Solar System Exploration Stories

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse swept across North America, from the western shores of Mexico, through the United States, and into northeastern Canada. For the eclipse, NASA helped fund numerous research projects and called upon citizen scientists…

The Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon, Frost Moon, or the Winter Moon; the Moon before Yule or the Oak Moon; the Long Night Moon; the Child Moon; the Datta or Dattatreya Jayanti Festival Moon; the Karthika Deepam Festival…

These celestial objects look like asteroids but act like comets now come in two flavors. The first dark comet — a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet — was reported less than…

Encountering Neptune in 1989, NASA’s Voyager mission completed humankind’s first close-up exploration of the four giant outer planets of our solar system. Collectively, since their launch in 1977, the twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft discovered that Jupiter, Saturn,…

Suzanne Smrekar, geophysicist and principal investigator of the agency’s upcoming VERITAS mission to Venus, is NASA JPL’s first recipient of the prestigious award. Suzanne Smrekar, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, received the Fred…

NASA researchers will present findings on Earth science, planetary science, and heliophysics at the upcoming American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2024 annual meeting in Washington, DC, beginning on Monday, Dec. 9. New NASA science results will be presented regarding the 2024…

Through advanced autonomy testbed programs, NASA is setting the groundwork for one of its top priorities—the search for signs of life and potentially habitable bodies in our solar system and beyond. The prime destinations for such exploration are bodies containing…

Scientists find that cometary dust affects interpretation of spacecraft measurements, reopening the case for comets as potential sources of water for early Earth. 

Catch December’s Celestial Highlights! This month, Venus dazzles as the “Evening Star,” Jupiter reaches its brightest for the year, and the Geminid meteor shower peaks under challenging moonlit skies. Skywatching Highlights All Month – Planet Visibility: December 3-5 – Venus…

by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Jupiter is our solar system’s undisputed king of the planets! Jupiter is bright and easy to spot from our vantage point on Earth, helped by its massive size and banded,…