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Vestal Directions
Two weeks ago I received the news that, after a rigorous competition, I was selected to be one of a several new members of the DAWN mission to Vesta and Ceres! Woo Hoo! It's really a pleasure and...
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Mountain climbing on Iapetus
A short note here to publicize the latest Iapetus video. This one features a site 300 km to the east of the views I showed a few months ago. In the region the ridge rises 18 km high and is more...
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Colors Published
Our major paper on the colors of Saturn's moons was published last week online at the journal Icarus. I have indeed posted on this before (see last October and February), but as always I have a few...
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New Moons
New Moons - First Global Topographic Maps of (Saturn's) Icy MoonsAt the 2010 Div. of Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena in October I presented some unique maps of Saturn's icy moons. Now these are...
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A New View of Tethys
A prime objective of the Cassini orbital mission at Saturn is to characterize the nature and evolution of Saturn's extended family of icy satellites. Cassini observations since the beginning of the...
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Happy Holidays from your Icy Satellites!
From a Texas Christmas snowfall, December 24th, 2004
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Mimas Picture Show
At last I have my hands on the February 2010 Mimas encounter data (I am not on the project so I have to wait 12 months to use it . . . ). The encounter produced several mosaics which allow us to...
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Yes it has been a while since my last post. Here is a video I made from the final new Mimas topography map, which I will talk about in a later posting. The best portion of this new map is centered...
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The Snows of Enceladus
I'm attending an Enceladus Workshop in Mountain View CA today and tomorrow and just finished my official report. Here is a summary. It needs a lot of editing but should still gets the basic idea...
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The Planets at 50
The metallic dragonfly known as Mariner 2, a derivative of the then-struggling lunar Ranger series and modified for interplanetary cruise and launched in August 1962 toward the planet Venus. With a...
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The Planets at 50 - Venus & Mars
Note: Here is part 2 of the continuing story of "The Planets at 50". This and blogs to follow are related to a set of lectures I gave in June (and am available to do so on again for your group). I...
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The End of an Era - A Personal Look Back at the Shuttle
Shuttle Endeavour leaves Houston on its final transcontinental flight, September, 2012 The transfer of shuttle Endeavour to California this past month, including several flyovers in Houston I...
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Triton at 25
Triton at +25, Pluto at -1: Twin Planets Separated by Gravity[An addenda and errata for this post has been uploaded on Aug 23. Click here to go to it and read more.]It has been quite a long time since...
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Triton: Addenda and Errata
Today’s blog features a correction and some additional details on the new Triton map and movie blog posted a few days ago > stereomoons.blogspot.com/2014/08/triton-at-25.html. < First, a...
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Mooning Saturn: The Maps are Out!
It may well be the longest and most complex project I've ever embarked on but the results are emphatically worth it. Although I am primarily tasked to investigate the geologic history and evolution of...
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True Colors on Saturn's Icy Moons
One of the most frequently asked questions regarding planetary images is: "Are those the 'natural' colors?" That's not so easy to answer. Most imaging cameras, whether old style vidicon TV tubes or...
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Year of the 'Dwarves': Ceres and Pluto Get Their Due
Is it irony or just poetic incongruity that at a gangly 6'4" I should devote much of 2015 working on the two missions that will be mapping the first icy 'dwarf planets' in our Solar System to be...
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Cerious Predictions
"NASA Dawn Mission encounter with Ceres will be the first time the surface (or atmosphere) of a planet will be imaged for the first time by a spacecraft since Voyager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989. Dwarf...
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Ceres Coming Into View
It's begun! Dawn is on approach to Ceres, the largest of the asteroids, and is starting to resolve features. We have now seen two sets of images, one on January 11 the other on January 26....
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Ceres Gets Real: Pluto Lurks
Although we are still along way from understanding this fascinating little body, Ceres is finally becoming a real planet with recognizable features! And thats kinda cool. The now-released images from...
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