Articles

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

Comets: big, beautiful, and surprisingly smelly

Get ready for one of the year’s best meteor showers, caused by one of the many intriguing comets of our Solar System.

The Space Advocate Newsletter, August 2022

The ISS partnership remains stable...for now.

Artemis I launch guide: What to expect

NASA's Space Launch System rocket is sending the Orion crew capsule to the Moon and back.

Rather remarkable robots

The robotic explorers of our Cosmos are truly impressive, as showcased by several spacecraft this week.

Artemis 1 with NASA's Crawler-Transporter

Why we have the SLS

The SLS rests on a secure foundation of political support, a consequence of the U.S. framework of representative democracy and discretionary funding.

Sights beyond the visible

See images your eyes wouldn’t normally be able to see, and learn about what these images can teach you.

Uranus' mysterious moons: why NASA wants to explore Ariel and Miranda

Are the moons of Uranus "relic" ocean worlds like Ceres or active ocean worlds like Enceladus? A proposed flagship mission aims to find out.

Equatorial region of Venus from Akatsuki

Life on Venus? New updates on the search

Astronomer Jane Greaves presents new findings that could support of phosphine in the clouds of Venus.

A space smorgasbord

Sample the best tidbits from space exploration this week, including news from across the Solar System and beyond, and personal insights from leaders of exploration.

Slowly returning to in-person member events

The Planetary Society is resuming in-person events for our members. Here's a brief look back at some of our recent events.

Faith, Doubt, and Contact

Contact remains a unique movie due to its representation of science. It remains a great film due to the treatment of doubt and faith as a universal aspect of human existence.

A Personal Message to Planetary Radio Listeners

Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan has an announcement for listeners.

Love at first sights

JWST’s stunning first science images

The Space Advocate Newsletter, July 2022

JWST's success will outshine its past troubles.

See JWST's amazing first science images

These are some of the first science images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), released on July 12, 2022.

See JWST’s first deep field image

Bill Nye's reflections on the first deep field image from NASA's JWST mission.

JWST versus Hubble: How are they different?

Unlike Hubble, JWST was primarily designed to see the universe in infrared light, revealing ancient galaxies, peering through nebulae, and uncovering exoplanet atmospheres.