Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

Spacecraft, what do your robot eyes see?

Cameras on spacecraft are our eyes into the Cosmos. Sometimes they teach us things, sometimes they reveal gaps in our knowledge.

Where Congress Stands on NASA's 2025 budget

Weeks before the new fiscal year, Congress still hasn't finalized NASA's 2025 budget.

The Europa Clipper launch: What to expect

NASA is preparing to launch its flagship mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. Launching as early as Oct. 10, 2024, and arriving in 2030, the mission will explore the icy world with a subsurface ocean that scientists think could have conditions favorable to life.

Someone’s aliens

Life thrives on Earth, and we even send evidence of our presence out into the Solar System. Is anyone out there looking for us?

New insights into asteroid properties: A STEP Grant update

A Planetary Society-funded project to understand asteroids achieved its main goals and scientific objectives this year.

Connecting ancient life to other worlds

Looking to the past to guide the search for life.

Earthlings as aliens

Looking at life on Earth from another perspective.

Your impact: September equinox 2024

Exploring Europa and defending Earth.

Extraterrestrial artifacts

Could the Solar System host traces of other intelligent life?

Inside, underneath, backward, upside-down

From holes on Mars to a spun-around moon and a flipped reflection, space science involves looking at things from all different angles.

The Tianlin Space Telescope

China is in the early stages of planning a huge space observatory to help answer the matter of whether we are alone in the galaxy.

Why the “habitable zone” doesn’t always mean habitable

The habitable zone is a useful concept in astrobiology, but it can sometimes paint an over-simplified picture of planetary habitability.

Super-size it

Europa Clipper is a big spacecraft with big solar panels, all so it can perform a big mission. The galaxy is big too, and a Planetary Society member painted it that way.

Wow! Boom! Ultra cool!

The “Wow!" signal has a new explanation, and an ultra-cool experiment advances quantum sensing in space. Plus, making an asteroid go “boom!” might work, depending on the circumstances.

Ramses: A new mission racing to land on asteroid Apophis

When a skyscraper-sized asteroid narrowly misses Earth in 2029, three spacecraft may be along for the ride.

A billion dollars short: A progress report on the Planetary Decadal Survey

NASA is underfunding planetary exploration relative to recommendations made by the National Academies Decadal Survey report, resulting in mission delays and cancelations.

What would happen if we nuked an asteroid?

Detonating a nuclear weapon on or near an asteroid is one of several options for defending the Earth from an impact. Here's what nuking an asteroid might actually do, and why it isn't always the best option.