Articles

Sriparna Saha

You might be surprised to learn that studying craters on the Moon can tell us about ancient Earth.

Anatoly Zak

The plan involves NASA's proposed Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, and a return to Earth via the Orion spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

The first astrobiology session at last week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference featured talks on a huge variety of interesting topics, and was one of my favorite sessions at the meeting.

Megan Kelley

The only geoscientist to walk on the Moon attended a conference session presenting results from the rocks he collected.

Emily Lakdawalla

For this Moon Monday, Emily digs up a classic from the end of the Apollo program.

Jason Davis

Only three humans have ever been on a spacewalk in the void between the Earth and Moon.

Heather Hunter

While we can measure properties of these upper layers using ground-based instruments, satellite-borne remote sensing instruments can give us a more frequent, global, and often higher spatial resolution perspective. And that is precisely what NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission will deliver.

Jason Davis

The Austrian Space Forum is leading a four-week Mars mission in Oman's Dhofar Desert.

James D. Burke

Interest is rising globally in expanded lunar science, resource exploration and eventually permanent human settlement. Also, the potential for commercial lunar enterprises is being seriously examined.

Casey Dreier

President Trump signed Space Directive #1, formally implementing as policy what Vice President Pence had announced at the first meeting of the National Space Council in October: that NASA will focus its human spaceflight efforts on a return to the Moon, and then onto Mars. What really changed?

Jason Davis

What do the shortest days of the year look like from space?

James Davenport

On December 10, Kepler—NASA’s prized exoplanet discovery telescope—will finally turn back and take a picture of the Earth.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today's story from the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting looks at one youthful rayed crater on the Moon from many different spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

Google Maps released several new map products that allow you to see the locations of named features on many solar system planets and non-planets, spinning them around in space with your mouse.

Emily Lakdawalla

James Tuttle Keane is increasingly famous (among planetary scientists anyway) for his remarkable illustrated notes from conferences. Here's his work from the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting, illustrating both his own and others' research.

Jason Davis

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk presented an updated version of his Mars colonization plans today, during a widely anticipated talk at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

Emily Lakdawalla

As expected, OSIRIS-REx's Earth flyby on September 22 was a success. The mission is slowly releasing beautiful images of our home worlds taken by its many cameras following the flyby.

Phil Stooke

How were the Chang'e 5 and 4 landing sites chosen? Space exploration historian Phil Stooke explains.

Emily Lakdawalla

OSIRIS-REx launched on September 8, 2016. Now, a year later, it's returning to its home to get a second boost on to its destination, the asteroid Bennu. It'll test all its cameras on Earth and the Moon in the 10 days after the flyby.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1. Four decades later, both spacecraft survive, still producing science, still working on their interstellar missions. On the occasion of the anniversary, we revisit Carl Sagan's reflections on the significance of the Voyager missions.