Riding with Robots on the High Frontier

Carnival of Space!

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Riding with Robots is hosting the 29th weekly Carnival of Space, a roundup of space news and views from across the web. This week's edition is chock full of great pictures and articles about topics ranging from a dramatic comet to spectacular new shots from the moon to a case of mistaken cosmic identity--come take a look!

Running with the Devils

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Nearly parallel dust devil tracks located in Aonia Terra, near the south polar region of Mars. Approximately 17 meters per pixel.

Smoke Gets in my Eyes

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Well, in this case, dust. Opportunity survived the Great Martian Storm of 2007, but not entirely unscathed. Some of the camera filters got dusty, rendering the landscapes inside Victoria Crater a little misty. Click the picture to see and learn more.

Past the Edge of the Map

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Rivers, lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons are colored blue in this mosaic of radar images from the north polar region of Saturn’s giant moon Titan. The image still contains blank spaces (areas not yet seen by Cassini’s radar), like some 16th-century explorer’s incomplete map of the New World.

Cutaway View

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

A two-mile-wide impact crater sliced by the edge of Ganges Chasma provides a unique opportunity to study a crater in cross section. The inset provides a closer, color view.

Shepherds at Work

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Some of Saturn’s rings owe their shapes to the tiny moonlets, called shepherd moons, that orbit among the rings’ icy particles, tugging on them with gentle gravity. On the left are several frames that catch Prometheus at work on the F-ring, and on the right is a shot of Pan clearing the Encke Gap in the A-ring.

Color in the Clouds

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

A composite of several images taken in various colors by the New Horizons spacecraft as it sped past Jupiter earlier this year. Mission scientists say that the resulting picture offers a view that is close to what you see with your own eyes if you dropped by the giant planet yourself.

Shimmer

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

A color version of an image that appeared here a few weeks ago, showing the “opposition effect”—a bright glow on the rings seen when the sun is directly behind Cassini. Click the picture to learn more. NASA released this image on the 10th anniversary of Cassini’s launch.

Rat Hole

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Opportunity has put its rock abrasion tool (RAT) to work, looking inside the layered rocks of Victoria Crater. The RAT uses a wheel coated in diamond dust spinning at 3000 rpm to drill holes 45 mm in diameter and 5 mm deep. At the upper left is a false-color image of a recent RAT hole (plus the edge of the rover), and on the right is a close-up look inside the miniature excavation, courtesy of the rover’s microscopic imager.

Arrival

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

The Kaguya lunar explorer slipped into orbit last week. Now it has released the first of two mini-probes it was carrying on board. The Rstar satellite, seen here in the lower frames separating from the mothership, will monitor the moon’s magnetic and gravitational fields. The second mini-craft will be on its way on the 14th, and Kaguya will record the first HDTV footage of the moon on the 19th.

In the King's Court

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

The New Horizons team released new images this week from February’s encounter at Jupiter—including this spectacular composite showing the king of worlds and its volcanic moon Io. The Great Red Spot dominates Jupiter’s face, and the volcano Tvashtar erupts on the night side of Io.

Enceladus in Color

Tue, 9 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

From a distance of about one hundred thousand kilometers, Cassini took three images of Saturn’s enigmatic moon Enceldaus, one in infrared light, one in ultraviolet and one in plain old green. Those frames are combined here, and the colors stretched to draw out subtle contrasts.

Mimas in Motion

Mon, 8 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Cassini’s camera fixes its glance on Mimas as the moon moves around Saturn, with the rings and another moon in the background. The elapsed time is about 10 minutes. At the right are two views of Saturn, each taken with a filter sensitive to different wavelengths.

Tilt

Fri, 5 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Opportunity continues its work in Victoria Crater, despite the high angle of the slope along the crater wall. In the foreground is the rover’s low gain antenna. Click the image for more news from the Red Planet.

Circular Enigma

Thu, 4 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Another week, another mystery pit on the surface of Mars. This one, a four-kilometer-wide depression in the “swiss cheese” terrain near the edge of the south polar ice cap, could have resulted from an impact crater - but there are no signs of the ejecta you’d expect. Or it could be a collapse pit - but there are no signs of the fractures you’d expect. It doesn’t help that the constant expansion and contraction of the ice has ground away at the surface, potentially erasing the tell-tale signs. Scientists hope that stereo images of the region might clear up the mystery.

The Cliffs of Dione

Wed, 3 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Cassini swung by Saturn’s icy moon Dione, capturing this close-up of some of the famous cracks that streak across its surface. Some of these form cliffs hundreds of meters tall. The cracks cross the craters, which means they probably formed later, perhaps from some kind of tectonic shifting in the ice.

Leaving Home

Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

A new view of the solar system’s singular blue jewel. Japan’s Kaguya spacecraft was 110,000 kilometers into its journey to the Moon last weekend when it took the first HDTV video of the Earth from deep space. This is one frame from that remarkable footage, which has yet to be released.

The Icy Plumes of Enceladus

Mon, 1 Oct 2007 11:39:04 -0600

Yesterday the robotic spacecraft Cassini glimpsed the ice geysers of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, backlit by the sun. It is thought that the plumes of water crystals erupt when friction from motion in the moon’s crust heats up the ice in long fissures on the surface. This motion may result from a liquid ocean deep inside the moon.