(From west to east)

• Vesta is in the constellation of Leo.
• Victoria is in the constellation of Libra.
• Pallas is in the constellation of Boötes.
• Eunomia is at opposition on the 26th in the constellation of Sagittarius.
• Amphitrite is in the constellation of Sagittarius.
• Hebe is in the constellation of Pisces.

• Information about the Minor Planets can be found at the Minor Planet Observer website.

"PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured images of lightning on Saturn. The images have allowed scientists to create the first movie showing lightning flashing on another planet.

After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft's cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck.

"This is the first time we have the visible lightning flash together with the radio data," said Georg Fischer, a radio and plasma wave science team associate based at the Space Research Institute in Graz, Austria. "Now that the radio and visible light data line up, we know for sure we are seeing powerful lightning storms."

The movie and radio data suggest extremely powerful storms with lightning that flashes as brightly as the brightest super-bolts on Earth, according to Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging science subsystem team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "What's interesting is that the storms are as powerful -- or even more powerful -- at Saturn as on Earth," said Ingersoll. "But they occur much less frequently, with usually only one happening on the planet at any given time, though it can last for months."

Cassini Imaging Team

"Could there be springs or geysers of liquid nitrogen or methane on our distant shore at Pluto? It's not impossible, as beautifully illustrated by space artist Ron Miller. (Click to view the graphic.)

New Horizons is speeding through an ocean of space among the giant planets and the nearly 2.5 billion-mile expanse of the middle solar system. Onboard our spacecraft, all systems are 'go' and we continue to speed outward at nearly a million miles per day.

Anniversaries are important, and this past January, New Horizons marked its fourth launch anniversary. Also in January, Pluto celebrated the 80th year of its discovery!"

New Horizons gallery

"ASTEROID BELT -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft re-entered our solar system's asteroid belt today, Nov. 13, and this time it will stay there.

Dawn first entered the belt (whose lower boundary may be defined as the greatest distance Mars gets from the sun (249,230,000 kilometers, or 154,864,000 miles) in June 2008. It remained within the belt for 40 days before its carefully planned orbital path brought it below the asteroid belt's lower boundary.

This time around, Dawn's flight path will remain above this hypothetical lower boundary for the rest of the mission and for the foreseeable future - Dawn will become the first human-made object to take up permanent residence in the asteroid belt."

"Two members of the MESSENGER team have been honored by their peers. Carl Jack Ercol, the man largely responsible for ensuring that MESSENGER can withstand solar radiation up to 11 times greater than at Earth as it orbits the planet closest to the Sun, has received the 2008 SAE Arch T. Colwell Merit Award. Independently, MESSENGER Co-Investigator James W. Head, III, was awarded the Runcorn-Florensky Medal by the European Geosciences Union (EGU) at their General Assembly earlier this month.

SAE International, a global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial-vehicle industries, annually recognizes authors of papers of outstanding technical or professional merit presented at a meeting of the society during the calendar year. Papers are judged primarily for their value as new contributions to existing knowledge of mobility engineering."

"Two images of the Phoenix Mars lander taken from Martian orbit in 2008 and 2010. The 2008 lander image (left) shows two relatively blue spots on either side corresponding to the spacecraft's clean circular solar panels. In the 2010 (right) image scientists see a dark shadow that could be the lander body and eastern solar panel, but no shadow from the western solar panel.

Full Images and Caption

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ended operations after repeated attempts to contact the spacecraft were unsuccessful. A new image transmitted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows signs of severe ice damage to the lander's solar panels.

"The Phoenix spacecraft succeeded in its investigations and exceeded its planned lifetime," said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Although its work is finished, analysis of information from Phoenix's science activities will continue for some time to come."

Last week, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter flew over the Phoenix landing site 61 times during a final attempt to communicate with the lander. No transmission from the lander was detected. Phoenix also did not communicate during 150 flights in three earlier listening campaigns this year."

"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 THEMIS."

Daily Mars Odyssey THEMIS Images
Can be found at the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) website.

The Odyssey data are available through a new online access system established by the Planetary Data System.

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Still in Deep Sleep - sols 2267-2273, May 20-26, 2010:

"Spirit remains silent at her location called "Troy" on the west side of Home Plate. No communication has been received from the rover since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010).

It is likely that Spirit has experienced a low-power fault and has turned off all sub-systems, including communication and gone into a deep sleep. While sleeping, the rover will use the available solar array energy to recharge her batteries. The rover electronics module (REM) is expected to get colder than ever before. When the batteries recover to a sufficient state of charge, Spirit will wake up and begin to communicate over X-band and Ultra-High Frequency (UHF).

Although the rover may not wake for some time, the project has been listening every day for any X-band signal from Spirit through the Deep Space Network (DSN) using the Radio Science Receiver (RSR). The Mars Odyssey orbiter is also listening for any scheduled UHF relay passes. If energy levels for the rover are even lower than estimated, there is the additional risk that the rover may trip a mission clock fault. If that happens, the rover would remain asleep until the Martian spring or summer when bright sunlight is needed to wake the rover. With the passing of the southern winter solstice two weeks ago, solar energy levels and temperatures should begin improving.

Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles)."

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Solar Panels Get Minor Cleaning - sols 2247-2253, May 20-26, 2010:

"Opportunity has benefited from a small (about 10 percent) dust cleaning event on her solar arrays on or about Sol 2246 (May 19, 2010). This improves the available energy for the rover. With the passing of the winter solstice, temperatures should be improving, as well.

On Sol 2247 (May 20, 2010), Opportunity completed another successful checkout of the autonomous exploration for gathering increased science (AEGIS) software. On Sol 2250 (May 23, 2010), an old problem reappeared with the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES). Short interferograms (incomplete instrument science data) are being produced by the instrument. The instrument otherwise shows no anomalies (with the exception of the known dust contamination on the external elevation mirror). The short interferogram problem was last seen several winters ago. The project is investigating.

On Sol 2252 (May 25, 2010), the rover was able to drive over 56 meters (184 feet) to the east/southeast as she makes her way toward Endeavour Crater. With the improved energy production, more driving is being planned for the period ahead.

As of Sol 2253 (May 26, 2010), solar array energy production increased to 275 watt-hours, atmospheric opacity (Tau) was 0.317 and the solar panel dust factor improved to 0.530.

Total odometry is 20,810.90 meters (20.81 kilometers, or 12.93 miles)."

Landing sites