciences meeting, Oct 6-11, 2013
The annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society begins on Sunday and runs for a week in Denver, Colorado. I'll be attending all week, bringing you the latest news from across the solar system.
Government shutdown closes 3 of 4 National Radio Astronomy Observatories
The shutdown of the federal government continues to claim casualties. Today, the Green Bank Telescope, Very Large Array, and Very Long Baseline Arrays all shut their doors, blinding us to the radio sky and scuttling long-term research projects.
On space kindness and the Chelyabinsk meteor
Through an act of kindness, we now have images of the Chelyabinsk meteor trail from Russia's Elektro-L satellite.
Google+ Hangout with ESA about Europe's Mars exploration
The European Space Agency invited me to join Mars Express project scientist Olivier Witasse, and spacecraft oeprations manager Michel Denis for a Hangout on Europe's recent and future exploration of Mars and Phobos.
NASA's MAVEN Mission Spared from Shutdown
Launch preparations will resume for NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, due to launch to Mars on November 18th. Work had previously been suspended, potentially causing the spacecraft to miss its once-every-26-month launch opportunity.
Super cool Phobos and Deimos animations from Mars Express
I've been delving in to the Mars Express image archive this week, checking out its images of Phobos, and found a couple of really cool time-series of images to assemble into animations.
I cannot volunteer my time to work on NASA business during the furlough
Today I received my furlough notice from NASA. Since my job isn’t considered “excepted,” in other words, since no one will be injured or die if I don’t report for work, then I am to remain at home until recalled to work after the Congress passes and the President signs some sort of budget or continuing resolution to keep the government running.
Yes, there seems to be a hole in Curiosity's left front wheel, and no, that's not a problem
Some brand-new images just arrived from Curiosity on Mars, and two of the most recent are Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of the wheels. Today's images contained two little surprises.
LADEE has finally left Earth
When LADEE launched on September 6, it launched into Earth orbit. Today, it is finally on a path that will take it to its October 6 lunar orbit insertion. Its operation is continuing normally in the face of the U.S. government's shutdown yesterday, as is that of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter achieves imaging of comet ISON from Mars
Yesterday, the much-anticipated comet ISON made its closest pass by Mars. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera is the first to achieve a positive detection of the somewhat-fainter-than-expected comet in its photos.
On Gandhi's birthday, India ships Mars spacecraft to launch site
Several Indian news sites posted a press wire article this morning indicating that India's Mars Orbiter Mission departed its assembly and testing facility in Bangalore today and is now on the way to the coastal launch site, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, a journey of about 400 kilometers.
Origami Nanosats: The Future of Space Telescopes?
We interview Dr. Franck Marchis from the SETI Institute about nanosats that can unfold in space to create sensitive telescopes that are orders of magnitudes cheaper than current hardware.
American government shut down, but JPL and APL planetary missions still operating -- for now
I spoke with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Veronica McGregor and the Applied Physics Laboratory's Geoff Brown this morning to get accurate information about the operation of NASA planetary missions.
Women scientists: Tell Your Story and Inspire Others in Astronomy
Women Rock Science is working with the Knowledge Observatory to create an interactive display of women in astronomy from all over the world for an upcoming science festival.
The "Starship Century" Beckons
The Benford brothers provide inspiration and hard fact in their excellent new anthology about interstellar travel.
[Updated] A Government Shutdown Could Delay MAVEN's Launch to Mars
NASA confirmed that a government shutdown could affect pre-launch processing of the MAVEN spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch to Mars on November 18th.
Relative and absolute ages in the histories of Earth and the Moon: The Geologic Time Scale
A few days ago, I wrote a post about the basins of the Moon -- a result of a trip down a rabbit hole of book research. Here's the next step in that journey: the Geologic Time Scales of Earth and the Moon.
A Big Day for Commercial Spaceflight
On Sunday, Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus resupply spacecraft was berthed to the ISS, while SpaceX's upgraded Falcon 9 lifted off from the California coast.
Dawn Journal: Sixth anniversary of leaving Earth
On the sixth anniversary of leaving Earth to embark on a daring deep-space expedition, Dawn is very, very far from its erstwhile planetary residence. Now humankind's only permanent resident of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the seasoned explorer is making good progress toward the largest object in that part of the solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Ceres.
Gravity assist
With the recent announcement by NASA that the 36 year-old spacecraft Voyager 1 has officially entered interstellar space at a distance from the sun about four times further than Neptune's orbit, and with Voyager 2 not far behind, it seems worthwhile to explore how humans managed to fling objects so far into space.