Articles

Jason Davis

Thanks to our members and donors, The Planetary Society participated in several activities at the 2019 International Astronautical Conference.

Amy Simon

Imagine 2 icy worlds far from the Sun. Their serene, blue atmospheres. Huge, ominous-looking storms. Tantalizing glimpses of moons with exotic, icy terrains. Delicate sets of encircling rings.

Ted Stryk

Ted Stryk shows us a new color, near-global view of Europa made from Galileo spacecraft data captured in 1996.

Michael L. Wong

Michael L. Wong asks how our understanding of the origin of life on Earth informs our search for it elsewhere.

Casey Dreier

If you're expecting to gather with extended family on Thanksgiving, avoid the politics. Here are some conversation starters to use at the dinner table that everyone can engage in.

Casey Dreier

John Culberson, an 8-term Texas Republican and staunch supporter the search for life on Europa, lost his re-election bid last week. His support for Europa was attacked by opponents and could send a chilling political message about the consequences of supporting space science and exploration.

Conor Nixon

The terrain of Iceland – the Land of Ice and Fire – has some very interesting similarities to Europa.

Emily Lakdawalla

This week it seems fitting to feature a portrait of the Galilean moons by Galileo.

Harriet Brettle

The Jovian system is a busy place. The Groovy Galilean Satellites session at last week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) covered analysis of past mission data, testable hypotheses for future missions, and discussion of the use of ground-based data.

Casey Dreier

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is not just for big payloads, it can also throw light things into space very fast. And that has significant implications for the exploration of distant destinations in our outer solar system—particularly the ocean moons of the giant planets.

Jason Davis

Europa doesn't have grandiose plumes like Enceladus. So how will the Clipper mission figure out what's in Europa's ocean?

Jason Davis

Will NASA's Space Launch System be ready to launch a Europa mission in 2022?

Emily Lakdawalla

Google Maps released several new map products that allow you to see the locations of named features on many solar system planets and non-planets, spinning them around in space with your mouse.

Ted Stryk

The Voyager missions transformed most of the large worlds of the solar system from points of light into places to be explored.

Jason Davis

The House of Representatives proposed $2.1 billion for NASA's planetary science budget, which would be an all-time high. Part of the increase would be used to start work on a new reconnaissance and communications orbiter.

Jason Davis

Today, NASA announced progress on a spacecraft that would assess whether Jupiter's Moon Europa is habitable, and earlier this month, an agency-sponsored science team released a report on a separate lander mission that would directly search for signs of life.

Casey Dreier

New scientific findings add to the evidence that Europa is spouting its liquid ocean into space. NASA has a mission to Europa in the works, but it wouldn't launch for at least a decade. Congress can make it faster, but it all depends on whether they can pass a budget this year.

Emily Lakdawalla

On August 27, Juno soared across Jupiter's cloud tops from pole to pole, with all instruments operating. NASA posted some terrific first results from several of the instruments today. And the JunoCam team released all 28 raw images taken during the close encounter.

Candice Hansen

It is not easy to observe Jupiter’s moons as more than points of light with Juno, because Juno will never get very close to any of the moons, but as its orbit shifts there will be opportunities to collect data on some of the moons.

Emily Lakdawalla

For a second time, NASA has placed a spacecraft into orbit at Jupiter. The spacecraft operated exactly according to plan, and Juno successfully entered orbit today, July 5, 2016, UTC