Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

There is a huge storm that's spreading across so much of Saturn that it's been readily visible even from Earth-based telescopes. Over the past couple of days a couple of new images of Saturn have appeared that show just how enormous the storm is today.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's an image I've been meaning to post for months, a new mosaic from Voyager 1 by Ted Stryk of Io crossing Jupiter's terminator as it neared closest approach.

Emily Lakdawalla

In the past week there have been 25th anniversaries of two events in 1986, one great, one terrible: the closest approach of Voyager 2 to Uranus on January 24, and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger upon liftoff on January 28.

Emily Lakdawalla

I've spent the day noodling around in the current issue of Icarus, following up some of the more interesting stories within its table of contents, and came across a picture of this very cool crater -- actually, set of craters -- on Mars.

Emily Lakdawalla

Daniel Macháček has colorized some terrific images of Phobos and run them through some morphing software to make a seamless animation that appears to show Phobos rotating before you.

Emily Lakdawalla

Daniel Macháček has reached into the dark side of Prometheus and pulled out an incredible amount of detail where the potato-shaped moon is illuminated by Saturnshine. He produced an animation that morphs among the three sets of four-filter color images that Cassini snapped during the flyby.

Emily Lakdawalla

I've just posted my annual roundup of significant images from planetary exploration in 2010.

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the twenty-eighth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system is this cratered and streaked surface?

Emily Lakdawalla

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.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini's busy downlinking photos from yesterday's close pass by Enceladus, including some neat shots of Dione and this one where Mimas skipped briefly in to the field of view.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today Opportunity has driven to within 20 meters of Santa Maria crater, and the blocks around it are really, really cool-looking. This one is a dead ringer for the severed tail of an alligator.

Emily Lakdawalla

Opportunity is on a kilometers-long eastward road trip across Meridiani Planum toward the rim of a large ancient crater named Endeavour; it'll be many months yet before she gets there.

Emily Lakdawalla

I had planned to be in San Francisco today to present at the 2010 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in an Education and Public Affairs session.

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the twelfth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system is this trapezoidal mountain?

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the eighth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system is this nearly flat plain?

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the sixth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system are these snowy slopes?

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the fifth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system is this meandering river?

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the third door in the advent calendar. Until the New Year, I'll be opening a door onto a different landscape from somewhere in the solar system. Where in the solar system is this wispy terrain?

Emily Lakdawalla

To celebrate Mars Express' recent mission extension to 2014, here are some cool pictures that it took of Mars' inner and larger moon Phobos.

Emily Lakdawalla

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.