Articles

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

Blast from the past: Spirit sunrise panorama at Troy

In honor of the 10th anniversary of Spirit's landing on Mars, here is a new view from near the end of that mission.

The Mists of Mars

Two grand canyons fill with fog, one on Earth and one on Mars.

Super high-resolution global view of Dione, plus rings

Pretty picture: newly processed high-res view of a fractured icy moon, Dione

Here's a lovely new view of Dione, one of the lovely mid-sized icy moons of Saturn, assembled by Daniel Macháček.

Comet ISON just after perihelion in SOHO LASCO C3

Multiple views of comet ISON from solar-observing spacecraft

When comet ISON passed through perihelion last week, solar observing spacecraft had a ringside view. Here are several animations of ISON's perilous passage from the SOHO and two STEREO spacecraft.

Martian Maps: the North Pole

The polar plains, charted in unprecedented detail.

3d view of the Murray Buttes, Gale crater, Mars (zoom)

Features at both rover field sites on Mars named for Bruce Murray

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced today that the geologists on both Mars rover teams -- Opportunity and Curiosity -- have named landmarks at their field sites after the late Bruce Murray.

The November 3, 2013 solar eclipse in Africa seen from space (animation)

The solar eclipse in Africa seen from space

On Sunday, the shadow of the Moon passed across Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. This was the last solar eclipse of the year. The Elektro-L satellite was able to observe the eclipse, and we can see the darkness of the lunar shadow covering Africa.

Juno is in Safe Mode again, but still okay

After entering safe mode last week during its Earth flyby, Juno returned to normal operations and downlinked all engineering and science instrument data. It entered safe mode again on Sunday night, but it is expected to re-resume normal operations late next week.

One for the history books: Stunning Saturn mosaic captured last week by Cassini

I try to be measured in my praise for spacecraft images. Not every photo can be the greatest space image ever. But this enormous mosaic showing the flattened globe of Saturn floating within the complete disk of its rings must surely be counted among the great images of the Cassini mission.

Juno's flying by Earth today, and images of the Moon are already on the ground!

Juno flies past Earth for a gravity assist at 19:22 UTC today, and the first images from the encounter are already on the ground and processed by amateurs!

An Ongoing Odyssey

Twelve years on, Mars Odyssey just keeps sending great images.

Elektro-L view of the Chelyabinsk meteor trail (animation)

On space kindness and the Chelyabinsk meteor

Through an act of kindness, we now have images of the Chelyabinsk meteor trail from Russia's Elektro-L satellite.

High-phase Phobos and Deimos mutual event from Mars Express

Super cool Phobos and Deimos animations from Mars Express

I've been delving in to the Mars Express image archive this week, checking out its images of Phobos, and found a couple of really cool time-series of images to assemble into animations.

Riding Along With Mars Express

Take a spin around the Red Planet with the trusty orbiter.

Mosaic of Low-Altitude Mapping Orbit images of Cornelia crater, Vesta

Two new ways to browse Vesta: 2. Vesta Image data browser

A few weeks ago I received an email pointing me to a really cool new map-based browser to Dawn's Vesta image data.

Mariner 7 approach image of Mars (reconstructed)

Looking back at Mariner images of Mars

Bruce Murray was an early advocate for the inclusion of cameras on planetary spacecraft. As a tribute to him, I thought I'd take a look at a few of the images from the early Mariner missions to Mars.