(From west to east)

• Vesta is in the constellation of Scorpius.
• Pallas is at opposition on the 2nd in the constellation of Aquarius.
• Urania is at opposition on the 3rd in the constellation of Aquarius.
• Thyra is at opposition on the 5th in the constellation of Pegasus.
• 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.

"New Horizons wasnÕt the only voyage launched on January 19, 2006 - this week we welcome the "Pluto Pals" to the New Horizons team, five kids who were born on the same day our spacecraft embarked on its historic journey the outer solar system. The idea for the club came to New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern last year as he scanned news coverage of the spacecraftÕs launch. "I saw a fantastic Florida Today image of two boys watching the launch," he said. "It made me think it would be fun to follow some children who would grow up during our 9 1/2-year trip to Pluto." This past January - just as the spacecraft was about to take its own cautious first steps through the Jupiter system - Stern and the New Horizons Education and Public Outreach team put out a call for those who were born or turned 10 on launch day. Five toddlers were selected and you can see their "photo albums " on the New Horizons Web site at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/education/plutoPals/."

• 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.

"Using observations by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, scientists have discovered that water ice lies at variable depths over small-scale patches on Mars.

The findings draw a much more detailed picture of underground ice on Mars than was previously available. They suggest that when NASA's next Mars mission, the Phoenix Mars Lander, starts digging to icy soil on an arctic plain in 2008, it might find the depth to the ice differs in trenches just a few feet apart. The new results appear in the May 3, 2007, issue of the journal Nature."

"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/

August 20-24, 2007

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

• Crater Modification (Released 20 August 2007)
  
• Polar Textures (Released 21 August 2007)
  
• Windstreaks (Released 22 August 2007)
  
• Not Quite Round (Released 23 August 2007)
  
• Landslides (Released 24 August 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: Spirit Slowly Emerges from Blanket of Dust - sol 1295-1302, August 30, 2007

"Spirit remains healthy as the rover slowly picks up more solar energy. The dust storms appear to be over, at least for now, and the skies are slowly clearing. Unfortunately, what energy Spirit has gained from cleaner skies has been offset by losses to dustier solar arrays. Still, Spirit has the energy, about 325 watt-hours, to finally be roving again.

Tau, a measure of atmospheric dustiness, declined slightly. As of Sol 1299 (Aug. 29, 2007), the Sun was at about 8 percent of its full brightness, an increase of a little more than 2 percent compared with five sols earlier. Dust on the rover's solar arrays increased by about 3 percent and only about 59 percent of the sunlight hitting the arrays gets through to make electricity.

But rather than getting a 1-percent boost in solar power, the rover has been just about breaking even. The reason is that Tau measures direct sunlight but there's also scattered sunlight and it, too, increased by about 1 percent.

Much of the dust previously seen on the turret has blown or fallen off. Dust contamination remains a concern, particularly for the microscopic imager, where some of the dust clumps visible in earlier images have fallen out or moved out of the line of sight.

On Sol 1296 (Aug. 25, 2007), Spirit resumed driving to "Home Plate" and more specifically, to a location with gentle slopes and few rocks known as "the on-ramp." This drive was a turn-in-place, given Spirit's frozen right front wheel, to get the rover pointed in the right direction.

After two sols of remote sensing with emphasis on characterizing whatever dust had accumulated on the panoramic camera, Spirit's handlers decided to have the rover retrace its tracks to assess what dust contamination might be present on the miniature thermal emission spectrometer. To do this, they needed to measure a known target.

With a blanket of dust everywhere, scientists needed a way to distinguish dust on targets of scientific interest from dust on the optics. The best target for that was "Gertrude Weise," a patch of nearly pure-silica soil uncovered by Spirit's wheels. Rover planners decided to have the rover drag its wheels through it again to scrape off newly acquired dust and expose the same pure silica as before. Differences between old and new measurements would be due to dust on the instrument itself; once that signature was known, it could be subtracted from future measurements.

The first drive to Gertrude Weise was a little short and didn't uncover the silica as hoped. Spirit's handlers planned a second drive on Sol 1300 (Aug. 30, 2007), during which the rover was to scuff the soil with a half-turn of the left front wheel, then scuff it more by locking both left and right front wheels and driving them backward across Gertrude Weise. They then planned to have the rover back up some more to take images and move toward the Home Plate on-ramp.

Spirit was expected to resume the long-awaited trek to Home Plate on sol 1303 (Sept. 2, 2007)."

Opportunity Status: Brightening Skies Bolster Opportunity - sol 1256-1265, Aug 23, 2007

"Opportunity is healthy and remains perched near the rim of "Victoria Crater." The rover was on a low-power schedule that alternated between a 3-sol plan and a 4-sol plan.

Tau (atmospheric opacity) has begun to stabilize this week at around 3.7, resulting in solar array energy between 230-240 watt hours. Therefore in the upcoming week, the team will return to nominal planning.

The rover conducted a lot of what engineers call "runout science." This includes: panoramic camera wide-range tau measurements, navigation camera tau measurements, navigation camera cloud measurements, panoramic camera soria (imaging a rough, rocky area near the rover), front hazard avoidance camera images, rear hazard avoidance camera images, navigation camera images, panoramic camera sky spot, panoramic camera dust monitoring on the mast, miniature thermal emission spectrometer target calibration and panoramic camera high-sun surveys."

Landing sites

"The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) has confirmed that a dark pit seen on Mars in an earlier HiRISE image really is a vertical shaft that cuts through lava flow on the flank of the Arsia Mons volcano. Such pits form on similar volcanoes in Hawaii and are called "pit craters."

The HiRISE camera, orbiting the red planet on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is the most powerful camera ever to orbit another planet. It is operated at The University of Arizona in Tucson. HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and his team released the new image of the dark pit on Arsia Mons and several other stunning images today on the HiRISE Web site, http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu. New HiRISE images are released on the site every Wednesday."