Articles

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

Marrying the arts and science in space

Recent University of Pittsburgh graduate Ariel Barreiro is joining The Planetary Society for a summer fellowship through the Zed Factor Fellowship program. She shares her thoughts about space, careers, and working with The Planetary Society in this interview.

Want to be a citizen astronomer and defend Earth from asteroids? Here are some tips.

We asked three Planetary Society Shoemaker NEO grant winners for tips on how to assemble your own planetary defense observatory.

Day and night, it’s all about starlight

This week in space: Mars days almost match up with ours, and light and molecules are created by distant stars.

Vladimir Benishek and the mystique of asteroid research

The Planetary Society Shoemaker NEO Grant winner learned from his mother and grandfather, while also forging his own path.

The scientific truth is out there

The real science of aliens, the policy implications of ET, and new views of worlds beyond our own.

Would you like some salty water with your space salad?

Two new grant-winning projects, a collection of awesome space imagery, a mighty plume, and much more this week in space.

Space salads and salty waters

The two winning proposals in the 2023 round of STEP grants are a project that will compare different methods of growing edible plants in simulated deep-space exploration conditions, and a project that will study salty lakes on Earth that share characteristics with the past and present oceans of other planets and moons.

Hard-working spacecraft and even harder-working microbes

The Soyuz spacecraft have been helping humans get to and from space for decades, but that’s nothing compared to the billions of years that microorganisms have been making life on Earth possible.

Moonshadow, Moonshadow

The Moon casts shadows on itself and on Earth, environmental concerns overshadow a test launch’s success, and exoplanets are awesome (beyond a shadow of a doubt).

Asteroids worth getting psyched about

New discoveries from Ryugu, material heading our way from Bennu, and anticipation for a mission to Psyche.

The Planetary Society’s Space Book Club

Announcing a new space book club, where Planetary Society members can discuss great books and connect directly with authors and other experts.

Volcanic Venus, myriad moons, and space sonification

Learn all about the possible volcanic activity found on Venus, the facts about a hyped-up near-Earth asteroid, Jupiter’s newest moons, and what space images sound like.