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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Lunar Polar Volatile Puzzle
Deepak Dhingra gives an exciting update from the recent Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU-APL) in Baltimore.
45th Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium Report
The 45th Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium, usually focused on terrestrial studies, shifted this year to planetary science. Ted Stryk gives us an overview.
8th Mars Report: Martian habitability
Valerie Fox reports from the 8th International Conference on Mars on the habitability of the Red Planet.
8th Mars Report: Was Ancient Mars Warm and Wet or Cold and Icy?
One of the hot topics of the 8th International Conference on Mars was the nature of Mars' ancient past. Abigail Fraeman reports on our updated view of whether Mars was ever warm and wet.
New Horizons: Updates From the April 2014 Science Team Meeting
New Horizons team member Simon Porter reports on the state of the mission and Pluto system science from the recent science team meeting at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
Highlights From OSIRIS-REx Science Team Meeting #6
The OSIRIS-REx Science Team gathered at the University of Arizona from April 22–24, 2014 for their sixth meeting. Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta discusses a few of the highlights.
Fireworks in the Earth's Sky Sent from the Moon: Reflections from LPSC 2014
Deepak Dhingra reports on presentations from this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference focusing on how impacts on the Moon have affected Earth.
LPSC 2014: The Curious Case of Active Volcanism on Venus
She’s alive! She’s alive! Or is she? A little more than a week ago, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2014, evidence was presented that Venus was geologically active, not in the recent past, like 100,000 years ago, but right now.
LPSC 2014: Titan's Land of Lakes
Report from a varied session on Titan's lakes at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
Snapshots of Science from the 2014 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
Vignettes from dozens of LPSC talks: GRAIL and LADEE at the Moon; ice and craters and conglomerates and organics and gullies on Mars; polar deposits and volatile elements on Mercury; tectonics on Enceladus; and more, until my brain was so full I could barely speak.
LPSC 2014: Water on...Vesta?
At the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Jennifer Scully discussed possible water-carved gullies in an unusual location: within craters on Vesta. Water-carved gullies on Mars I can accept; but on an airless lumpy body? I was intrigued.
LPSC 2014: Plate tectonics on another world: Europa
Simon Kattenhorn and Louise Prockter may finally have found subduction zones on Europa, which would it the only other place in the solar system besides Earth that is known to have active plate tectonics.
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2014 preview
It's that time of year again: my favorite annual space science meeting, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, takes place all next week in Houston, Texas. Get ready for reports on everything from Mercury to the Moon to Mars to Miranda!
New Horizons: Updates From the January 2014 Science Team Meeting, Part 2
Ted Stryk reports on the status of the New Horizons mission from the mission's latest Science Team Meeting. Updates include the status of the Kuiper Belt target search and the use of ALMA to refine Pluto's ephemeris.
New Horizons: Updates From the Science Team Meeting, Part 1
Ted Stryk reports on the status of the New Horizons mission from the mission's latest Science Team Meeting.
It's that time of year again: Happy LPSC deadline day, and happy haiku
Conference abstractsSummaries of summariesGeo-poetry
Destination: Europa!
It's time to reassess Europa exploration, past, present and future. The Destination Europa! session at AGU, inspired by the eponymous website and movement, didn't take exactly that message as its theme, but it's what I got from the presentations. What an ELECTRIFYING meeting this has been for Europa exploration!
A Tale of Two Posters: Sediment on Mars and Searching Jupiter's Rings
A close look at two international planetary science poster presentations from the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting featuring sediment experiments to better understand Martian geomorphology and Juno's plans for exploring Jupiter's ring system.
Top NASA Scientists Grapple with Budget Cuts
Ellen Stofan, NASA's Chief Scientist, and John Grunsfeld, the head of the Science Mission Directorate and a Hubble repair astronaut, highlighted recent NASA science discoveries at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.
Curiosity results at AGU: Gale crater rocks are old, but have been exposed recently
In a Martian first, the Curiosity science team has measured the age of a Martian rock, in two totally different ways. They presented the result at the 2013 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.