• PROJECTS
  • Advocacy and Education
    • International Year of Astronomy 2009
      • 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast
      • Involving the Public
      • Educating the Public
      • Protecting Earth
      • Advancing International Cooperation
      • Planetary Missions Active in 2009
    • Observing Earth
    • Space Advocacy
    • Space Information
    • Target Earth
  • Extrasolar Planets
  • Innovative Technologies
  • International Mission Participation
  • Mars Exploration
  • Near Earth Objects
  • Search for Extraterrestrial Life
  • Past Projects
• THE PLANETARY REPORT
• PLANETARY RADIO
• BLOG
• SOCIETY UPDATES

browse projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition Asteroid Impact Mapping System Catalog of Exoplanets Drive a Mars Rover Extrasolar Planets Transit Search FINDS Exo-Earths International Lunar Decade International Year of Astronomy 2009 LIFE Experiment: Phobos Mars Climate Sounder Team Website Messages from Earth Observing Earth Pioneer Anomaly Planetary Microphones SETI Optical Telescope SETI Radio Searches SETI@home Shoemaker NEO Grants Solar Sailing Space Advocacy Space Information Stardust@home Target Earth Visions of Mars

browse space topics: 2001 Mars Odyssey Asteroids and Comets Cassini-Huygens Chandra X-Ray Observatory Chandrayaan-1 Chang'e 1 Compare the Planets Dawn Deep Impact Earth Extrasolar Planets Genesis Hayabusa (MUSES-C) Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Kaguya (SELENE) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mars Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Express Mars Global Surveyor Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Science Laboratory Mercury MESSENGER Moon Near Earth Objects Neptune New Horizons New Horizons Digital Time Capsule Past Missions Phoenix Planetary Analogs Planetary Exploration Timelines Planetfest 2008 Pluto and Charon Pluto Top Ten Postcards from Venus Private Missions Rosetta Saturn Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SMART-1 SOHO Space Imaging Spitzer Space Telescope Stardust Trans-Neptunian Objects Ulysses Uranus Venus Venus Express Voyager Weekly Planetary Radio Trivia Contest

Projects: International Year of Astronomy 2009

Educating the Public about Space Exploration

Click to enlarge > The Planetary Report The Planetary Society's member magazine, The Planetary Report, has been published bimonthly since The Society's founding in 1980. Image credit: JPL / NASA / Space Science Institute

The International Year of Astronomy is, foremost, about raising awareness about our place in space among the general public.  The Planetary Society has many vehicles for providing information about space exploration to the public.  Our bimonthly journal, The Planetary Report, features articles written by the scientists, engineers, and policymakers at the forefront of space exploration.  Our website features news, images, and background information on the solar system, extrasolar planets, the search for extraterrestrial life, and threats to Earth from space.  The latest news can be found in The Planetary Society Blog, updated daily, and on our weekly half-hour radio show, Planetary Radio, available on more than 120 stations and via podcast.  All of these resources will be active through 2009.

The Planetary Report, the Blog, and Planetary Radio are traditional media forms, with the experts sending out information to the public. However, in recent years, the Internet has become a place where the flow of information is no longer so one-way; instead, online communities of enthusiasts freely exchange ideas, often creating and sharing their own content.  At the same time, more and more space missions have provided better access to the data returned from space, making space images available quickly (sometimes, as with the Mars Exploration Rover and Cassini missions, within hours of their receipt on Earth) and in formats (such as JPEG) that are easy for the interested public to download and manipulate.  There is now an online community of space enthusiasts who create stunningly beautiful image products from public data, and The Planetary Society is exploring ways to encourage this community to grow, both by facilitating online exchange and by encouraging space agencies to improve public access to their data.

We also plan local events, where supporters of space exploration can assemble to share the thrill of an exciting event in planetary exploration, or where they can add their voices to the public debate on space policy.  Our "Planetfest" event, held on the day of the Phoenix landing on Mars, included more than 20 distributed events in various cities, and we hope to take advantage of this network for another distributed event to watch NASA's LCROSS impactor and Japan's Kaguya orbiter make a splash on the Moon in the summer of 2009.  We are also co-sponsoring a series of "Town Hall" meetings to engage the public in charting a Roadmap for human space exploration beyond Earth orbit, an activity that will continue into 2009.  Our events are made possible in part by the local support and hard work of Planetary Society volunteers worldwide.