Articles

Jatan Mehta

A flagship mission to the ice giants — Uranus and Neptune — will forever change our understanding of the origin and evolution of our solar system.

Casey Dreier

After completing Mars Sample Return, Uranus should be the target of NASA's next major planetary mission, according to a major new report by the National Academies of Sciences.

Rae Paoletta

NASA’s Voyager missions provided an unprecedented glimpse into the outer solar system.

Jamie Carter

Is it time NASA sent an orbiter to study the other blue planet in our solar system? Proposals for missions to study the ice giant planet Neptune and its mysterious moon Triton have been on NASA’s to-do list for over a decade, but until now nothing has happened.

The Downlink

Take a look at distant worlds, far-out views of the cosmos, and even some remote possibilities with this week’s scoop on space news and solar system history.

Jatan Mehta

How did our solar system come to be? Why are the planets, asteroids, comets, and other small worlds where they are now?

The Planetary Society

Six scientists share the major planetary science discoveries of the past decade, and the questions that will drive the next 10 years of solar system exploration.

Mark Marley

Mark Marley explains what planetary scientists mean when they say the word

Amy Simon

Imagine 2 icy worlds far from the Sun. Their serene, blue atmospheres. Huge, ominous-looking storms. Tantalizing glimpses of moons with exotic, icy terrains. Delicate sets of encircling rings.

Björn Jónsson

The color of Uranus and Neptune is similar, but not identical. Uranus appears greener and Neptune bluer.

Björn Jónsson

Björn Jónsson argues that even now, 40 years after Voyager 1 and 2 were launched, a lot of the data they returned is still of high interest.

Van Kane

One fact dominates the planning for any mission to Uranus or Neptune: They lie far from the sun. A newly released NASA report looks at how we can explore these icy giants.

Jason Davis

Only one spacecraft has ever visited Uranus and Neptune: Voyager 2, in the late 1980s. A new NASA report explores the reasons to go back, and what type of mission might take us there.

Emily Lakdawalla

When are the solstices and equinoxes on the giant planets, and when are they best positioned for view from Earth? I ask these questions a lot as I write about Earth photos of giant planets, and I finally decided to gather the answers to those questions in a single post.

Emily Lakdawalla

There are no spacecraft at Uranus or Neptune, and there haven't been for 30 and 25 years, respectively. So we depend on Earth-based astronomers to monitor them, including Damian Peach.

Björn Jónsson

Amateur image processor Björn Jónsson brings us some new views of Uranus from reprocessed Voyager 2 data.

Val Klavans

The Cassini mission has already returned an array of images of other solar system members from Saturn orbit: Earth (and the Moon), Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. It’s time to add another world to that list!

Bill Dunford

When sent from deep space, even imperfect images can inform and amaze.

Casey Dreier

The Voyager mission may be the ultimate expression of our desire to explore, but why does that will exist in the first place? Why is it unique to humans?

Geraint Jones

It’s been a long time since anyone paid Uranus a visit. The Uranus system is, however, fascinating, as evidenced by the wealth of topics covered by the diverse group of planetary scientists who gathered to discuss it last week at the Paris Observatory.