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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Schiaparelli investigation update; crash site in color from HiRISE
ESA issued an update on the Schiaparelli landing investigation today, identifying a problem reading from an inertial measurement unit as the proximate cause of the crash. Meanwhile, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is operating its science instruments for the first time this week, and HiRISE has released calibrated versions of the Schiaparelli crash site images.
HiRISE coverage of the Opportunity field site, version 1.0
As she did before for Curiosity, Emily Lakdawalla has searched through the HiRISE image archive for photos of the Opportunity landing site and sorted them all out so that you don't have to.
Great whirling Jupiter
Damian Peach's marvelous Jupiter photography, endlessly rotating in GIF form.
Serene Saturn (or the “Glutton for Punishment” mosaic)
A week ago Saturday I decided -- against my better judgment -- to tackle this monster of a mosaic. I call it the
Capturing Martian Weather in Motion
Still images of Mars often give a false impression that Mars is a dead planet—but time-lapse imaging from the European Mars Express spacecraft reveals the planet as it really is.
Juno update: 53.5-day orbits for the foreseeable future, more Marble Movie
Juno may be staying in its 53.5-day orbit for quite a while. Here's a list of the future dates of the next 20 close approaches to Jupiter if the mission stays in that orbit, as well as the latest, near-final version of JunoCam's
Fun with a new image data set: Mars Orbiter Mission's Mars Colour Camera
It's always a delight to sink my teeth into a new data set, and I have spent this week playing with one I've been anticipating for a long time: ISRO's Mars Orbiter's Mars Colour Camera, or MCC. MCC is unique among current Mars cameras in its ability to get color, print-quality, wide-angle, regional views of Mars.
MOM's Second Anniversary at Mars
On Mars Orbiter Mission’s second anniversary of Mars arrival, ISRO has (finally!) made available to the public data from its first year in orbit.
Juno and Marble Movie update at Apojove 1
Juno is on its second of two long orbits around Jupiter, reaching apojove (its farthest distance from the planet) today.
Where to find rapidly released space image data
Interested in playing with recent space image data? Here's a list of places to get the freshest photos from space.
Some beautiful new (old) views of Neptune and Triton
Beautiful new amateur work with 27-year-old Voyager data.
A deep dive into the highest-resolution Voyager Jupiter data
A few weeks before the first Juno high resolution imaging, I decided to take a look at Voyager color images at various resolutions, with particular attention to high-resolution mosaics.
Cassini's camera views of Titan's polar lakes in summer, processed into pseudocolor
Titan's north polar lakes are well-lit by summer sun in these recent Cassini images. Image processing enthusiast Ian Regan shares his recipe for processing the longer-wavelength Titan images into visually pleasing
Juno's instruments return riches from first perijove
On August 27, Juno soared across Jupiter's cloud tops from pole to pole, with all instruments operating. NASA posted some terrific first results from several of the instruments today. And the JunoCam team released all 28 raw images taken during the close encounter.
JunoCam "Marble Movie" data available
Since a few days after entering orbit, JunoCam has been taking photos of Jupiter every fifteen minutes, accumulating a trove of data that can be assembled into a movie of the planet.
JunoCam raw data from the Juno approach movie
As it approached Jupiter from June 12 to 29, JunoCam captured an animation of the major moons orbiting the planet. The mission released a processed version of the animation on the day of orbit insertion, but took a few weeks to release the raw image data. I've prepared a page hosting all the raw data, and share a few processed versions.
Hubble Series 1: How to Find Hubble Data
Processing Hubble data presents a host of challenges, and the first of these has nothing to do with processing at all.
Jupiter's Clouds: A Primer
With Juno arriving at Jupiter, Justin Cowart gives us a lesson on the giant planet's varied cloud patterns.
WISE Views in Infrared
Amateur image processor Judy Schmidt explains the process of creating gorgeous views of the cosmos from infrared data from the WISE telescope.
Video: Two talks featuring pretty pictures from space
Videos of two recent talks I've given, one intended for a general audience and one aimed at professionals.