China Space Probe Encounters Asteroid Toutatis
A number of news services in China are reporting that Chang’e-2 has successfully flown by asteroid Toutatis. The flyby took place on Dec. 13 and was announced by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND). The Chinese...Space Rock Flyby of Earth: Radar Images of Asteroid Toutatis
A crack team of planetary radar specialists at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory snagged a sequence of images of asteroid Toutatis as it whisked by the Earth December 12th. An observing campaign of the space rock was carried out at the Goldstone facility in California....Airborne Search for Molecular Clues to Extraterrestrial Life
Scientists are taking to the air to look for life elsewhere. Astrobiologists will be surveying newly born stars for the presence of precursors to life – research that is anchored in use of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the...Take a Look: Asteroid Flyby of Earth
Potentially hazardous asteroid Toutatis, an asteroid with an estimated diameter of over 3 miles (5.4 km), will make its close approach to Earth this week. Slooh Space Camera will cover its near-approach on Tuesday, December 11th, with several live shows on Slooh.com,...Earth Movie Shows Spread of Humanity
The night side of Earth twinkles with light, and the first thing to stand out is the cities. “Nothing tells us more about the spread of humans across the Earth than city lights,” asserts Chris Elvidge, a NOAA scientist who has studied this specialized imagery for 20...Cast Your Vote: Mars Robot – Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”
Here’s your chance to nominate the Curiosity Mars rover as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year”. “You may own a cool car — you may even own a truly great car — but it’s a cinch that no matter how fantastic it is, it can never be anything more than the...It’s Alive? Active Volcanoes on Venus: Smoking Gun Evidence Possibly Found
The hellish world we know as Venus may sport active volcanoes. Thanks to six years of observations by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express, the orbiter appears to have recorded large changes in the sulphur dioxide content of within that planet’s atmosphere. And...Eye-catching: Earth As Art!
A new NASA app features time-lapse satellite images of locations on Earth undergoing significant change over decades. This app celebrates Earth’s aesthetic beauty in the patterns, shapes, colors, and textures of the land, oceans, ice, and atmosphere. The app has a...Opportunity Mars Rover: Studying “High-Value” Surface Targets
While the world anxiously awaits next week’s news from the NASA Curiosity rover, the elder rover on Mars – Opportunity – continues to grind away at Red Planet science. Opportunity has begun a science campaign on some high-value surface targets. The robot’s set of...Space Talk
@Arkshol93 Neptune going from this to this was a crime against my heart and I can’t forgive it
@lolidk4200 Every planet orbits a larger object, it is called being in the SOLAR (sun) system
@jfbg_200 @TiagoNugent A very good point. Pretty much everyone calls Pandora a planet, even though it is a natural satellite, making it a Moon, so I think that supports my case that moons can be planets and vise versa
@kez611_ the moon is currently classified as a "planetary mass object"
The only reason it isnt currently a planet is because we use the IAU definition instead of the geophysical definition.
I reject the IAU definition, and only use the Geophysical definition