So observers using the Hubble ST are reporting the possible discovery of two new moons of Pluto, for now called P1 and P2. As the ABC news report says:
“It’s … strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we’re describing these Halloween moons,” Alan Stern of the South-West Research Institute said.
You can read the full NASA press release, and the comparison composite photos showing the movement within the Pluto system is below.
Here’s an interesting press release from Google – NASA Takes Google on Journey Into Space
NASA and Google have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that outlines plans for cooperation on a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry. The MOU also highlights plans for Google to develop up to one million square feet within the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field.
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The European Space Agency has released an amazing photo (below) of a large lake of water ice in a crater on Vastitas Borealis in the northern hemisphere.
There is more info/news at:
You can also browse the ESA’s Mars Express photos, at the time of writing the ice crater were the latest ones there.
This photo is linked from the Planetary Society.
The BBC is reporting that a feature on Titan could be a lake, though, of course, scientists are being careful to not rule out other possibilities. New Scientist also has an article.
NASA has a time lapse image of it and associated clouds.
Via: Alec – the Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2005/04/01 has stunning proof that there really is water on mars.. 🙂
NASA is reporting that:
It’s been nick-named “Heat Shield Rock” as it was found near the landers heat shield that was discarded during the descent to Mars.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Read more for full size version..
The guys at Arizona have released raw images from the descent camera from the descent of the Huygens probe, they also have a description of the experiment.
Anthony Liekens (an enthusiastic amateur) has been up all night creating and collecting a wonderful series of mosaics of Titan from the images, including the following colour corrected panorama from Christian Waldvogel.
This is only 1/2 size of the original – please Read More for the full scale version.
The Planetary Society weblog from Darmstadt has now wound down, but before they finished they reported on the last formal press conference about Huygens which contained lots of good details such as “they collected 3 hours and 37 minutes of data, of which 1 hour and 10 minutes was on the surface“, how far the “penetrometer” went into Titan’s surface and that there will be an official inquiry into why the A channel data was lost.
Wow!
They’re all appearing now at the this page including the first colour image, mirrored below:
Credits: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona
The Planetary Society has the first of the sounds from the Huygens probe’s microphone on its descent through Titans atmosphere, including one segment that might be from after landing.