(From west to east)

• Amphitrite is in the constellation of Aries.
• Flora is in the constellation of Taurus.
• Eunomia is in the constellation of Gemini.
• Information about the Minor Planets can be found at the Minor Planet Observer website.

"The Cassini spacecraft will perform a southern hemisphere pass of Titan's surface on Dec. 5, 2007. The infrared camera will perform high-resolution imaging of a dark region called Ontario Lacus, which may be a large lake, first spotted by the imaging cameras in 2005. The Huygens probe landing site will also be imaged."

Cassini Imaging Team

"New Horizons has now covered 85% of the distance from the Sun to SaturnÕs orbit, which it will pass in mid-2008. Of course, Saturn will be nowhere near New Horizons when we pass that milestone, as it is by chance located far around the Sun from the path New Horizons is following to Pluto. But as you can tell, we are really getting to be well into the outer solar system now.

Since I last wrote you, in early October, the New Horizons team has been busy on two major fronts. One of these has been planning and executing our 2007 Annual Checkout (ACO) of the spacecraft and its payload. As our first ACO, this three-month operation has been a pathfinder for the team, teaching us how to make improvements for subsequent ACOs in 2008, 2009 and beyond."

"NASA's Dawn spacecraft successfully completed the first test of its ion propulsion system over the weekend. The system is vital to the success of Dawn's 8-year, 4.9 billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) journey to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres.

'Dawn is our baby and over the weekend it took some of its first steps," said Dawn project manager Keyur Patel of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We have two months more checkout and characterization remaining before Dawn is considered mission operational, but this is a great start.'"

• All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are archived here.

Information about how to submit requests is online at the new Mars Orbiter Camera Target Request Site, at http://www.msss.com/plan/intro"

Newly-released MOC images can be seen in the MOC Gallery, a website maintained by Malin Space Science Systems, the company that built and operates MOC for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA.

"NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caverns elsewhere on the Red Planet.

Very dark, nearly circular features ranging in diameter from about 100 to 250 meters (328 to 820 feet) puzzled researchers who found them in images taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor orbiters. Using Mars Odyssey's infrared camera to check the daytime and nighttime temperatures of the circles, scientists concluded that they could be windows into underground spaces.

Evidence that the holes may be openings to cavernous spaces comes from the temperature differences detected from infrared images taken in the afternoon and in the pre-dawn morning. From day to night, temperatures of the holes change only about one-third as much as the change in temperature of surrounding ground surface.

"They are cooler than the surrounding surface in the day and warmer at night," said Glen Cushing of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Team and of Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz. "Their thermal behavior is not as steady as large caves on Earth that often maintain a fairly constant temperature, but it is consistent with these being deep holes in the ground."

"A simulated fly-through using the newly assembled imagery is available online.

The fly-through plus tools for wandering across and zooming into the large image are at http://themis.asu.edu."

Mars Odyssey THEMIS Images
Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) website: http://themis.asu.edu/

November 26-30, 2007

The following new images from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft are now available:

• Ophis Chasma (Released 26 November 2007)
  
• Medusa Fossae (Released 27 November 2007)
  
• Dust Devil Tracks (Released 28 November 2007)
  
• Southern Dunes (Released 29 November 2007)
  
• Coprates Chasma (Released 30 November 2007)
  
• All of the THEMIS images are archived here.

The Odyssey data are available through a new online access system established by the Planetary Data System at: http://starbrite.jpl.nasa.gov/pds/"

Spirit Status: Rover Slips in Sandy Terrain - sol 1377-1383, November 26, 2007

"On the way to "Winter Haven 3," the spot on the north face of "Home Plate" where NASA's Spirit rover is headed, the rover has driven into an area below a hummock (elevated area). Spirit has tried unsuccessfully during the past week to climb onto the hummock and make progress toward Winter Haven 3. Because it is critical to reach the north face while enough solar energy is available to get there, Spirit spends every available day driving. In-between drives, Spirit recharges the batteries and conducts very light remote sensing.

The rover's drive on sol 1378 (Nov. 18, 2007) ended early when Spirit's unusable, right front wheel got snagged on a buried rock, causing the rover to turn and drive into a "keep-out zone." Two Martian days later, on sol 1380 (Nov. 20, 2007), the drive faulted out again when the rover experienced more than 90-percent slip after traveling 3.6 meters (11.8 feet). The rover's handlers continue to work on strategies for enabling Spirit to drive away from the outcrop.

Spirit's top priority is to reach the north-facing slope of "Home Plate," where the rover plans to hunker down during the coming cold, winter season of waning sunlight. Spirit is healthy and all subsystems are nominal. Energy is currently around 305 watt-hours (100 watt-hours is the amount of energy needed to light a 100-watt bulb for one hour)."

Opportunity Status: Multi-Tasking Rover Supports Multiple Missions - sol 1361-1367, Nov 30, 2007

"Opportunity continues to investigate the rock exposure known as "Smith2" in the second of three bathtub ring-like layers of rock inside "Victoria Crater" as well as test communications for Phoenix, NASA's next mission to Mars. The rover is healthy and all subsystems are normal.

On Sol 1361 (Nov. 22, 2007), Opportunity performed diagnostic tests of the shoulder joint that controls side-to-side movement of the robotic arm, known as Joint 1. The joint had stalled on Sol 1359 (Nov. 20, 2007) while the rover was taking measurements with the microscopic imager. The tests revealed no anomalous readings. Opportunity acquired the rest of the microscopic images of Smith 2 on Sol 1366 (Nov. 27, 2007).

After the diagnostic tests, Opportunity studied the elemental chemistry of Smith2 with the alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer and the composition and abundance of iron-bearing minerals in the outcrop with the Mšssbauer spectrometer.

Working with NASA's Reconnaissance Orbiter, Opportunity successfully tested UHF radio transmissions in support of entry, descent, landing, and surface operations of the Phoenix mission, now en route to the red planet. On Sol 1367 (Nov. 28, 2007), the rover and the orbiter used the international standard known as the Proximity-1 protocol for spacecraft data transfers.

Phoenix is expected to arrive at Mars on May 25, 2008. Radio signals from Phoenix may also be receivable directly via the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in Virginia, the world's largest, fully steerable radio telescope."

Landing sites