Robuta

White Rock from MOC: annotated detail

SpaceX's Crew Dragon sits on the launch pad during tests on 3 January 2019.

What does it mean that the Mars rover Curiosity found organics in Martian rocks? Emily Lakdawalla translates the science.

Visibility of the May 20, 2012 solar eclipse

Here's another wonderful self-portrait silhouette by Opportunity.

Opportunity Pancam panorama, sol 4669

An extremely thin crescent view of the icy moon Dione, captured by Cassini on 17 May 2010. The phase angle here is 151 degrees.

How advanced amateurs defend Earth from asteroids.

Aurora Expedition: Arrival

Artist concept of MAVEN at Mars

Little Miss Sunshine Pageant

MESSENGER obtained this color view of a crescent Mercury on approach to its third flyby, on September 29, 2009.

Send Your Name to the Moon!

The Falkland Islands, as seen from the International Space Station.

Model of Space Complex Bravo, a station consisting of four Bigelow Aerospace B330 modules.

Juno close to Jupiter

A flyby anniversary reminds us why missions of exploration are worth fighting for.

Roger Launius Head Shot

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I am having issues with TwitPic this morning, so will occasionally post new images from the LCROSS camera to this blog entry.

The metal ball is 2mm in diameter. The rough surface of this target is completely in-focus thanks to the stacking of 8 individual MAHLI images.

Captain Raptor and the Perilous Planet

Hayabusa's reentry from the NASA DC8

Earthrise and Earthset from Kaguya

The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

Project Roundup, by Bruce Betts; Out of This World Books; Planetology: Viewing Earth in Context, by Tom Jones and Ellen Stofan

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The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

Spirit gets 6 wheels on soil. For some of the team members, this was the real landing.

The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

A young space enthusiast looks through a telescope.

Read and explore space policy analysis, recommendations, and datasets provided by The Planetary Society.

The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin and Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye.

David J. Fred head shot

The latest information and official statements from The Planetary Society about its events, programs, personalities, and major events.

Katie Mack head shot

Viking Orbiter 1 captured the four images that compose this view of White Rock, Pollack Crater, on September 21, 1978.

Why spend effort and scarce resources on space exploration when we have so many problems here at home? Turns out, there are some pretty good reasons.

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Taken on February 18, 2013, and tweeted from space by astronaut Chris Hadfield.

The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

Bill Nye with LightSail Model

Jim Abshire is the senior scientist for laser sensing for the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA Goddard.

Only Voyager 2 has visited Neptune in 1989. This Voyager portrait is newly reprocessed to show the planet at correct color.

The Planetary Society creates accessible educational videos to share the passion, beauty, and joy of space exploration. We also regularly host live events.

The office of a planetary scientist contains plenty to examine.

Mid-evening sky showing Mars and numerous bright stars in that (large) region of sky. (Location: Pasadena, California. Latitude: about 34 degrees north.)

Lyndine McAfee was an Editorial Assistant for The Planetary Society in the 1980s.

Congress stands ready to punt on NASA's budget, meaning the space program will have to operate on a short budgetary leash until April of next year.

Soyuz TMA-16M departure shot 1

This view of the nebula NGC 2282 was acquired in November 2014. View additional information.

I got an urge to dive in to the Voyager image archives and see what exactly we have here on Earth to base our understanding of the Uranian moons on.

Learn why we explore the worlds of our Solar System and beyond, and find out how you can get involved.

The lenticular galaxy NGC 7722, as seen by the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

It looks like the top three sites are Eberswalde, Holden and Gale.

The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

A diagram showing how Mars' position in the sky changes as Earth catches up to it in their orbits around the Sun.

Thomas Cwik is Chief Technologist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Lunar gravity gradient map

Rebecca Bernstein is Chief Scientist for the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization.

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Aerospace professional, science communicator and payload specialist

REXIS installation and check out proceeded without issue.

Browse all the episodes of The Planetary Society's popular podcast Planetary Radio.

The image has a resolution of 150 meters per pixel and covers an area 127 kilometers square.

Three dimension image (DEM) of crater Laplace A on the Moon. The image data was taken by Chang'E-2 lunar probe on Oct 28, 2010.

The Rosette Nebula, as imaged by the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.

Christoph Lahtz head shot

Artist Porter McDonald describes his latest painting, Mare Cognitum, which features NASA's Ranger 7 spacecraft.

Earth, 220 million years ago

Vernal dawn is coming to Titan's far north

The surface of Itokawa as seen by Hayabusa

I called one of my Senators earlier today. Before that I called my representative. It was pretty easy.

Steven Clarke head shot

Tara Estlin head shot

Cassini's view of Calypso on February 13, 2010 showed some intriguing grooves crossing the little moon.

Less than an hour after his first step onto the Moon, Buzz Aldrin salutes the American flag that he and Neil Armstrong planted on the surface.

Phoenix and New Horizons updates

Liftoff for the GRAIL mission to the Moon at 13:08UTC on September 10, 2011! From @carlmilner

The latest stories from The Planetary Society, featuring humanity's quest to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth.

South Sirenum Fossae, a fault on Mars, running between two craters. Image digitally generated from data taken by ESA's Mars Express orbiter.

Emily Calandrelli is an MIT-engineer turned Emmy-nominated science TV host, author, and speaker.

Phobos-Grunt exploded

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Well, the field trip is over and I am happy to say that I was not eaten by any bears. They seemed much more interested in the huckleberries.

Mt. Rainier (Washington State) stratovolcano compared to the modeling clay demo model (2x vertical exaggeration).

This cutaway view of Enceladus shows the moon's core, possible hydrothermal vents, ocean, ice layer, and jets that vent material into space.

An ALMA antenna journeys to its pad

Note that the giant blob of instruments are not yet mounted on the arm in this photo.

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Bob Pappalardo and the Mysteries of Europa

Curiosity's sol 751 drive (animation)

Ellen Stofan and Mat Kaplan at NASM

Solar Sail Ready for Liftoff