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The Planetary Society Blog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Jun. 22, 2011 | 14:58 PDT | 21:58 UTC
Guest Blog: Jason Davis: Your guide to a shuttle launch, part 1: The countdown
by Jason Davis
Atlantis is scheduled to lift off for the final time on July 8, marking the end of more than three decades of shuttle missions. The launch will be a final opportunity to watch one of the most beautiful, precise engineering displays... More»
Jun. 21, 2011 | 21:31 PDT | Jun. 22 04:31 UTC
How to Wrap a Mars Rover, redux
All right, I'll admit it: JPL's video is way, way cooler than mine. Four days of packing Curiosity up for shipping, condensed into under a minute. I love the moments where you see her wheels drop and dangle under her suspension, and then where they... More»
Jun. 21, 2011 | 06:23 PDT | 13:23 UTC
The most exciting citizen science project ever (to me, anyway)
A guest blogger here recently rounded up the large number of participatory research projects that are collectively known as citizen science. I think these are all very cool and I encourage you to check them out but none of them has yet inspired me... More»
Jun. 20, 2011 | 14:41 PDT | 21:41 UTC
Cassini finally catches Helene
The Cassini team has had a wretched time trying to get pictures of Helene in the past, but their streak of bad luck is over. Helene is one of the four "co-orbital" moons in the Saturn system, which occupy metastable spots in the leading and... More»
Jun. 20, 2011 | 13:53 PDT | 20:53 UTC
Update: Phobos and Jupiter and its moons!
Remember that neat picture and movie of Phobos passing by Jupiter that I posted last week? Several people asked me where Jupiter's moons were, and I just assumed that they weren't visible. I was wrong; Mars Express spotted Jupiter's moons along... More»
Jun. 17, 2011 | 17:55 PDT | Jun. 18 00:55 UTC
Vesta, now better than Hubble!
Closer and closer! Vesta is still fuzzy, but as Dawn inexorably draws closer it's beginning to come into focus. The view is now better than anything Hubble has ever returned to Earth. This is the beginning of our exploration of previously... More»
Jun. 17, 2011 | 07:27 PDT | 14:27 UTC
Watching Phobos pass by Jupiter
Check out an update on this post, in which Jupiter's moons can be spotted near the planet. --ESL
OK, one cool video deserves another this Friday! Here is a really cool view of Phobos in the foreground with gigantic (but very distant) Jupiter... More»
Jun. 17, 2011 | 07:02 PDT | 14:02 UTC
How to Wrap a Mars Rover
It's not easy to wrap a ginormous rover for shipping (it's evidently harder than wrapping a cat). I was glued to the feed from the Curiosity Cam all day yesterday, as they prepared Curiosity for shipping to Kennedy Space Center. Here's a... More»
Jun. 16, 2011 | 13:44 PDT | 20:44 UTC
Early MESSENGER science results: Mercury is its own planet, not Moon or Earth
There was a press briefing today giving some early science results from MESSENGER and it was surprisingly meaty. I'm going to focus on just one set of the results that they presented. As usual with MESSENGER, the most exciting stuff is not from the... More»
Jun. 16, 2011 | 12:39 PDT | 19:39 UTC
Chang'E 2 is on its way to Sun-Earth L2
According to an article published a week ago by the Xinhua news service, Chang'E 2 departed the Moon on June 9 at 09:10 UTC. It's now headed toward a Lagrangian point in space, but not the one I thought it was headed for. Previously I've talked... More»
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