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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Six wheels on soil for Yutu!
Here it is! Animated gifs, composed of screen grabs from Chinese state television, of the Yutu rover rolling on to the lunar surface. This was a replay, but it was no less thrilling for that; the actual rollout happened at 20:40 UT (12:40 PT). Six wheels on soil! Woohoo!
Chang'e 3 departs for the Moon, with amazing images and video
On December 1 at 17:30 UTC, Chang'e 3 launched atop a Long March 3B rocket on a direct lunar transfer trajectory. It is scheduled to enter orbit December 6 and land December 14. The rocket was equipped with cameras that recorded thrilling video of the launch and final departure of the probe.
Yes, there seems to be a hole in Curiosity's left front wheel, and no, that's not a problem
Some brand-new images just arrived from Curiosity on Mars, and two of the most recent are Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of the wheels. Today's images contained two little surprises.
A new HiRISE view of Opportunity (sol 3361)
The HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped a lovely color photo of the rim of Endeavour crater, catching Opportunity midway between Nobby's Head and Solander Point.
Astrophotographer captures 'Heavenly Palace' transiting the Sun
Astrophotographer Thierry Legault captured a striking image set of Chinese spacecraft Tiangong 1 and Shenzhou 10 transiting the Sun.
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.
One Day in the Solar System
Dispatches from five different worlds--all sent by robotic spacecraft on the same day.
A new rover self-portrait and a new color image of Curiosity from orbit
Curiosity is inching her way through her first use of the drill on a Martian rock. She paused in the proceedings to capture a second Martian
One of my favorite space images of all time: Rosetta was here
A conversation on Twitter today reminded me of this photo, which is one of my all-time favorite space images: the view from Rosetta during its Mars flyby.
Pretty picture: new HiRISE view of Curiosity, sol 145
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a new view of Curiosity on Mars on January 2 (sol 145). Curiosity was in the same location as the one from which it shot the sol 137 panorama I posted earlier. You can see the rover's tracks leading all the way back to the landing site!
Huge self-portrait of Curiosity on Mars
Curiosity used MAHLI, the scientific camera at the end of the robotic arm, to shoot a huge color portrait of herself sitting on Mars, with Gale's central mountain in the background.
Getting up to speed with Curiosity as of sol 84, and two awesome mosaics
Curiosity has already spent more than three weeks at Rocknest, working through the very slow process of commissioning the sample handling systems. While parked, she's taken a couple of amazing photo mosaics.
Hello, beautiful!
Curiosity's much-anticipated self-portrait with the MAHLI camera just arrived on Earth, and even though it was shot through the dust cover it is AWESOME.
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.
Chang'e 2: The Full Story
An update on China's second lunar orbiter, Chang'e 2, which is now heading for asteroid Toutatis.
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.
First look at Curiosity MARDI's descent animation (WOW WOW)
Even a preliminary, low-resolution, low-frame-rate version of Curiosity's descent imager animation of the arrival on Mars contains almost more awesome than I can stand.
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
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.
New views of Lunokhod 1 and Luna 17 from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
It is always thrilling to see relics of human exploration out there on other worlds. Today, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team posted some new photos of two defunct spacecraft: the Luna 17 lander and the Lunokhod 1 rover. I've posted images of the two craft before, but the ones released today are much better.