Articles

Jennifer Vaughn

Working for The Planetary Society is an extraordinary job—we deal with extraordinary subject matter, we have an extraordinary mission, we work with extraordinary people, and we work for our extraordinary members and supporters. Jennifer Vaughn introduces some of the new staff here.

A.J.S. Rayl

With a wonder year of discoveries, historic feats, and bummers in the rear view mirror – and plenty of mettle to continue exploring – Opportunity ended 2014 quietly working in a temporary back-up mode, as her colleagues on Earth ramped up for the mission's marathon adventure to come in 2015.

Bruce Betts

Telescope purchased in 2007 with the support of a Shoemaker grant is still in service and has worked on over 100 near-Earth asteroids over its 8 years of operation.

Emily Lakdawalla

A few recent newspaper articles provide some updates on the status of Japan's Venus mission, Akatsuki, and the service module of China's Chang'e 5 test vehicle, Xiaofei. In brief: Akatsuki still plans to attempt to enter orbit in December of this year, while Chang'e 5 T1 is headed to lunar orbit. Meanwhile, the Chang'e 3 mission has released an interesting image of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy.

Jason Davis

SpaceX will attempt to launch a Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station and land a used Falcon 9 rocket stage on an uncrewed spaceport in the Atlantic Ocean.

Emily Lakdawalla

Looking ahead to what we can expect from Earth's exploration of the rest of the solar system in 2015, there's an obvious theme: Dwarf planets.

Bill Dunford

Video: see some of the sights Cassini saw this year.

Jennifer Vaughn

As excited as we are to jump into 2015, I want to take time to reflect on the year coming to a close and applaud all that we’ve accomplished working together.

Larry Crumpler

Opportunity is continuing its drives along the rim of Endeavour toward Marathon Valley. Larry Crumpler tells us what to expect as the rover continues its journey.

Emily Lakdawalla

At the American Geophysical Union meeting, the Curiosity mission announced that an instrument had finally definitively detected methane in Mars' atmosphere. It exists at a low background level, but there was a spike to about ten times that, which lasted for a couple of months before disappearing. What that means is unclear.

Emily Lakdawalla

There have been tons and tons of HiRISE images of the Curiosity landing region, and it has taken quite a lot of work for me to find, locate, and catalogue them. This post is a summary of what I've found; after four revisions and updates, it's now version 2.0 of the list.

Bruce Betts

A new camera is improving the efficiency of the Near-Earth Asteroid Program at the Center for Solar System Studies. This update from Shoemaker NEO Grant winner Bob Stephens reveals amazing recent progress using his 2013 Planetary Society grant.

Marc Rayman

As Dawn looks toward the new world of Ceres, Mission Director Marc Rayman looks back on Ceres' discovery.

Jason Davis

3D images generated by the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera give you an idea of how it would look to crouch on the lunar surface with your spacesuit faceplate to the soil.

Ellen Stofan

NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan discusses her recent trip to India to speak at the India-U.S. Technology Summit in Delhi and Miranda House a the University of Dehli on women in STEM careers.

Adam Block

Astrophotographer Adam Block shares four stunning images capturing the expansiveness of the universe.

Casey Dreier

The story of NASA's 2015 budget ended on December 16th, when President Barack Obama signed the massive omnibus spending bill into law. NASA's increased budget is locked in, as is the increase to Planetary Science. Here's how Planetary spends its additional money.

Emily Lakdawalla

A treasure trove of newly released images from the Chang'e 3 program includes a photo sequence of a waxing Earth and lots of high-resolution views of rover and lander on the Moon.

Jason Davis

A new NASA video provides an astronaut's-eye video of the final ten minutes of Orion's test flight.

Three weeks ago, we launched a social media campaign hoping to engage the public in space exploration. What we achieved was more than we expected—our Infinite Visions campaign reached more than 2.5 million people in 47 countries.