Articles

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

How much does the James Webb Space Telescope cost?

Find annual expenditures, charts, and comparisons for NASA's expenditures on the James Webb Space Telescope, including contributions from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency over the same period.

Blurring the lines between imagination and reality

The realities of space go beyond what we can see, and perhaps even beyond what we can imagine.

We love Lucy

Everything you need to know about NASA’s Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids.

The Space Advocate Newsletter, October 2021

Lucy kicks off a beefier era of Discovery.

Some good old-fashioned space mysteries

Exploration is teaching us a lot about the cosmos, and a lot about how much we still don’t know.

Rocky worlds rock

This week we're all about the rocky planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

The best seat in the solar system

Look at some extraordinary views from space and imagine what you’d see if you had the best seat on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

Looking forward to looking into deep space

The newest issue of The Planetary Report takes a look at the James Webb Space Telescope and what it will teach us about the cosmos.

The Space Advocate Newsletter, September 2021

It's time to look beyond 2024.

Dunes and doppelgangers

What can we learn from patterns in the Martian sands? And what’s that Earth-like planet over there?

Perseverance Autonomous Drive Tracks on Mars

Planetary protection: How to explore Mars and other worlds responsibly

Planetary protection means protecting other worlds from Earthly microbes and containing possible microbes that sample return missions might bring back to Earth.

Why we need plutonium power for space missions

Spacecraft need power to reach the dark, dusty, distant locales of our solar system. Safe, non-weapons-grade plutonium-238 provides that power when solar energy can't cut it.