Articles

Ian Regan

In 1979, both Voyager missions captured thousands of photos of Jupiter as frames of movies of the giant planet spinning among its moons. In honor of the mission's 40th launch anniversary, Ian Regan has reprocessed the data to produce stunning new movies.

Emily Lakdawalla

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Voyager missions, we're making publicly available seven back issues of The Planetary Report that chronicled the grand tour of the giant planets.

Ted Stryk

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

Emily Lakdawalla

Sunday, August 20 marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 2. Tuesday, September 5, will be the 40th anniversary for Voyager 1. Throughout the next three weeks, we'll be posting new and classic material in honor of the Voyagers. Here's a preview.

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.

Emily Lakdawalla

The team reported two weeks ago that the first attempts at observing 2014 MU69 were unsuccessful. But in their third try, on July 17, astronomers in Argentina saw the telltale sign of MU69's presence: a stellar wink.

Emily Lakdawalla

Sadly, the Cassini mission ends soon. We're halfway through the

Alejandro Soto

A team of scientists recently traveled to rural Argentina in the hopes of catching New Horizons' next target—Kuiper Belt object MU 69—crossing in front of a distant star.

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily shares another of her popular size comparisons of solar system bodies, taking advantage of Cassini's recent views of Saturn's tiniest moons.

Alex Parker

Using new image processing techniques, Alex Parker brings new life to an old image of Jupiter captured by the New Horizons mission on its way to Pluto over a decade ago.

Ian Regan

Amateur image processor Ian Regan shares a stunning mosaic of Saturn in all its ringed glory.

Heather Hunter

Heather Hunter brings us the next installment in her series on radio detection and ranging.

Emily Lakdawalla

An unusual photo of Saturn by astrophotographer Damian Peach shows the planet and its largest moon nestled among the star-filled lane of the Milky Way.

Casey Dreier

The President signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017, funding the U.S. government for the remainder of the fiscal year. NASA got a boost to $19.65 billion, and its Planetary Science Division saw a budget increase to $1.846 billion—its best budget in more than ten years.

David Shortt

In the second and final chapter of our series, we’ll explore what the rocket equation has to say about travel through the solar system, using the example of launching a rocket to Pluto.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cheers erupted in the Von Karman auditorium at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory early Thursday morning as a squiggly green line on a graph developed a crisp, tall peak, signifying that the Cassini spacecraft was calling home after surviving its first plunge between Saturn and its ring system.

Jason Davis

NASA's long-lived Cassini spacecraft is about to buzz Titan for the final time, putting it on course for a spectacular mission finale that concludes in September.

Franck Marchis

NASA's Cassini spacecraft sniffed out molecular hydrogen spewing from Enceladus' subsurface ocean. The discovery means Saturn's moon has all the basic ingredients needed to support life.

Björn Jónsson

Image processor Björn Jónsson shares some of his latest stunning images of Jupiter, created using data from NASA's Juno spacecraft.

Anna Scott

There's no verdict quite yet on the giant planet's core, and scientists are still gathering clues about the accuracy of our current solar system formation models.