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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Stunning new images show what the Chang'e-4 mission has been up to
Chang’e-4 is sending home brilliant footage from its various spacecraft, while also being snapped by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Curiosity Update, Sols 2257-2312: Drilling at Rock Hall and Arrival at the Valley of Clay
Curiosity completed work at Vera Rubin Ridge with an easy drilling activity at Rock Hall. Now it has finally driven on to mineral-rick rocks that were seen from orbit, long before Curiosity arrived. The team plans a lengthy traverse of the clay-bearing unit.
Pretty Pictures of the Cosmos: Sensational Spirals
Award-winning astrophotographer Adam Block shares some of his latest galactic treasures.
So long, MarCO, and thanks for the radio transmissions
NASA says it does not expect to receive any more transmissions from the MarCO CubeSats that accompanied Insight to Mars last year.
InSight Milestone: Wind and Thermal Shield Placed Sol 66
InSight mission has successfully placed the wind and thermal shield over the seismometer. The seismometer will now be shielded from winds and kept warm over the cold Martian nights, so the quality of its data should dramatically increase.
The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Logs 15th Year in Silence, Team Begins 'Hail Mary' Efforts
As a string of dust storms moved through Meridiani Planum and over Endeavour Crater in January, Opportunity silently wrapped her fifteenth year on the surface of Mars.
OSIRIS-REx stable in Bennu orbit, team refines sample collection plans
The team has yet to find a Bennu sample site that matches their pre-arrival expectations, meaning their plans will probably have to change.
Why are there no stars in most space images?
Look up at space at night from a dark location and you can see innumerable stars. Why, then, do photos of so many things in space show black space, devoid of stars?
Israeli Beresheet Moon lander ships to Florida for mid-February launch
Launch is currently set for 19 February, and Beresheet will spend two months traveling to the Moon ahead of touchdown in April.
Hayabusa2 team sets date for sample collection, considers two touchdown sites
Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft will try to collect a sample from asteroid Ryugu during the week of 18 February, mission officials said during a press briefing last week.
A few new images of MU69
New Horizons is back in action after going quiet for a period of solar conjunction following the 1 January flyby of 2014 MU69 (informally nicknamed
Chang'e-4 update: Both vehicles healthy, new imagery from the Moon’s far side
Everything is going well 9 days after China's Chang'e-4 mission made a historic landing on the far side of the Moon, the country's space program said today.
InSight Update, sols 25-42: Seismometer sensors working!
Engineers have leveled the seismometer and made progress on adjusting the position of the tether so that it doesn't interfere for the experiment. Most significantly for the mission, they have balanced the Very Broad Band sensors -- 3 of SEIS’ 6 seismic sensors -- and confirmed that they are generating good data.
Chang'e 4: Why the Moon's far side looks red in new images
In Apollo images — and to our own eyes, from Earth — the Moon is grey. What's going on?
The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Still Silent, Team Still Hopeful
It’s now been more than six and a half months that the longest-lived robot on another planet has been incommunicado.
Chang'e-4 deploys rover on far side of the Moon
The rover is named Yutu-2, China's space agency announced.
MU69 appears as a bi-lobed baby comet in latest New Horizons images
The latest images downlinked from New Horizons show MU69 to be a textbook example of a contact binary. How do contact binaries form? Updated with images released on 3 January.
China successfully lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon
It’s a space feat no nation has accomplished until now.
Happy New Year! The New Horizons flyby was successful!
New Horizons has
News brief: OSIRIS-REx arrives in orbit at Bennu
Today at 19:43 UTC, OSIRIS-REx entered orbit at asteroid Bennu. In so doing, it accomplished both the tightest orbit (at an altitude under 2 kilometers) and the orbit of the smallest object ever. UPDATE: Early science results from OSIRIS-REx discussed at New Horizons MU69 flyby event.