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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Russia's Mars 3 lander maybe found by Russian amateurs
Виталий Егоров (Vitaliy Egorov) is a Russian space enthusiast who enlisted help of fellow enthusiasts to search for -- and maybe find -- the Russian Mars 3 hardware on the Martian surface. Here he explains how he did it.
First Analysis: the NASA Planetary Science Budget for 2014
No mission to Europa, diminished funding for outer planets missions, a small bump to small spacecraft missions, and an increase for asteroid detection are part of the White House's proposal for NASA in 2014.
Blast from the Past: Spirit's tracks at the "End of the Rainbow"
Doug Ellison shared this lovely panorama via Twitter over the weekend. It's from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, taken back in 2004. The drunken path in the foreground is a visual record of just how exciting it was for Spirit to have finally made it to the Columbia Hills, and to rocks that were not fragments of basalt.
More Evidence for a Habitable Mars from EGU 2013
NASA's Curiosity rover has acquired further evidence that Mars's atmosphere was once dense enough to support liquid water on the surface.
One Day in the Solar System
Dispatches from five different worlds--all sent by robotic spacecraft on the same day.
Ice Cap to Ice Cap with Mars Odyssey
Explore the mysterious Martian landscape with the workhorse of the Solar System, Mars Odyssey.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Hunkers Down for Solar Conjunction, Final Science on Matijevic Hill
As the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission trekked further into its tenth year of exploring the Red Planet, Opportunity spent the month of March finishing up its science investigations on Matijevic Hill.
ISRO's Mars mission now undergoing assembly and testing; NASA, ISRO agree to future space science cooperation
India's Mars Orbiter Mission has been much in the news in Asian media over the last week as a result of the release of ISRO's Annual Report 2012-2013. Also, ISRO and NASA issued a joint statement from Washington a week ago endorsing interagency cooperation in the space sciences
Curiosity update, sol 227: Some sharpshooting and a dusty deck
Curiosity is back to science operations, though the activities are limited in scope by the fact that conjunction is fast approaching. Here's a couple of neat images from sol 227.
Field Report From Mars: Sols 3237-3262 - March 4–29, 2013
Flash memory or computer problems oddly occurred on both Curiosity and Opportunity around Feb 27. One possibility is that a large solar flare resulted in radiation at Mars sufficient to temporarily corrupt the memory on both rovers.
Planetary Society Weekly Hangout: Reports from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
On Thursday at noon PDT / 1900 UTC I'll report on some of my favorite findings from LPSC, and answer your questions about the latest planetary science.
LPSC 2013: watery Martian minerals
Some interesting results from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on clay minerals on Mars and what they might mean about ancient water.
A Different Angle on Mars
A new slant on Martian landscapes from Mars Global Surveyor.
LPSC 2013: Sedimentary stratigraphy with Curiosity and Opportunity
A mind-boggling quantity of information is being presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. In my first report from the meeting, I try to make sense of the Curiosity and Opportunity sessions.
Yes, it was once a Martian lake: Curiosity has been sent to the right place
The news from the Curiosity mission today is this: Curiosity has found, at the site called John Klein, a rock that contains evidence for a past environment that would have been suitable for Earth-like microorganisms.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Begins Wrapping Science on Matijevic Hill
As February turned to March, Opportunity was conducting some of its final science investigations on Matijevic Hill, the MER team was making preparations for the robot field geologist's trek south for the next winter, and the Mars Exploration Rovers mission was checking off another month of exploration.
Browse Curiosity's data in the Analyst's notebook
Last week the Curiosity mission made its first data delivery to the Planetary Data System. The bad news: none of the science camera image data is there yet. The good news: there are lots and lots of other goodies to explore.
Very brief Curiosity update, sol 205: Memory anomaly and a swap to the "B-side"
Over the last few days the mission has been working its way through its first major (not life-threatening, just really inconvenient) anomaly: a memory problem in its main computer.
Field Report From Mars: Sol 3220-3236 - March 1, 2013
Opportunity completed the observations of the outcrop noted in the previous report and has now moved back down slope.
Curiosity update, sol 193: drilled stuff is in the scoop, ready for analysis
There was a press briefing today to announce that Curiosity has completed her last major first-time activity: powder drilled from inside a rock at John Klein successfully made its way into the CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in the turret. Sol 193, then, marks the day that Curiosity is finally ready to start the science mission.