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The Planetary Society Blog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Apr. 21, 2009 | 09:26 PDT | 16:26 UTC
Spirit Update: Generally healthy, but "amnesiac?"
In an update to last week's status report from JPL on some spurious reboots that Spirit suffered over Easter weekend, the mission has actually referred to "amnesia events" on the rover. An "amnesia event," they explain, is when, for reasons... More»
Apr. 20, 2009 | 06:44 PDT | 13:44 UTC
A couple of space carnivals
Visit Alice's Astro Info for the 99th Carnival of Space, and Fraser's over at Universe Today for the 98th.... More»
Apr. 16, 2009 | 14:31 PDT | 21:31 UTC
The Planetary Society's Solar Sail featured in The Atlantic
by Susan Lendroth
In The Atlantic's new article, "Across the Universe," Thomas Mallon charts a course from the discovery of exoplanets through the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence to the most feasible way to send spacecraft to such... More»
Apr. 16, 2009 | 13:55 PDT | 20:55 UTC
What to do if the big one is headed our way?
One question I am asked frequently is whether there's any international laws or agreements on how to handle the situation of an impending asteroid impact. Planetary Society members are very concerned about the threat of Earth impacts -- we... More»
Apr. 14, 2009 | 20:00 PDT | Apr. 15 03:00 UTC
COLBERT is going to space!!
It's just been announced: Although the name "Colbert" won the popular vote for the new moniker for Node 3 at the International Space Station, NASA has elected not to name Node 3 for the Comedy Central fake news show host, but instead named it for... More»
Apr. 14, 2009 | 09:08 PDT | 16:08 UTC
Ted Stryk: Europa Jupiter System Mission Colloquium
Ted Stryk sent me the following notes on a meeting on the Europa Jupiter System Mission held on April 9 and 10. Thanks, Ted! --ESL
by Ted Stryk
On April 9, the University of Tennessee's Earth and Planetary Sciences department hosted a colloquium... More»
Apr. 13, 2009 | 14:57 PDT | 21:57 UTC
Spirit hiccup
Another of those dreaded "status reports" from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory arrived in my mailbox just now. Apparently, over the Easter weekend, Spirit's computer mysteriously reset twice. One of the reboots happened while it was using its... More»
Apr. 13, 2009 | 11:05 PDT | 18:05 UTC
Moon shadow, moon shadow
Over the weekend, sharp-eyed Cassini-watchers on unmannedspaceflight.com noticed a series of way-cool photos on the mission's raw images website. Here's a full-frame view, captured some time on April 8.Click to enlarge >Shadows on Saturn's... More»
Apr. 9, 2009 | 13:18 PDT | 20:18 UTC
Update on the Mars dust event
It's been a week since I posted a storm warning from Mars, and I have an update with the latest data. In brief: the southern dust event is not abating, but the dust has not spilled across the equator; everything's staying in the south for now.
To... More»
Apr. 8, 2009 | 09:54 PDT | 16:54 UTC
Kepler's removed the lens cap
Since launch, Kepler's enormous photometer instrument, backed by a 42-Megapixel CCD (the largest such device ever sent to space by NASA), has been protected behind a truly gargantuan lens cap. The mission announced late yesterday that the lens cap... More»
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