Articles

Jatan Mehta

The planets in our Solar System show that no two ring systems are exactly alike.

The Downlink

Technological innovation is a big part of the fun of space exploration, and you can help make it happen.

The Downlink

A Martian explorer hunkers down for winter and a planet’s haze is explained.

The Downlink

Distant robots run into problems, and distant worlds hold onto secrets — for now.

Jatan Mehta

A flagship mission to the ice giants — Uranus and Neptune — will forever change our understanding of the origin and evolution of our solar system.

Casey Dreier

After completing Mars Sample Return, Uranus should be the target of NASA's next major planetary mission, according to a major new report by the National Academies of Sciences.

Rae Paoletta

NASA’s Voyager missions provided an unprecedented glimpse into the outer solar system.

Jamie Carter

Is it time NASA sent an orbiter to study the other blue planet in our solar system? Proposals for missions to study the ice giant planet Neptune and its mysterious moon Triton have been on NASA’s to-do list for over a decade, but until now nothing has happened.

The Downlink

Take a look at distant worlds, far-out views of the cosmos, and even some remote possibilities with this week’s scoop on space news and solar system history.

Jatan Mehta

How did our solar system come to be? Why are the planets, asteroids, comets, and other small worlds where they are now?

The Planetary Society

Six scientists share the major planetary science discoveries of the past decade, and the questions that will drive the next 10 years of solar system exploration.

Mark Marley

Mark Marley explains what planetary scientists mean when they say the word

Amy Simon

Imagine 2 icy worlds far from the Sun. Their serene, blue atmospheres. Huge, ominous-looking storms. Tantalizing glimpses of moons with exotic, icy terrains. Delicate sets of encircling rings.

Björn Jónsson

The color of Uranus and Neptune is similar, but not identical. Uranus appears greener and Neptune bluer.

Björn Jónsson

Björn Jónsson argues that even now, 40 years after Voyager 1 and 2 were launched, a lot of the data they returned is still of high interest.

Ted Stryk

The Voyager missions transformed most of the large worlds of the solar system from points of light into places to be explored.

Van Kane

One fact dominates the planning for any mission to Uranus or Neptune: They lie far from the sun. A newly released NASA report looks at how we can explore these icy giants.

Jason Davis

Only one spacecraft has ever visited Uranus and Neptune: Voyager 2, in the late 1980s. A new NASA report explores the reasons to go back, and what type of mission might take us there.

Emily Lakdawalla

When are the solstices and equinoxes on the giant planets, and when are they best positioned for view from Earth? I ask these questions a lot as I write about Earth photos of giant planets, and I finally decided to gather the answers to those questions in a single post.

Emily Lakdawalla

January 24 was the 30th anniversary of the Voyager flyby of Uranus. Uranian moons have been on my mind ever since New Horizons sent us close-up images of Charon. On the occasion of the anniversary, Ted Stryk produced latest-and-greatest versions of the Voyager views of these worlds.