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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Could the total solar eclipse reveal a comet?
Next week's solar eclipse will reveal the Sun's corona, nearby bright planets and stars, and, if we get extremely lucky, a comet!
Comet Siding Spring: Exciting times
We're now less than two weeks away from Comet Siding Spring buzzing ridiculously close to Mars, and the excitement is building - in both good and bad ways...
Preparing for A-MAVEN Science!
How can we use MAVEN to learn about Comet Siding Spring, passing very close by Mars this month?
The Pivotal Discovery You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Karl Battams highlights the historic discovery, by an Air Force satellite, of a sungrazing comet.
Comet Siding Spring: Risk Assessment
On October 19, 2014, Comet Siding Spring is going to have an extremely close encounter with the planet Mars. The bottom line: it seems most likely that our Martian spacecraft will be absolutely fine.
A new comet observing campaign for C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring)
You thought you were rid of us...but we're back! Following the spectacular and, quite frankly unprecedented, success of the Comet ISON Observing Campaign, we are launching a similar venture for another unique cometary encounter that's happening this year. In October 2014, comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will pass extremely close to Mars.
The Mercury Transit You Probably Missed
Planetary transits of the Sun by Mercury and Venus don't come along very often, and when they do we make a big deal of it because, well, it's really cool!
Schrödinger's Comet
After impressing us yesterday, comet ISON faded dramatically overnight, and left us with a comet with no apparent nucleus in the SOHO/LASCO C2 images. As the comet plunged through the solar atmosphere, and failed to put on a show in the SDO images, we understandably concluded that ISON had succumbed to its passage and died a fiery death. Except it didn't. Well, maybe...
Comet ISON: Your Half-time Report
I am heading out to Kitt Peak to join my fellow CIOC-ers Matthew and Casey for perihelion observations of Comet ISON, and I find myself having an early moment of reflection.
ISON, Encke, Mercury, and Home
Comet ISON has entered the field of view of the STEREO HI-1A camera, and, in an awesome animation, it joins a large cast of characters already present there.
Comet ISON Enters the Final Countdown
We're now less than two weeks away from comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) reaching perihelion and, if we’re honest, we are still none the wiser as to how the situation might play out!
Comet ISON lives on! (we think...)
For several weeks now, ground-based observers have been blind to Comet ISON as our local star was sitting directly between us and the comet. I am delighted to share two pieces of good news: first, that ISON is still alive and well, and secondly that it has been recovered.
Comet PANSTARRS from the other side of the Sun!
Comet PANSTARRS is delighting northern hemisphere viewers right now. But it's also big, bright, and beautiful to the STEREO spacecraft.