Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

What are planets made of?

A look at the compositions of terrestrial planets, gas giants, and ice giants in our Solar System.

The best places to search for life in our Solar System

From Earth's neighboring planets to distant moons, these are the best places to look for alien life.

The coolest moons of Jupiter and Saturn you’ve never heard of

Meet the lesser-known moons of our Solar System's gas giants.

Why the true colors of the planets aren't what you think

Cameras on our space probes act as proxies for our own eyes, but what they see isn't necessarily what our eyes would see.

Storms and showers

Mars has storms of dust, while Saturn pours down ammonia rain. Here on Earth, we passed through a debris tail to get a special kind of shower.

That’s a mare

An unusual lunar feature, Saturn’s shining rings, and Mars’ complex gullies.

Would you like some salty water with your space salad?

Two new grant-winning projects, a collection of awesome space imagery, a mighty plume, and much more this week in space.

Moon-spying missions and a planetary evil twin

Whether they’re dedicated to it or not, planetary missions can get beautiful and informative glimpses at distant moons. And who’s the evil twin: Venus or Earth?

Have a nice flight!

Flying on Titan is easy, but not as easy as flying on Deimos. Plus, Juice takes off and Ingenuity captures a view from the air.

A mission to pull back the shroud

VERITAS would peer through Venus’ clouds to study its surface like never before, but it needs your help.

What the search for aliens can learn from life on Earth

When searching for extraterrestrial life, we have to base our hunt on what we know about life on our own planet. This may seem limiting, but there's a lot we can learn from the astonishingly diverse lifeforms we have here on Earth.