By Paul Scott Anderson, on March 7th, 2016
View of Ahuna Mons from the low-altitude mapping orbit (LAMO). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI
It has been a year now since the Dawn spacecraft first reached the dwarf planet Ceres in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and during that time has shown Ceres to be a unique and complex little world. […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 6th, 2016
Artist’s conception of Dawn orbiting Ceres. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Dawn spacecraft just recently entered its lowest and final orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, providing the closest look ever at the puzzling world. Dawn will, of course, be taking thousands more high-resolution photographs, but what else will it be doing during the […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on December 23rd, 2015
Artist’s conception of the InSight lander on Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA officially announced at a media teleconference yesterday that the InSight mission to Mars has now been postponed, for at least two years, due to a leak in a seismometer instrument which cannot be repaired in time for the planned launch in […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on December 22nd, 2015
A crate containing the InSight lander is loaded onto a C-17 cargo aircraft at Buckley Air Force Base, Denver. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
Update: Just after this article was published, it was announced that there may be a launch delay due to the problem with a vacuum leak in the seismometer instrument. Today, […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on December 7th, 2015
Artist’s conception of the InSight lander on Mars. The SEIS instrument is the dome-shaped object in the foreground. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
One of the science instruments being installed on the InSight lander is experiencing a vacuum leak, according to an update posted Dec. 3 on the JPL website. The leak is in the […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 10th, 2015
The unusual grooves on Phobos’ surface, such as those on the left side of this image, are now thought to be caused by tidal stress. The large crater Stickney is in the upper portion of the image. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Phobos is the largest of Mars’ two tiny moons, but 50 […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on July 15th, 2015
View of an igneous clast named Harrison, which is embedded in a conglomerate rock in Gale crater, and features elongated light-toned feldspar crystals. This mosaic is a combination of an image from Mastcam with higher-resolution images from ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/IRAP/U. Nantes/IAS/MSSS
The Curiosity rover, still roaming in Gale crater, has […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on May 7th, 2015 The water vapor jets on Enceladus are now thought to mostly be more like diffuse “curtains” rather than separate plumes. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/PSI
The water vapor geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus are one of the most fascinating phenomena in the Solar System; the jets spray far out into space in a dazzling display […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 6th, 2015 Artist’s conception of a super-Earth ocean world, with another gas giant planet rising over the horizon. Image Credit: David A. Aguilar/CfA
When it comes to exoplanets, the most exciting for many people are, of course, the ones which may be the most Earth-like, since these are regarded as the most likely to possibly […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on July 29th, 2014 The geysers at the south pole of Enceladus, as seen by the Cassini spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Saturn’s moon Enceladus is already known as one of the most intriguing places in our solar system, and now new findings from the Cassini spacecraft have been published, which will only add to our fascination with […]
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