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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
The Space Advocate Newsletter, June 2025
Unprecedented. Unstrategic. Wasteful.
Peaks and troughs
The Sun’s activity is peaking, while NASA’s budget is facing historic lows.
Needles in the haystack
How advanced amateurs defend Earth from asteroids.
Extraterrestrial lights
How other worlds experience auroras.
It's not magic; it's magnetic!
The magnetism behind spectacular phenomena.
Capturing magic
A photographer’s guide to auroras.
The LightSail mission: From concept to reality
How a grassroots movement sailed on sunlight.
Not too hot to handle
How a spacecraft is able to touch the Sun.
NASA's disastrous 2026 budget proposal in seven charts
The White House has put forward a radical, wasteful proposal for NASA. We have the data to prove it.
A crisis we must rise to
NASA’s budget is officially in grave danger, but there are things you can do to help.
New NASA budget would shut down 41 space missions
Proposed NASA cuts would cancel dozens of space missions — including spacecraft already paid for, launched, and making discoveries.
Growing and shrinking
Planets and moons change size all the time, whether by attracting mass, shrinking in volume, or spewing their insides out of volcanoes.
Taking the time to see the light
Long-exposure photography can help see dim, distant light sources. It can also show us familiar lights in totally new ways.
The Space Advocate Newsletter, May 2025
NASA cuts loom.
Leaving tracks on other worlds
Our rovers and astronauts leave tracks where they explore. But there’s always the possibility that those tracks — and even entire missions — could be erased.
Turbulent times
NASA’s science budget is facing historic cuts, and advocates like you need to speak up. Jupiter has its own turbulence, too, but to learn more about it, we’ll need to fund NASA.
The Fermi Paradox: Where are all the aliens?
The conditions for intelligent life to arise don't seem uncommon in the Cosmos. So where is everybody?
In praise of space telescopes
Space telescopes teach us so much about the Solar System and beyond. It’s crucial that we keep funding them.
The Voyager Golden Records: A cosmic love letter
How a message to aliens captured the human spirit.
When we seek, we find
When we explore space, we make discoveries — about never-before-seen asteroids, unusual exoplanets, and even our own planet. But to find out new things, we have to continue seeking.