Articles

The Downlink

Meet the Solar System’s five official dwarf planets, celebrate two major launches, and find out why planets sometimes seem to go backwards across the sky.

Kate Howells

"Mercury in retrograde" is one of the most searched terms relating to the planet. Astrological interpretations aside, apparent retrograde motion is an interesting phenomenon that has to do with orbital speeds and observer perspective.

The Downlink

This week’s roundup of space news and exploration inspiration will leave you seeing red (in the best way possible).

Rae Paoletta

With JWST up and running, it’s one of our best Year in Pictures issues yet.

The Downlink

Planets are beautiful and fascinating enough on their own, but there’s no denying that moons and rings add a little something special.

The Downlink

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

The Downlink

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

Jatan Mehta

How did our solar system come to be? Why are the planets, asteroids, comets, and other small worlds where they are now?

The Planetary Society

Six scientists share the major planetary science discoveries of the past decade, and the questions that will drive the next 10 years of solar system exploration.

Emily Lakdawalla

I’m thrilled to be anticipating the beginning of a new mission to Mercury. Here's a timeline for BepiColombo's planned launch on 20 October (19 October in the U.S.).

Emily Lakdawalla

With my first issue of The Planetary Report as editor, I am taking the magazine open-access. Return to Mercury features articles by Elsa Montagnon on BepiColombo and by Long Xiao on the Chang'e-4 and -5 landers.

Elsa Montagnon

Elsa Montagnon details the challenges of delivering BepiColombo’s two spacecraft from Earth to Mercury.

Emily Lakdawalla

A Mercury meeting held May 1-3 summarized the current and future science of the innermost planet. Emily Lakdawalla was there and shares her notes.

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.

Jason Davis

Next year, a pair of probes head to Mercury to answer outstanding questions about our innermost planet, as well as the formation of the solar system.

Steven Hauck

2016 marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of what has become one of the primary venues for the publication of research in planetary science: the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. This occasion is a good opportunity to look back at what we have learned in this era of expanded exploration and to try to take a peek at the future.

Emily Lakdawalla

There is one less robot exploring the solar system today. MESSENGER, which has orbited Mercury for four years, finally ran out of fuel and crashed into the planet at 17:26 UT on Thursday, April 30, 2015.

Emily Lakdawalla

At last week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, the MESSENGER team held a press briefing to share results from the recent few months of incredibly low-altitude flight over Mercury's surface. The mission will last only about five weeks more.

Bill Dunford

MESSENGER is revealing the first planet in sharp detail.

Van Kane

Van Kane explains three factors that make exploring Europa hard—factors that can make a mission concept that seems like less actually be more.