The Solar System

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
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Planets
The Solar System
Uranus
Uranus Moons
The ice giant Uranus and its rings steal the show in this Dec. 18, 2023, image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope captured new images of Uranus, revealing detailed features of the planet’s rings and seasonal north polar cap, as well as bright storms near and below the southern border of the cap. […]
Posted December 26, 2023
OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer)
Asteroids
Goddard Space Flight Center
The Solar System
The former OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sets off on a journey to study asteroid Apophis and take advantage of the asteroid’s 2029 flyby of Earth, the likes of which hasn’t happened since the dawn of recorded history.
Posted December 22, 2023
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