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Jatan Mehta
Contributing Editor, The Planetary Society
Jatan Mehta is a science writer passionate about exploration of space and humanity’s future in it, and the unique role of our Moon in both. His space blog and lunar exploration newsletter can be found at blog.jatan.space.
Resource Pages Authored by Jatan
The Moon, preserving Earth's origin story
The Moon is the only world besides Earth ever visited by humans. By studying it, scientists can piece together Earth’s origin story.
Venus, cloudy with a chance of life
Venus may have had oceans and been habitable to life before being transformed into an inhospitable wasteland.
The Sun, our solar system’s star
Our Sun is an active star, frequently bursting out storms of plasma and radiation into the solar system.
VIPER, NASA’s Moon resource mapper
NASA is launching the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, in 2025 to map water on the Moon’s south pole.
NASA CLPS Moon landing missions
NASA is returning humans to the Moon later in the decade, but a fleet of agency-supported robotic spacecraft will precede them and pave the way.
EnVision, Europe’s mission to Venus
The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching the EnVision spacecraft to study Venus and its past.
JUICE, exploring Jupiter’s icy moons
The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching the JUICE spacecraft to study Jupiter and its three largest icy moons.
Neptune, planet of wind and ice
Neptune, our outermost planet, is a windy blue world with exotic ice, raging storms, rings, and a moon that could have a subsurface ocean.
Danuri, South Korea’s first Moon mission
The lunar orbiter launched South Korea’s deep space ambitions.
Psyche, exploring a metal world
NASA is launching the Psyche mission to a metal asteroid by the same name in 2022.
MMX, Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission
MMX launches in 2024 to study Mars' moons and return samples from Phobos to Earth in 2029.
VERITAS, NASA’s Venus mapper
NASA will launch the VERITAS spacecraft no earlier than 2027 to study Venus and its past.
Saturn, planet of rings, moons and more to explore
Saturn is the crown jewel of our solar system. It has a stunning set of rings, diverse moons, and so much more to explore.
Asteroids, comets and other small worlds
These leftover planet-building materials are time capsules that give us a peek into our origins.
Chandrayaan-1, India’s first Moon mission
The orbiter discovered water on the Moon, and kickstarted an ambitious Indian planetary science program.
Lunar Trailblazer, NASA’s Moon water mapper
Advancing our understanding of water across the Moon for exploration and science.
MAVEN, studying how Mars lost its atmosphere
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, MAVEN, studies how Mars loses its atmosphere to space. The orbiter also relays communications between surface missions and Earth.
Mars Pathfinder, the start of modern Mars exploration
The Pathfinder mission deployed the first-ever wheeled rover on Mars, and technologies developed for it paved the way for future, more sophisticated exploration of the red planet.
ExoMars rover
The European Space Agency and Russian space agency planned to send a joint mission to Mars in September 2022. It has since been suspended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
TESS, finding new worlds
TESS, or the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellites, is a U.S. mission to discover Earth-size worlds around nearby stars.
Mangalyaan, India’s first Mars mission
Mangalyaan is India’s Mars orbiter that has been observing the planet since September 2014.
Latest Articles
A look at the potential for habitable planets in binary systems despite their chaotic births.
Learn when we discovered lunar water, where it is, and how future missions will study it.
Here are the distinct ways in which the moons of our Solar System formed.
Latest Planetary Radio Appearances
Director Clare Lewins and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman discuss the new documentary "The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station."