Articles

Van Kane

Van Kane brings us newly released details of the Venus Origins eXplorer (VOX), one of NASA's 12 New Frontiers mission proposals.

Casey Dreier

As a service to our members and to promote transparency, The Planetary Society's Space Policy and Advocacy team publishes quarterly reports on their activities, actions, priorities, and goals in service of their efforts to promote space science and exploration in Washington, D.C.

Jason Wright

One of the reasons SETI is hard is that we don’t know exactly what we are looking for, and part of that difficulty is that we still aren’t sure of who we are. An astronomer and an anthropologist team up to explore how cultural myopia shape what we can find in the cosmos.

Casey Dreier

Vice President Mike Pence kicked off the National Space Council's first meeting today by declaring Americans will return to the Moon. Casey Dreier and Jason Davis analyze this new direction for NASA's human spaceflight program.

Marc Rayman

A decade after leaving its first home in the solar system, Dawn is healthy and successful at its current residence around Ceres.

Emily Lakdawalla

India's Mars Orbiter Mission has now completed three years in orbit at Mars, and ISRO celebrated the anniversary by releasing the mission's second-year data to the public. Emily Lakdawalla spent a week downloading and processing data for your enjoyment.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Martian winter began to grip Endeavour Crater in September, slowing Opportunity's pace. But she braved the brutal cold in Perseverance Valley and followed her commands to visually document everything in sight.

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.

Max Fagin

Making Mars habitable will require us to master the conversion of raw Martian materials into resources we can use to survive. Fortunately, Mars has a wealth of usable materials, making it one of the most human-habitable places in the solar system, other than Earth itself.

Donna Stevens

The Fall 2017 issue of The Planetary Report is in the mail and available online now to our members!

Anatoly Zak

A Canadian Space Agency proposal would install a solar sail on the outside of the Deep Space Gateway, a miniature space station in lunar orbit.

Jason Davis

In a review of Star Trek: Discovery, Jason Davis says he expected Discovery to be a cross between Enterprise and the new reboot movies. Instead, the show turned out to be something else entirely.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today in London, Emily Lakdawalla was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of the University by The Open University.

Larry Crumpler

Opportunity is continuing its drive down Perseverance Valley, a possible channel that was cut in the inner wall of the 22 km-diameter Endeavour impact crater on ancient Mars.

Jason Davis

Two of NASA's new astronaut candidates are particularly suited to conduct scientific research on other worlds: Zena Cardman, a geobiologist, and Jessica Watkins, a geologist.

Phil Stooke

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

Donna Stevens

We at The Planetary Society are saddened to hear about the recent passing of veteran space artist Kim Poor.

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

Cassini is no more. At 10:31 according to its own clock, its thrusters could no longer hold its radio antenna pointed at Earth, and it turned away. A minute later, it vaporized in Saturn’s atmosphere. Its atoms are part of Saturn now.