(From west to east)

• Juno is in the constellation of Cetus.
• Vesta is in the constellation of Leo.
• Herculina is at opposition on the 13th in the constellation of Coma Berenices.
• Metis is in the constellation of Virgo.
• Pallas is in the constellation of Serpens.

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

"The small moon Janus is almost hidden between the planet's rings and the larger moon Rhea. The northern part of Janus can be seen peeking above the rings in this image of a "mutual event" in which Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) moved past Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across). Mutual event observations such as this one, in which one moon passes close to or in front of another, help scientists refine their understanding of the orbits of Saturn's moons. See Catching Big Sister to watch a movie of a mutual event.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Janus and about 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles) from Rhea. Rhea is a slightly overexposed in this image.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 11, 2009. Scale on Janus is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel. Scale on Rhea is about 19 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel."

Cassini Imaging Team

"Another milestone passed! Today NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is 15.96 astronomical units (about 2.39 billion kilometers, or 1.48 billion miles) from the Sun - putting it halfway between Earth's location on launch day in January 2006, and Pluto's place during New Horizons' encounter with the planet in July 2015.

"From here on out, we're on approach to an encounter with the Pluto system," says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute. "The second half of the journey begins."

This is rare territory; New Horizons is just the fifth probe, after Pioneers 10 - 11 and Voyagers 1 - 2, to traverse interplanetary space so far from the Sun. And it's the first to travel so far to reach a new planet for exploration.

Humming along at more than 16 kilometers per second - more than 36,600 miles per hour - the spacecraft will next cross a planetary boundary in March 2011, when it passes the orbit of Uranus."

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."

"Today the MESSENGER spacecraft crossed the four-billion-mile mark since its launch. The probe has completed about 81 percent of its journey toward its destination to be the first spacecraft inserted into orbit about Mercury.

That MESSENGER's odometer reading has reached another major milestone reminds us of the long and complex route that our spacecraft must follow. Mercury orbits deep within the Sun's gravity well. So, even though the planet can be as close as 82 million kilometers (51 million miles) from Earth, getting the probe into orbit around Mercury depends on an innovative trajectory that uses the gravity of Earth, Venus, and Mercury itself to slow and shape the probe's descent into the inner solar system.

On its 4.9 billion-mile journey to becoming the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury, MESSENGER has flown by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury three times."

"PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey began a second campaign Monday to check on whether the Phoenix Mars Lander has revived itself after the northern Martian winter. The orbiter received no signal from the lander during the first 10 overflights of this campaign. Odyssey will listen for Phoenix during 50 additional overflights, through Feb. 26, during the current campaign.

Phoenix landed on Mars on May 25, 2008, and operated successfully in the Martian arctic for about two months longer than its planned three-month mission. Operations ended when waning sunlight left the solar-powered craft with insufficient energy to keep working. The season at the Phoenix landing site is now mid-springtime, with the sun above the horizon for roughly 22 hours each Martian day. That is comparable to the illumination that Phoenix experienced a few weeks after completing its three-month primary mission.

Phoenix was not designed to withstand the extremely low temperatures and the ice load of the Martian arctic winter. In the extremely unlikely event that the lander has survived the winter and has achieved a stable energy state, it would operate in a mode where it periodically awakens and transmits a signal to any orbiter in view."

"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 Hunkers Down for Winter - sols 2171-2176, February 10-15, 2010:

"Spirit is parked for the winter in the embedded area called "Troy" on the west side of Home Plate. Efforts continue to prepare the rover for winter.

On Sol 2174 (Feb. 13, 2010), the robotic arm (IDD) was positioned to the most favorable orientation for winter. Documentary imaging is being collected of the terrain and rover. On board flash memory is being emptied, getting down all essential data products. A special table of long-range UHF communication passes is being developed to cover the entire winter period and beyond. As energy levels decrease rover wake times are shortened and many communication passes are being deleted.

As of Sol 2176 (Feb. 15, 2010), the rover solar array energy production was to 173 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.361 and a dust factor of 0.526. Total odometry is 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles)."

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Sampling 'Chocolate Hills' - sols 2152-2157, February 11-17, 2010:

"Opportunity is positioned near the rim of the very young crater "Concepcion."

The instruments on the rover's robotic arm (IDD) have been investigating targets on the rock called "Chocolate Hills." This rock is of interest because it exhibits a dark rind or crust that may be impact melt. On Sol 2152 (Feb. 11, 2010), the rover made a small turn to reposition the robotic arm for targets on the surface of the Chocolate Hills. On Sol 2154 (Feb. 14, 2010), the IDD collected a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic, then placed the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on a light-colored rind called "Arogo." On Sol 2157 (Feb. 17, 2010), the rover repeated these two sets of measurements on a target called "Tears."

Further investigation of this rock is expected before the rover drives away. As of Sol 2157 (Feb. 17, 2010), the solar array energy production was 305 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.432 and a dust factor of 0.496. Total odometry is 19,335.35 meters (12 miles)."

Landing sites

"A dramatic 3D Mars view based on terrain modeling from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data shows "highs and lows" of Mojave Crater.

The vertical dimension is exaggerated three-fold compared with horizontal dimensions in the synthesized images of a portion of the crater's wall. The resulting images look like the view from a low-altitude aircraft. They reflect one use of digital modeling derived from two observations by the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera.

This enhanced view shows material that has ponded and is backed up behind massive blocks of bedrock in the crater's terrace walls. Hundreds of Martian impact craters have similar ponding with pitted surfaces. Scientists believe these "pitted ponds" are created when material melted by the crater-causing impacts is captured behind the wall terraces.

Mojave Crater, one of the freshest large craters on Mars, is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) in diameter. In a sense, it is like the Rosetta Stone of Martian craters, because it is so fresh. Other craters of this size generally have already been affected by erosion, sediment and other geologic process. Fresh craters like Mojave reveal information about the impact process, including ejecta, melting and deposits."

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER HIRISE IMAGES
All of the HiRISE images are archived here.