There’s no place like home…

I love Mars, as you all know – and if you didn’t know that, wow, where have you been?!?!? – and I often refer to it, only half-jokingly, as “my real home planet”. I love its volcanoes, its canyons and craters with a passion. I see an image of it taken by an [...]

The latest on Spirit…

There was a big news teleconference today, updating everyone on the situation with “Spirit”, the poor Mars rover that has been stuck in a sand trap for the past 6 months. I’ll paste the official press release in at the end here, but basically this was the news:
* Spirit is in big, big trouble, the [...]

More on Marquette…

Oppy is now getting up close and personal with “Marquette Island”, a great slab of layered rock that she first spotted a week or so ago. I’m covering the rover’s trip to Endeavour Crater on my “The Road to Endeavour” blog, and you can find lots of images of this new ‘island’ – like this [...]

Almost at Marquette…

Slowly but surely, Oppy is closing in on “Marquette Island”…

More details here… http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com
 

What’s in a name?

As you read these very words, halfway across the solar system, on the dusty, dune-ripled Meridiani Plain on Mars, the Mars Exploration Rover OPPORTUNITY might be trundling towards yet another meteorite. A couple of days ago she sent back images showing this dark, blocky “something” up ahead…

Since it was spotted lots of MER-watchers have been wondering [...]

Cassini sees Enceladus’ plumes…

Wow… (and I’m only using that word ‘cos I can’t possibly use the swear word I wanted to when I first saw the images half an hour ago!)… Cassini has been sending back new images of the plumes gushing out of Enceladus’ south pole, and they’re amazing…

Closer…

… and closer still…

Tweaking and enhancing and generally piddling [...]

It’s Carnival time again…

This week’s Carnival of Space is the 127th… and it can be found at the Next Big Future blog…
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/carnival-of-space-127.html

Flying the flag… for Apollo…

Look at this picture – no, properly. Look At This Picture…

Do you know what that is? I won’t blame you if you don’t. Here, I’ll give you a clue… it’s this, but seen from above…

That’s the Apollo 17 landing site, as seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You can see the descent stage of the [...]

Aurora tonight?

Hmmm. I just received an email alert telling me that there’s a lot of “auroral activity” at the moment… no promises, but MIGHT be worth keeping an eye on the skty after dark tonight (Wed)…

Report on IYA “MoonWatch”

Hi all, I’m happy to be able to report that last night’s Eddington AS “MoonWatch” was a success – okay, a limited one, but a success nonetheless.
The weather was pretty poor, as you all probably noticed, with the Moon hidden for most of the time behind swiftly-moving veils of high murky cloud, so [...]