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Planetary Society Weblog
www.planetary.org/blog
4
A guide to interesting stuff going on in space science, space exploration, and space advocacy.
#264572 in All

Two space hangouts coming up: 1600 PST / 0000 UT and tomorrow 1000 PST / 1800 UT plus bonus video

Come join me and other planetary people for two upcoming live webcasts via Google+. The first will be this evening, at 1600 my time / midnight UT. Led by Pamela Gay, this science hangout will feature...

6 h ago

Dawn images of Vesta! Released!! For everyone!!!

Can you tell Im a little bit excited about this? Some time in the last few days, the Dawn team made public the first preliminary version of the first release of their data from the Vesta phase of the...

15 h ago

Infographic: Viewing our universes colors

I post lots of pictures made by space enthusiasts, and theyre usually photos of pretty places. This one is quite different. Im not sure what led Daniel Machacek to create this infographic, but its de...

23 h ago

First Astronomy Course Lecture Posted Online

By Bruce Betts I gave the first lecture of my Introduction to Astronomy and Planetary Science course last Wednesday. The video is below. I did a tour of the solar system, always a fun start to things...

1 day ago

Visiting the San Diego SpaceUp Unconference

By Mat Kaplan Emily Lakdawalla and I drove down to the 3rd annual San Diego SpaceUp Unconference on February 4. We had great fun hanging out with the other space geeks. I did a couple of interviews y...

1 day ago

NASA Budget Pushes Science to the Brink

By Bill Nye Today, NASA announced its budget for its fiscal year 2013. As you might imagine, there are large budget cuts. But, the planetary science program has been cut disproportionately. NASAs all...

2 days ago

Guest Blog: Phil Stooke: Comparing Change 2 and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter maps of the Moon

Phil Stookeby Phil Stooke Recently, the Chinese Space agency released a global map of the Moon with a zoomable interface that would be familiar to anyone who uses popular terrestrial online maps like...

2 days ago

Checking up on Jupiter and Saturn

As Ive mentioned before, its amateur astronomers, not professionals, who are shouldering the burden of constant monitoring of the weather on Jupiter and Saturn. Whats going on these days in the outer...

5 days ago

W. M. Keck Observatory Webcast--Seeing the Invisible Universe

By Mat Kaplan You are invited to another live lecture by our friends with the big telescopes high atop Mauna Kea. CalTech Professor of Physics Tom Soifer directs the Spitzer Science Center. Hell be a...

5 days ago

Photos and video: Bill Nye at the 2012 White House Science Fair

On Tuesday, Bill Nye was privileged to attend the second White House Science Fair. Click to enlarge >President Obama shakes Bill Nyes hand at the 2012 White House Science FairPresident Barack Obama s...

5 days ago

Put New Horizons on a stamp

A week ago, the New Horizons team announced an effort to gather signatures in support of a petition to the U.S. Postal Service to commemorate the historic flyby of Pluto on a stamp. "Commemorate?...

6 days ago

In memory of Susan Niebur

Planetary scientist Susan Niebur passed away on February 6, 2012, of inflammatory breast cancer. While I did not know Susan very well personally, I knew her professionally as a staunch supporter of a...

6 days ago

Another Keck Observatory Webcast on February 9--Seeing the Invisible Universe

You are invited to another live lecture by our friends with the big telescopes high atop Mauna Kea. CalTech Professor of Physics Tom Soifer directs the Spitzer Science Center. Hell be at the Kahilu T...

08 feb 12

Has Mars Express MARSIS data proved that Mars once had a northern ocean?

Theres been a bit of buzz on the Web this week regarding an ESA press release titled "ESAs Mars Express radar gives strong evidence for former Mars ocean." I dont ordinarily write about press...

08 feb 12

Guest Post: Jason Davis: NuSTAR telescope to get close look at black holes, supernovae

At the center of the Milky Way, a monster awaits. Known as Sagittarius A, this turbulent region of space is believed to contain a black hole four million times more massive than our own sun. Within t...

07 feb 12

Planetary Radio: A Modest Plea For Both Big and Not-So-Big Space Science Funding

By Mat Kaplan This weeks Planetary Radio episode includes a great update on the James Webb Space Telescope from Eric Smith, the Deputy Program Director for the JWST at NASA headquarters. The controve...

07 feb 12

Webcast: See Bill Nye at the 2nd White House Science Fair!

Well, this is exciting! Tomorrow, Bill Nye has an invitation to the White House to attend the second White House Science Fair. The first was in 2010, and Bill attended that one too. Here he is with t...

07 feb 12

Phobos-Grunt Failure Report Released

By Louis D. Friedman Back when the U.S. suffered several Mars mission failures, we indulged in some dark humor at JPL, blaming the "great galactic ghoul" for gobbling up our spacecraft. For a...

07 feb 12

Pretty picture: Enceladus, in lovely color

Heres an awesome picture to start off the week. The data came from Cassinis flyby of Enceladus on January 31, 2011; it was part of Cassinis January 2012 data release. Most of the visible globe is lit...

06 feb 12

The Arecibo Trip

By Bill Nye Audacious— thats how I describe the Arecibo radio telescope. For me, it was just hard to believe what I was seeing. I have just returned from my first Planetary Society-sponsored trip to ...

03 feb 12

Guest Post: Patrick Donohue: Six days in the crater (day one)

Patrick Donohue is a fourth-year Ph.D. student working with Clive Neal at the University of Notre Dame, whose primary research focus is on the origin and evolution of high-titanium lunar basalts. He ...

03 feb 12

SpaceUp unconference in San Diego on Saturday

This weekend is SpaceUp unconference in San Diego, and Ill be attending on Saturday. Ive never been to an unconference before, so Im very curious to see how it all works! You can still register if yo...

03 feb 12

Yay for Juno! First major course correction complete

JPL issued a news note today with that most dreaded of press release titles: "Mission Status Report," which I dread because its usually a euphemism for "something bad has happened to one ...

02 feb 12

Watch the video from this weeks Google+ Space Hangout

Fraser Cain has organized a weekly Space Hangout that happens at 1800 UTC on Thursdays, and kindly invited me to participate. This weeks lineup included him and me as well as Pamela Gay, Nicole Gugli...

02 feb 12

GRAIL MoonKAMs first (released) video of the Moon

I could watch this video a hundred times. Its basically a cell phone video shot by a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. Its the first release from MoonKAM, tiny cameras included on both GRAIL space...

01 feb 12

Post for Sandra Boynton: an apology for, and explanation of, my crescent-Moon pedantry

For my regular readers: this post does get around to space eventually. Bear with me. A recent tweet by @AlYankovic tipped me to the fact that the childrens book author, songwriter, and illustrator Sa...

01 feb 12

Bruce Betts Free Online Intro To Astronomy Course

By Mat Kaplan Were just a week away from the first lecture in this class that will introduce you to the wonders of astronomy. The Planetary Societys Director of Projects, Dr. Bruce Betts, is ready to...

01 feb 12

Official Phobos-Grunt Failure Report Released

By Louis D. Friedman Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, has released its official report concerning the failure of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which fell back to Earth from orbit on January 15 aft...

01 feb 12

Whats up in the solar system in February 2012

I think the word for the month of February is: "routine." The 21 missions that Im tracking (amounting to 24 spacecraft) are nearly all in routine science operations or cruise behavior, gather...

31 jan 12

Akatsuki to try for Venus orbit in June 2016

Date has been corrected to June 2016 (original article had December 2016). And its no longer clear that theres been a formal decision to enter orbit on that date rather than in 2015 or later. See the...

31 jan 12

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