Articles

The Downlink

A Martian explorer hunkers down for winter and a planet’s haze is explained.

The Downlink

Listen to the sounds of the Whirlpool Galaxy and look back at our earliest picture of it.

The Downlink

What do professional basketball players have in common with a Mars rover? Plus more news from the adventure of space exploration.

Casey Dreier

A new budget submission from the White House would continue record-high funding for planetary science, but proposes deep cuts to 2 productive Mars missions and defers funding for deep space telescope dedicated to finding hazardous near-Earth objects.

Jonathon Hill

What happens when you print a map of Mars the size of a basketball court?

Emily Lakdawalla

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter arrives on October 19, and it will deliver the Schiaparelli lander to its brief life on the Martian surface. Juno's headed into its science orbit, MOM has released science data, and New Horizons will finally finish downlinking Pluto flyby data.

Emily Lakdawalla

Mars Odyssey has been in space for 15 years. It flies in a special

Emily Lakdawalla

What's going on with our robotic planetary missions? In February I count more than 20 planetary spacecraft exploring six targets beyond Earth or cruising to new destinations.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's been two weeks since comet Siding Spring passed close by Mars, and six of the seven Mars spacecraft have now checked in with quick looks at their images of the encounter. I round up all the results.

Emily Lakdawalla

All seven Mars spacecraft are doing perfectly fine after comet Siding Spring's close encounter with Mars.

Casey Dreier

Senior review recommends continuing all major planetary exploration missions, but not without some changes.

Emily Lakdawalla

Now that we have reasonable confidence that our Mars orbiters will be safe from the close passage of comet Siding Spring, we are free to be excited about the opportunity that the encounter represents. At a community workshop on August 11, representatives from Mars missions shared their plans for great comet science.

Emily Lakdawalla

With the New Year upon us, what can we look forward to in 2014? For me, the main event of 2014 is that ESA's Rosetta mission finally -- finally! -- catches up to the comet it has been chasing for a decade. We will lose LADEE, gain two Mars orbiters, and launch Hayabusa2. The year begins with an amazing 24 spacecraft exploring or cruising toward various planetary destinations.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Martian Geologic Time Scale is a lot more complicated than the Moon's.

Bill Dunford

Twelve years on, Mars Odyssey just keeps sending great images.

Bill Dunford

Explore the mysterious Martian landscape with the workhorse of the Solar System, Mars Odyssey.

Jason Davis

Welcome to the monthly roundup of our solar system's envoy of electronic explorers! All eyes are on Curiosity as it approaches Mars this weekend. Who will lend support at the Red Planet?

Emily Lakdawalla

Welcome to my monthly roundup of the activities of our intrepid robotic emissaries across the solar system! Curiosity is about to land; Opportunity has rolled through sol 3000; Odyssey is back online, having switched to a spare reaction wheel; Dawn is now in High-Altitude Mapping Orbit 2; and Cassini is taking advantage of its newly inclined orbit to get spectacular series of images of Saturn's rings.

Emily Lakdawalla

There was good news and bad news in this morning's press briefing about Curiosity rover's upcoming landing on Mars, just eight weeks from now. First, the good news: the landing ellipse has shrunk. The bad news: there's a contamination problem with the drill, and the Odyssey orbiter is in safe mode.

Emily Lakdawalla

Jason Davis put together this neat summary of the checkered history of Mars exploration.