Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

On 26 June 2018, Hayabusa2 arrived at its target asteroid, Ryugu. In a very brief status update, I present comparisons of Ryugu to other previously visited asteroids and comets.

Emily Lakdawalla

Ryugu has continued to grow in Hayabusa2's forward view, resolving into a diamond-shaped body with visible bumps and craters! They've done hazard searches, optical navigation imaging, and measured the rotation rate at 7.6 hours.

Jason Davis

Hayabusa2 continues to approach asteroid Ryugu, revealing the 900-meter-wide world in all its glory.

Luyuan Xu

It took 24 days for Queiqiao to reach an Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit.

Marc Rayman

Propelled by the perfect combination of xenon ions, hydrazine rocket propellant and adrenaline, Dawn is on the verge of its most ambitious exploits yet.

A.J.S. Rayl

Entrenched in the west rim of Endeavour Crater, veteran robot field geologist Opportunity is hunkered down in Perseverance Valley in a kind of hibernation mode.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa2 is now less than 1000 kilometers away from Ryugu, and the tiny asteroid is beginning to betray its shape.

Jason Davis

See the world through the eyes of Longjiang-2.

Emily Lakdawalla

NASA's OSIRIS-REx will get the first sight of its target Bennu in August and go into orbit in December.

Jason Davis

NASA is providing an instrument for the mission, which will try to uncover the origins of Phobos and Deimos.

Emily Lakdawalla

On June 3, Hayabusa2 ended use of its ion engines, for now, and is coasting the remaining distance toward Ryugu. It's using an optical navigation camera to image the asteroid's position against a field of background stars to help it navigate.

Geoffrey Reeves

At five years and counting, the Van Allen Probes mission continues to reshape our thinking about how Earth’s radiation belts flex and reconfigure under the influence of solar storms.

Jason Davis

NASA and the National Science Foundation are teaming up to observe exoplanets discovered by Kepler and TESS.

A.J.S. Rayl

Opportunity continued exploring the south trough of Perseverance in May, still looking for evidence that explains just how this one-of-a-kind valley meandering through Endeavour Crater’s rim formed.

Emily Lakdawalla

One of the Cassini mission's goals was to figure out how long a day on Saturn is. We still don't know. A new paper reports a measurement of the rotation period of Saturn that is different from past measurements.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa2 is approaching asteroid Ryugu! Here's how to stay on top of mission news and the mission's planned schedule for 2018.

Marc Rayman

For the first time in almost a year, the Dawn mission control room at JPL is aglow with blue.

Emily Lakdawalla

One of the great things about space exploration is how it can shift your perspective. And you don't even need to leave home.

Elsa Jensen

Right after the last Mastcam-Z team meeting a year ago (link here to last two blog posts), our team finalized the design of the cameras, and then the fantastic voyage of creating Martian panoramic zoom cameras began.

Luyuan Xu

China's fourth lunar mission, Chang’e 4, is expected to begin on May 21 with the launch of a Long March 4C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the southwest of China. The launch will carry a spacecraft named Queqiao, which will serve as a communication relay satellite between Earth and the lunar farside.