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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Pretty picture: bizarre spherules
A wonderfully strange photo from Opportunity's exploration of Cape York, Endeavour Crater.
HiRISE's best view of Curiosity yet
HiRISE's best opportunity to view Curiosity so far came 12 days after landing, when the orbiter passed nearly directly overhead. The photo resolves amazing detail on the huge rover.
Explaining the new black-and-white Mastcam and MARDI raw images
If you've been obsessively checking the Curiosity raw images websites for new pictures from Mars, you might have noticed something weird: a bunch of Mastcam images and a few from MARDI that are black-and-white instead of color, and which have a peculiar checkerboard pattern.
Manned Missions to Mars Aren't Just Sci-Fi
Space exploration is not just valuable to scientists; it is also popular with the public who pays taxes. And why not? The exploration of Mars is not only a search for signs of alien life. It is an exploration of the human future.
The definitive version of Curiosity's first color panorama
The top of the mountain has finally been filled in, and Damien Bouic has produced what I think is the definitive version of Curiosity's first color panorama.
The first Curiosity 360-degree panorama including the mountain
Damien Bouic took Curiosity's Hazcam images of Aeolis Mons / Mount Sharp and merged them with a beautiful 360-degree Navcam panorama to give us our first look at what the view will look like once the mission finally gets higher-resolution images that include the mountain's peak.
Curiosity sol 11 update: Decision to drive to "the high thermal inertia unit" and what that means
Some notes from this morning's Curiosity press briefing: the rover will be driving to
Some fun with Curiosity MARDI images
Yesterday Curiosity returned a pile of full-resolution descent imager photos to Earth. The full-resolution MARDI images are just as great as we anticipated.
Curiosity's Marsdial is on Mars!
Following the successful landing of the Curiosity rover, it is gratifying indeed to see the third MarsDial© photometric calibration (cal) target on the planet Mars. It is something near and dear to me personally, and it's good for all of us, because it helps us do good science.
Curiosity's high-res Navcam panorama in striking color
So far, the only high-resolution surface panorama we've seen from Curiosity is the black and white Navcam image. The Mastcam shot a color panorama, but the only version we have so far was created from the lower-resolution thumbnails.
Curiosity sol 4: EDL updates, rover ready for software upgrade
A recap of the final Curiosity press conference of the week: lots of updates from the entry, descent and landing (EDL) team that safely deposited the rover on Mars, as well as an overview of the rover's R10 software upgrade.
Curiosity: Most of sol 2 Navcam panorama, plus 18 full-res Descent Imager frames available
A look at the latest raw data dump from Curiosity: our first sharp view of the rover and immediate surroundings, plus 18 of the full-resolution descent imager frames are now available. Check out the gravel on Curiosity's deck!!
Curiosity sol 3: First Mastcam color thumbnails down, everything "flawless," "nominal"
Curiosity's third day on Mars has been completed flawlessly, and the first preliminary color view from her Mastcam is lovely.
Planetfest 2012 Was a Huge Success
Planetfest 2012 ended in the best possible way: the Curiosity rover touched down safely on the surface of Mars. In our ballroom, almost two thousand people leapt to their feet and provided thunderous applause to accompany the joyous celebration at mission control.
Grab your 3D glasses for this view of Curiosity's landscape on Mars
Curiosity fired up her Navigational Cameras on Sol 2 and began to take a look around her. The first four full-resolution frames are enough for a small 3D panorama that shows a lovely landscape. I think we're going to like it here!
Curiosity's MAHLI camera: Much more than a microscopic imager
Today's press briefing featured the first image from MAHLI, the Mars Hand Lens Imager, so it's time for me to dive in to this camera's capabilities.
First full-resolution MARDI frame: Bye-bye, heat shield
The thumbnail versions of the Mars Descent Imager images have shown up on the Curiosity raw images page, and hiding among them was a single full-resolution frame containing the heat shield.
Getting the most out of those first images from Mars
It's such a rare joy to be able to dive into the images returned from a brand-new mission. The very first images that come to Earth and get posted on the Web are usually of relatively poor quality compared to what comes later, and Curiosity's are no exception to that rule.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE has done it again!!
In 2008, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped an amazing photo of Phoenix descending to the surface of Mars under its parachute. Now it's repeated the feat, with Curiosity.
A "long" view of the Curiosity Descending image
A wider (well, longer) view of the amazing HiRISE image that shows Curiosity descending under parachute to Mars