Articles

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

A year in review and a reddish hue

Get ready for a total lunar eclipse and pick your favorites from this year in space.

Best space pictures of the month: October 2022

Stunning views of Europa and the Eagle Nebula headline our roundup of space images released last month.

Creepy Cosmos! Scary space! Petrifying planets!

An especially spooky Halloween edition of The Downlink.

Your guide to water on Mars

Mars used to have oceans, lakes, and rivers. Where did the water go, how much is left, and how can we use it for science and exploration?

New wonders to behold

New stars are being born, new missions are being conceived, and new discoveries are being made all the time.

Good omens

The future is looking brighter thanks to a proven asteroid deflection technique and an array of visionary ideas for space exploration innovation.

How JWST will reveal our Solar System beyond Neptune

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will soon give us valuable data on the dozens of distant objects found beyond the orbit of Neptune in a region known as the Kuiper belt.

Look and see

New views of Europa, favorite sights from JWST, looking at the Cosmos from the air, and other ways to visually soak up our Universe.

A smashing success

Celebrate DART’s successful self-destruction and behold the jewels of the Cosmos.

JWST’s carbon dioxide discovery is good news for Earth-like worlds

NASA's JWST recently detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet known as WASP-39b — a historical first.

See DART’s final images before it smashed into an asteroid

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, the moon of an asteroid named Didymos.

Brighten up your day

JWST captures more astonishing images and insights, and DART gets ready for impact.

DART impact: What to expect

Get ready for NASA's demonstration of a planetary defense technique that could deflect a future asteroid on course to hit Earth.

Outer worlds and outstanding science

Uranus is way out there, beckoning us to visit. And Cassini is the mission that won’t quit, even years after burning up.

Tianwen-3: China’s Mars sample return mission

China's Tianwen-3 aims to be the first to collect samples from Mars and deliver them to Earth, potentially landing back home two years ahead of the NASA and the European Space Agency MSR project