Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

3D Anaglyph: Troughs or vents in Cerberus Fossae?

OK, it's time to look silly in your red-blue glasses again! When Tanya Harrison sent me those awesome 3D views of Olympica Fossae from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's CTX camera, she sent me two other sets of 3D landscapes on Mars.

One month, one journal, so many missed space stories!

Or: Emily reads you the table of contents of Icarus.

Sunrise on Mars

Here is a photo crafted from data that are nearly as old as I am, showing a beautiful sunrise on Mars.

Big hunks of carbonate rock on Mars at last

Carbonate rocks should be all over Mars. But it's been hard to find carbonates—surprisingly so.

Full Triple-J Laser Interview

Hey, remember when I was randomly interviewed by the Australian radio station triple j a few weeks ago as part of their feature on the 50th anniversary of the laser?

Phoenix landing site monitoring from HiRISE: May 7, 2010

Phoenix is dead...long live Phoenix!

The latest HiRISE images of the Phoenix polar lander, taken near Mars' northern summer solstice, show why we haven't heard from the spacecraft since it fell silent on November 2, 2008: it appears the solar panels have collapsed.

Is this the eastward turn we've all been waiting for?

As I discussed on Monday, Opportunity is in the middle of a lengthy trek toward a crater named Endeavour and its tantalizing upraised smectite-bearing rim.

Context map for mineralogy near Endeavour crater

The goal of Opportunity's trek

Opportunity's kilometers-long march across the sands of Meridiani Planum is a great story, and the journey is fun to follow; but what could be worth such a long march?

Happy solstice -- on Mars

It's the solstice on Mars today: summer in the north, winter in the south.

This is what my work is like every day. Honest.

Talking Lasers on Aussie Radio

Through a crazy random happenstance, I was just interviewed by a friend of a friend of a friend at Australian radio station 'triple j' for a feature on lasers!

GOES geostationary weather satellite views of Earth, 15:00 May 2

A Martian Moment in Time, revisited

A good start to my day today: The New York Times' Lens Blog featured the

A moment in time

On Mars, at 15:00 local true solar time on May 2, a solitary rover gazed southward across her own dusty deck and snapped three photos, actually three sets of three photos, which were combined to make this view.

Minerals within a crater in Nili Fossae, Mars

Morphology and mineralogy on Mars

A recent entry by Bethany Ehlmann from the blog of the Planetary Geomorphology Working Group of the International Association of Geomorphologists demonstrates how you can combine the power of different types of data to tease out a rich story of the past history of one spot on Mars.