Articles

Matthew Chojnacki

The President's proposed 2013 NASA budget calls for deep cuts to the nation's very successful planetary science program. These cuts not only threaten the future of planetary science, but also impact our ability to conduct deep space missions. As the next generation of planetary scientists, the graduate student community is deeply concerned about the ramifications of these budget cuts, and we must voice our concerns to policymakers in Washington, D.C.

Emily Lakdawalla

A post the night before the 2012 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

Mat Kaplan

Tens of thousands of Jupiter images were taken by the Voyager spacecraft, but relatively few have been processed to reveal their true beauty and wonder. The latest Snapshots video from Emily Lakdawalla explains why.

Mat Kaplan

The city of Tustin is about an hour's drive from Planetary Society HQ in Pasadena. That's when the freeway gods are kind, which they never are. The trip I made there yesterday was well worth the trouble.

Emily Lakdawalla

A new

Emily Lakdawalla

Yesterday I was treated to a little tour (little, because it's a little building) of Honeybee Robotics' office here in Pasadena. Honeybee is developing some great technology for future space missions for Earth, Mars, and beyond.

Emily Lakdawalla

It is always thrilling to see relics of human exploration out there on other worlds. Today, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team posted some new photos of two defunct spacecraft: the Luna 17 lander and the Lunokhod 1 rover. I've posted images of the two craft before, but the ones released today are much better.

Emily Lakdawalla

In this week's Snapshots from Space video, I talk about the Voyager 1 images of Jupiter -- how many there are (tens of thousands), and what a challenge they represent for image processors. But, I promise, the effort is worth it. Here's just one example: it's a color, crescent view of Jupiter, taken by Voyager 1 as it departed.

Ray Sanders

Yuri's Night events combine space-themed partying with education and outreach.

Emily Lakdawalla

JAXA's solar sail mission IKAROS is still hibernating, and there's no way of knowing if the spacecraft will reawaken or not. They try to raise contact with the spacecraft once a month, with the last attempt being made on March 10; we can only wait to see if they'll succeed. What better time to release a theme song for the mission? IKAROS has always been even more full of personality even than other JAXA missions (which is saying a lot).

Emily Lakdawalla

Just a quick note because I didn't want to let the weekend go by without telling people that Venus Express' star trackers are back online.

Emily Lakdawalla

Clearly, this is Saturn, and its rings, and if you look closer you can see a tiny circle, on top of the rings, which is Mimas, and two stars in the background. It should look weird to you that while the rings are bright, Mimas is a black dot. What is happening here? Nearly everything in this picture is lit by light that has not arrived directly from the Sun.

Emily Lakdawalla

Two brief mission updates. First, the good news: NASA announced yesterday that the twin GRAIL spacecraft have begun the science phase of the mission, transmitting precisely timed signals to each other in order to map the Moon's gravity field. The bad news: according to ESA, since the recent solar storm passed Venus, both of Venus Express' star trackers are suddenly unable to detect stars.

Charlene Anderson

NASA's Mars science exploration budget is being decimated, we are not going back to the Moon, and plans for astronauts to visit Mars are delayed until the 2030s -- on funding not yet allocated, overseen by a congress and president to be named later.

Emily Lakdawalla

Last night the Sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection in our direction. Here is a compilation of images from SOHO's two LASCO cameras, plus a prediction from the new space weather prediction model that I learned about at the American Geophysical Union in December. The storm will arrive at Earth on March 8.

Charlene Anderson

The Planetary Society is deeply troubled with the priorities reflected in NASA's FY13 budget. If implemented, it will portend grave consequences for our nation's ability to conduct deep-space science missions and could irreversibly erode unique aspects of the space industrial base needed for such missions.

Emily Lakdawalla

A recap of the

Charlene Anderson

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist extraordinaire and Planetary Society Board Member, will be testifying to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation tomorrow, March 7.

Mat Kaplan

A new installment of our

Emily Lakdawalla

Each Magellan images of Venus seems to be a work of abstract art.