Articles

Jason Davis

A new video shows what a traveler aboard Mercury's MESSENGER spacecraft would see as they zipped over the planet's north polar region.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's just two days now until Rosetta arrives in its initial 100-kilometer

Donna Stevens

Summer’s edition of The Planetary Report is on its way to your mailbox!

Larry Crumpler

Larry Crumpler updates us on the Opportunity rover, which now holds the distance record for a rover on another planet and is about to climb up its highest crater rim segment yet.

Emily Lakdawalla

A shift in position has brought shadows into view from Rosetta, outlining scarps and ridges on Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Marc Rayman

Dawn's Mission Director updates us on the status of the mission, and tells us what Dawn and Star Wars have in common.

Jason Davis

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a 1964 documentary on Ranger 7 in honor of the spacecraft's fiftieth anniversary.

Bruce Betts

The Planetary Society has been selected as an education outreach partner on the just-selected NASA Mars 2020 Mastcam-Z instrument, led by Jim Bell, Planetary Society Board president and Arizona State University professor.

Casey Dreier

Seven science instruments will help the Mars 2020 rover identify biosignatures and understand the history of the rocks it encounters on the surface of the red planet.

Emily Lakdawalla

Rosetta's view of the comet is getting better and better. Today they released a new image from the high-resolution OSIRIS camera, and it's a very fresh one, taken only two days ago. Distinct features are coming into view. And it's finally detailed enough for me to compare it to the five other comets we've visited in the past.

Valerie Fox

Valerie Fox reports from the 8th International Conference on Mars on the habitability of the Red Planet.

Casey Dreier

Congress has all but given up its goal of passing a budget before the end of this fiscal year in September. Instead, we will likely see a temporary extension through the elections in November.

Emily Lakdawalla

A journey of nearly a decade is almost over. Rosetta is making its final approach to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and the comet's strange shape is beginning to come into focus. As of today, the spacecraft is only 2000 kilometers away from the comet, and 8 days away from arrival.

Abigail Fraeman

One of the hot topics of the 8th International Conference on Mars was the nature of Mars' ancient past. Abigail Fraeman reports on our updated view of whether Mars was ever warm and wet.

Jason Davis

Why did Landsat 8, an Earth-observing spacecraft, turn its unblinking eyes toward the July 12 supermoon?

Emily Lakdawalla

Newly processed images of one of the more puzzling features on the surface of Vesta: a dark mountain named Aricia Tholus.

Dante Lauretta

The asteroid community recently gathered in Helsinki, Finland for the 12th Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors Conference. As this meeting showed, one of the hottest topics in asteroid science is the study of asteroid families.

Mat Kaplan

Mat Kaplan reviews a wonderful new biography on Neil Armstrong, written with the support of Armstrong and many of the other pioneering astronauts.

Adam Block

Astrophotographer Adam Block shares two recent images of star clusters, along with a pair of depth perception-defying galaxies.

Emily Lakdawalla

For the last four weeks, the name of the game for Curiosity has been driving. But these weeks of driving have been more challenging than they used to be.