The Solar System

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes
Goddard Space Flight Center
Heliophysics
Missions
Science & Research
Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)
Stars
Sunspots
TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)
The Solar System
The Sun
The Universe
Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it’s a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our Sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its life, it changes little for billions of years. One exception to that rule is the […]
Posted April 4, 2024
Perseverance (Rover)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mars
Mars 2020
Mars Sample Return (MSR)
The Solar System
The 24th sample taken by the six-wheeled scientist offers new clues about Jezero Crater and the lake it may have once held. Analysis by instruments aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover indicate that the latest rock core taken by the rover was awash in water for an extended period of time in the distant past, perhaps […]
Posted April 3, 2024
Skywatching
Skywatching Tips
The Solar System
The next full moon is the Crow, Crust, Sap, Sugar, or Worm Moon; the Paschal Moon; Purim; the Holi Festival Moon; Madin Poya; the Pothole Moon; a Micromoon, and a Partial Lunar Eclipse.
Posted March 29, 2024
Europa Clipper
Europa
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jupiter
The Solar System
A gantlet of tests prepared the spacecraft for its challenging trip to the Jupiter system, where it will explore the icy moon Europa and its subsurface ocean. In less than six months, NASA is set to launch Europa Clipper on a 1.6-billion-mile (2.6-billion-kilometer) voyage to Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa. From the wild vibrations of the […]
Posted March 27, 2024
Citizen Science
Comets
Heliophysics
Skywatching
SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory)
The Solar System
The Sun
On March 25, 2024, a citizen scientist in the Czech Republic spotted a comet in an image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which has now been confirmed to be the 5,000th comet discovered using SOHO data. SOHO has achieved this milestone over 28 years in space, even though it was never designed […]
Posted March 27, 2024
Astrophysics
Astrophysics Division
Goddard Space Flight Center
Hubble Space Telescope
Jupiter
Missions
Planetary Environments & Atmospheres
Planetary Science
Planets
The Solar System
The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, is revisited by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in these latest images, taken on January 5-6, 2024, capturing both sides of the planet. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other outer solar system planets every year under the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL). This is because these large […]
Posted March 14, 2024
Europa Clipper
Europa
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jupiter Moons
The Solar System
When it launches in October, the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a richly layered dispatch that includes more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public.
Posted March 8, 2024
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
Earth's Moon
Goddard Space Flight Center
The Solar System
On Jan. 19, 2024, at 10:20 a.m. EST, the JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) landed on the lunar surface. Five days later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft passed over the landing site and photographed SLIM. LRO acquired the image at an altitude of about 50 miles (80 km). […]
Posted January 26, 2024
Curiosity (Rover)
Mars
Planets
The Solar System
Videos from the rover show its shadow moving across the Martian surface during a 12-hour sequence while Curiosity remained parked. When NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover isn’t on the move, it works pretty well as a sundial, as seen in two black-and-white videos recorded on Nov. 8, the 4,002nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. […]
Posted December 28, 2023
Juno
Europa
Goddard Space Flight Center
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jupiter
Jupiter Moons
Rings of Jupiter
The Solar System
The orbiter has performed 56 flybys of Jupiter and documented close encounters with three of the gas giant’s four largest moons. NASA’s Juno spacecraft will on Saturday, Dec. 30, make the closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io that any spacecraft has made in over 20 years. Coming within roughly 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the […]
Posted December 27, 2023
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