The Chang’e-1 lunar probe will explore the Moon from orbit. The mission includes mapping lunar topography, surveying the distribution of chemical elements, and gathering high-resolution photos of the lunar surface in preparation for future surface exploration. China National Space Administration I don't...

Ever hanker to take a gander at the lunar crater Zwicky? If so, just click over to a slick new site on the web called The-moon . There, you will quickly learn that Zwicky is a 94-mile-wide (150 kilometers) crater at latitude 15.4° south, longitude 168.1° east. You can also find out that Fritz Zwicky...

In a recent blog , I talked about the surprising difficulty of landing heavy crewed payloads on Mars — in fact, its present impossibility, in lieu of new technologies. That's a very big challenge to future Mars exploration, although not at all insurmountable. But what about the dumb stuff? The little...

Duck! There’s another near-Earth asteroid coming! You may have noted the media reports this week about the asteroid 2007 TU24 , which makes a close pass by our home planet next Tuesday (January 29). But don’t worry too much, because I mean “close” in astronomical terms, which in this case is 1.4 lunar...

This just in from the hydrocarbon desk at Astronomy.com: Titan’s surface lakes and methane-ice-laden dune seas collectively hold hundreds of times Earth’s bounty of hydrocarbons (oil and gas). It’s a Texas oilman’s dream: hydrocarbons rain from the sky on Titan. To my mind, this could solve a lot of...

NASA engineers have proposed a mission to an asteroid threatening Earth. Bruce Damer (DigitalSpace) I’m happy to report NASA may be planning to do more about the as-yet unaddressed asteroid threat to Earth than helplessly watch giant space rocks whiz by the home planet from time to time. The Guardian...

Look out, here comes the “Is Pluto a planet?” debate — again. I wade into these waters with trepidation and wearing armored hip waders. But on the other hand, how often does a guy get a chance to stir up a pot of angry astro-hornets? I won’t regurgitate the backstory. If you are reading this, you have...

The Galileo spacecraft photographed the binary asteroid Ida (the big one at left) and its tiny satellite Dactyl in 1993. Galileo Project/JPL/NASA Spinning asteroids or skinning cats — there are so many ways to do it. Let’s look at three methods recently in the news: One: The effects of sunlight In today...

In centuries past, explorers would visit terra incognita — unknown lands — and bring new information back home to feed the master mappers of Europe. It hasn’t changed all that much — except the explorers are robot spacecraft and the master mappers of the solar system are scientists. Late Tuesday afternoon...

Last week , I told you we would show you a new map of Mercury based on the January MESSENGER flyby. Here it is, kindly provided by one of NASA’s master mappers, Robert Gaskell of the Planetary Science Institute in Altadena, California. This image is an anaglyph — a flat image that simulates a three-dimensional...