Planetary Science Stories

Although NASA’s Lucy spacecraft’s upcoming encounter with the asteroid Donaldjohanson is primarily a mission rehearsal for later asteroid encounters, a new paper suggests that this small, main belt asteroid may have some surprises of its own. New modeling indicates that…

The puzzle of predicting how three gravitationally bound bodies move in space has challenged mathematicians for centuries, and has most recently been popularized in the novel and television show “3 Body Problem.” There’s no problem, however, with what a team…

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has its next flyby target, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson, in its sights. By blinking between images captured by Lucy on Feb. 20 and 22, this animation shows the perceived motion of Donaldjohanson relative to the…

Out of school time (OST) educators work with youth in afterschool, community, and camp programs. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning in OST can be challenging for multiple reasons, including lack of materials and support for educators. The NASA…

That’s a great question. And it’s a question that NASA will seek to answer with the Europa Clipper spacecraft. Europa is a moon of Jupiter. It’s about the same size as Earth’s Moon, but its surface looks very different. The…

So how long does it take to get from Earth to the Moon, to Mars or to Jupiter? As with most things in life, the answer is: it depends.

Christine Shupla and Claire Ratcliffe Adams, from the NASA Science Activation program’s NASA@ My Library project, facilitated a professional development Co-Design Space Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) Workshop for Tribal libraries on August 29, 2024, hosted at the New…

Why does the Moon look larger on the horizon? The short answer is, we don’t know.

Join us for a special presentation of Do NASA Science LIVE on January 29, 2025 at 7 p.m. EST! NASA Citizen Science, SciStarter, The Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Association for the Advancement of Participatory Sciences invite you to…

Lee esta historia en español aquí. The near-Earth object was likely ejected into space after an impact thousands of years ago. Now it could contribute new insights to asteroid and lunar science. The small near-Earth object 2024 PT5 captured the world’s…