Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

Opportunity bags a few craters

In the last few days, Opportunity's passed by several craters, and the rover drivers took advantage of the chance encounters for what they call

High-resolution global view of Jupiter from Cassini

An awesome animation of Jupiter's clouds

Ready to see something beautiful? Here's a team effort by Björn Jónsson and Ian Regan to create a really mesmerizing view of the motions of Jupiter's clouds.

Fly over Mars

Adrian Lark has posted several new flights over gorgeous Martian landscapes to his Youtube channel. My favorite of his recent ones is this dive into Zumba crater.

3D animation of comet Hartley 2's nucleus

Hartley 2 compared to other comets, and in motion 3D

I had to catch up with tasks left undone at home today and didn't have time to write up my notes from the Hartley 2 press briefing, for which I apologize. I'll leave you for the weekend with three cool Hartley 2 pictures.

Animation of Deep Impact close-approach images of Hartley 2

Animation of the five closest-approach Hartley 2 images

Those of you who follow my blog must have known this was coming: now that I got all five new Deep Impact images of Comet Hartley 2 posted and explained, I had to make an animation. Here they are.

Hartley 2 compared to the International Space Station

Five close-approach images of Hartley 2 by Deep Impact, with commentary

Here's the five close-approach images of Hartley 2 captured today, November 4, 2010, by the Deep Impact spacecraft, collected into one file. Boy, do these images reward close examination!

Three days until Deep Impact's encounter with Hartley 2

The week is finally here: Deep Impact flies past Hartley 2, the smallest comet yet to be visited by a spacecraft, on Thursday, November 4 at 13:50 UTC.

Pretty picture: Three moons of Saturn

The Cassini Raw Images Website always offers rewards to the browser. This evening I found the raw images necessary to create this color composite, showing the hazy orange moon Titan, the mid-sized icy moon Dione, and the tiny rock Prometheus all at the same time.

Opportunity Navcam panorama, sol 2368 (September 21, 2010)

Opportunity rolls up to Oileán Ruaidh

Opportunity is continuing to make tracks toward Endeavour crater, but just because she's got a goal for her road trip doesn't mean she won't stop and smell the flowers from time to time. Er, did I say

Pretty picture: Europa and Jupiter

Photos like this always make me think about how unimportant size is in determining whether one of the worlds of the solar system is an exciting place.

An unusual Hubble photo of Mars

Amateur image magician Ted Stryk dug up this lovely view of Mars, captured on May 9, 2003 by the Hubble Space Telescope. This photo is unusual for its relatively high phase.

Opportunity's drive direction panorama, sol 2358 (11 September 2010)

Opportunity's rocky road ahead, good news for an aging rover

What a difference a couple of months of driving make. Here's the sort of view of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's road ahead that I'm accustomed to, taken two months ago.

High-resolution global view of Jupiter from Voyager 1

The Voyager Mission Updates

We take for granted now the ability to get detailed mission updates in a timely fashion via the Web. But How did people get their mission status before the Web?

Pretty picture: Crescent Dione

I was busy with other projects today, so today's post just asks you to look at this gorgeous three-image mosaic of a crescent Dione, taken during Cassini's most recent flyby a week ago.

Early warning for close approaches of two house-sized asteroids

Most of you have probably heard by now of two small asteroids, both in the neighborhood of 10 meters in diameter, recently discovered on trajectories that pass unusually close to Earth.