The Man in the… Pluto

Pluto is starting to reveal it’s face.

This is the last visit of this kind for the forseeable future. Apart from a few of the other larger Kuiper Belt objects, this is the only planned exploration of a major body in our solar system left that has never been seen by human eyes before. Every planet, all the major moons and the most significant asteroids have all been revealed if not globally mapped. There would have to be a new mission planned to Eris, Makemake or to one of the other Kuipers to see something like this again. Even if a mission like that was approved, it would be years of development plus another 10 year slog before arriving at such distant targets.

It is worth noting that as soon as 2017, New Horizons is expected to make another flyby of a much smaller Kuiper Belt object and then again in 2019 — with a possibility of a third if one can be found. So even after Pluto is over… there will still be a few encores.

Help Kickstart LightSail



Planetary Society’s first ever Kickstarter is up and it is already sailing toward it’s goal. In just 24 hours they are halfway to reaching their 200K goal! This will fill the existing budget gap the Society is currently operating under and will make LightSail a fully funded before it’s first planned launch later this month.

A part of the rewards in the offing is Chopshopstore’s Poster #6 from their Historic Robotic Spacecraft Series. However, about 2/3 of all the large scale screenprints are already spoken for. So if you want to help the Society’s first campaign as well as secure #6 in this series — do it asap.

Ceres: Several White Spots

There are now several white spots appearing on Ceres as Dawn makes it’s final approach to the dwarf planet. Any knee-jerk expectation say that there is merely a brighter material beneath the surface that was revealed by ancient impacts. Why the surface is darker and the underneath material is brighter (see Iapetus) would be a mystery… but perhaps they still may be related to the active geysers scientists have previously predicted due to data provided by The Herschel Infrared Space Observatory.

We shall soon see.

Dawn Begins Observations

The Dawn spacecraft is approaching Ceres and has begun observations, including this first animation. Ceres is a dwarf planet that resides within the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter and is the last unexplored spherical body (that we know of) that resides within the orbit of Neptune.

Earlier observations by the Herschel Infrared Space Observatory have suggested the presence of water vapor in the form of plumes near the surface of Ceres. There is even the chance that this comparatively tiny body may somehow maintain a tenuous atmosphere. If any of this turns out to be the case, we currently have no models to suggest how geological activity could be generated on such a small world. We have known for a very long time that internal heating and geological activity is common on bodies whose mass is large enough to create their own internal furnaces (Earth, Venus and gas giants like Jupiter). More recently we have discovered smaller geologically active worlds that generate internal heat from tidal forces inflicted by their host planet and neighboring moons (Io, Enceladus, probably Triton). But we have never seen such a small isolated body such as Ceres manage to do anything but display ancient craters and fracturing from cataclysms dating back to the formation of the solar system.

Logic tells me to expect to see a grey cratered ball when Dawn goes into orbit around Ceres this Spring, but the experience of Voyager and Cassini tells me not to expect anything but the unexpected.

Also, what is that bright dot? It has been in every image of Ceres since Hubble started observations to support the coming encounter.

The Top 20 Robotic Spacecraft in History

The poll is complete and the most popular robotic spacecraft in history have been selected. Thanks to the efforts by The Planetary Society. The top three missions selected here now represent the themes of our series of screen-printed posters celebrating the history of robotic space exploration. To support this effort please see our campaign page at Kickstarter.

The Voyager Program As we expected the Voyager Program came into the top spot with 507 votes (18.5%). The poster for this design is already complete and available for viewing on the campaign page.

Cassini / Huygens Cassini takes poster #2 with 432 votes (15.7%), effectively eclipsing it’s sister probe Galileo. This design is expected to be completed on or before October 23rd.

Mars Science Lab (aka Curiosity) The newest member of the robotic Martian community of surface rovers, Curiosity arrived in 2012 and has stolen the thunder of the previous Mars Exploration Rovers with 340 votes (12.4%). This design is expected to be completed on or before October 31st.

As for the rest of the list, here is how things all panned out:

  1. The Mars Exploration Rovers 189 (6.9%)
  2. Sputnik (Earth) 169 (6.2%)
  3. The Viking Program (Mars) 146 (5.3%)
  4. New Horizons (Pluto) 136 (5.0%)
  5. Rosetta (comet) 123 (4.5%)
  6. Galileo (Jupiter) 121 (4.4%)
  7. Venera (Venus) 67 (2.4%)
  8. Pioneers 10 & 11 (Jupiter & Saturn) 66 (2.4%)
  9. The Mariner Program (Mercury, Venus & Mars) 47 (1.7%)
  10. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 40 (1.5%)
  11. Hayabusa (asteroid) 39 (1.4%)
  12. Mars Express39 (1.4%)
  13. Deep Impact / Epoxi (comet) 36 (1.3%)
  14. Stardust (comet) 26 (0.9%)
  15. Messenger (Mercury) 25 (0.9%)
  16. Maven (Mars) 22 (0.8%)
  17. Dawn (Vesta & Ceres) 22 (0.8%)

Should we reach our stretch goals, this would also make poster #4’s theme the Opportunity & Spirit rovers and poster #5’s surprising but historically honorable theme going to Sputnik.

Historic Robotic Spacecraft Poster Survey

Our new Kickstarter project proposes the creation of three screen-printed posters celebrating the most popular and notable interplanetary robotic space missions in history. Going into this, we knew that poster #1  had to go to the hugely popular Voyager missions (shown above). However, we need your help selecting the themes of posters #2 and #3. So head over to The Planetary Society now to vote on your three favorite missions, but do it by the 19th to have it count for the poster selection. If this goes better than expected we could even wind up designing a fourth or fifth.

MOM is at Mars

You know how your Mother will always take the most predictable pictures at the holidays? Well, the Mars Orbiter Mission has done exactly that with it’s recent global image of Mars and it turns out to actually be quite a rare image. Despite so many probes being active at Mars at once, most are too close to the planet to be able to capture a full disc image like this.

It is also the first interplanetary space mission for the Indian Space Research Organization and is really just a technology demonstrator for the group. This makes India only the fourth space agency to reach Mars and quite an accomplishment to do so successfully on it’s first try. To provide context for that statement, here is a list of missions to Mars and all the ones listed in bold (most spectacularly) failed to reach their goals. So Wanderingspace is happy to welcome another active player to the field of planetary exploration.

Discover’s Best of Amateur Imagers

Discover online has an article today about some of the best in amateur space imaging. Many of which have been featured here on Wanderingspace before like Gordan Ugarkovic, Emily Lakdawalla and Bjorn Jonsson to name a few. The last item from Bill Dunford of Riding With Robots is an image that he actually suggested NASA point their HiRise cameras at that location. He suspected they might find something interesting there and they did —flash water movement and evidence of avalanches.

When It’s a Jet, It’s a Jet All the Way

Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (aka CG-67P) is showing the early formation of it’s jets. Those jets are what cause the formation of the most distinguishing characteristic of any comet — it’s tail. The Rosetta spacecraft is currently in orbit about the comet and it is assumed that as the pair orbit closer to the sun, these jets will become much more active and should provide quite a show for us. The Rosetta team has also recently shared the potential landing sites for it’s Philae Lander in November shown here.

This image was brought to the world by Emily Lackdawalla’s Planetary Blog.

Rosetta Nearing Target 67P (That’s a Comet)

This mission is just not getting enough public attention. Launched in 2004, the mission has already flown by Mars and two minor asteroids 2867 Šteins in 2008, and of 21 Lutetia in 2010. However, the real target of the mission is coming this week… a comet with the unforgivable name 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta will go into orbit around the comet and observe it for the coming months as it nears the Sun which will cause it to start acting more like a comet and forming the familiar tail. As if that were not enough, a small lander named Philae will attempt to land and attach itself to the comet in November.

Enceladus has 101 Geysers

Apparently there are a whole lot of geysers on Enceladus, more than 100. Well only one more, but there are sure to be others. Most of the geysers spotted so far appear along the four noticeably visible “tiger stripes” that appear in the southern hemisphere.

These are two of the most recent images to come from Cassini on this hot region of this medium sized moon. Nice seeing the detail on the geysers in the dark regions of the images where you can actually see where they are originating from on the surface.