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

The end of GRAIL's mission

Fly me to the Moon

Video views shot by two doomed spacecraft take us flying across the Moon.

Apollo 17 lander and flag!

Forty years after Apollo 17's final footsteps

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the last human footsteps on the Moon. In my latest video I look back at Apollo 17 and explain why I believe the Moon is the solar system's

The end of GRAIL's mission

How GRAIL will meet its end

The twin GRAIL spacecraft are nearly out of fuel, and are being directed to a controlled impact near the north pole on the near side of the Moon on December 17. Before the end, though, they did some cool things, including flying within 2000 meters of mountaintops, and catching video of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in flight.

Southern Greenland from Landsat 7

Pretty picture: Landsat view of southern Greenland

This is a very large (19000 pixels square) mosaic of the fjords and glaciers of southern Greenland. I had been interested for a long time in experimenting with the processing of Earth satellite imagery just to get a comparison to the other planets.

Petrographic thin section of Apollo 11 sample 10062

Making an ugly rock beautiful

Today I stumbled upon the Lunar and Planetary Institute's Lunar Sample Atlas, and was reminded of how much I love petrographic thin sections. They can make unassuming, cruddy looking rocks beautiful.

PlanetVac Sample Implementation with Lander

PlanetVac: Sucking Up Planetary Regolith

Learn about the Planetary Society’s newest project: PlanetVac, with Honeybee Robotics, aims to prototype and test in a huge vacuum chamber a new way to sample planetary surfaces that could be used for sample return or for in situ instruments.

GOES composite image of Earth's globe with Hurricane Sandy, October 28, 2012

Hurricane Sandy: Thanks for lives saved already

Today hurricane Sandy is a major threat to life and property across the west coast of the northern Atlantic ocean. I just want to give thanks in advance to all the people who have devoted their careers to making sure that Americans have sufficient warning of devastating, unstoppable weather events like this one.

Neil Armstrong at the Apollo 11 Lunar Module on the Surface of the Moon

Pretty Picture: Eagle's Landing

Amateur image processor Tom Dahl's spectacularly high-resolution version of Buzz Aldrin's panoramic view of the Apollo 11 landing site.

Some Planetary Report Covers

The Planetary Report, June 2012: Dark Skies?

The June Solstice issue of our member magazine The Planetary Report is out! The feature article, by W. Scott Kardel of the International Dark-Sky Association, looks at the ecological, economic, and philosophical problem of light pollution. My inside-the-cover Snapshots from Space features image processing work by Gordan Ugarkovic. Bill Nye's Planetary Society Kids section shows you how to build your own MarsDial, and on its back page I share some weird and interesting facts about Mars' moons.

Earth and the Moon from Galileo

Birth of a New Moon

As astronaut Don Pettit prepared for his return to Earth, he tweeted several beautiful shots from the Space Station.

Full Moon (enhanced color)

Hold the Moon in Your Hands

Sky & Telescope and Replogle Globes teamed up to take advantage of the fabulous new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image mosaic of the Moon to make an equally fabulous new Moon globe.

For use as thumbnail for 3D anaglyph posts

3D view of an unnamed lunar crater

Grab your red-blue 3D glasses and dive in to this small but spectacular unnamed lunar crater as seen in a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photo.

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