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Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Beyond our own solar system, there are more planets than stars in the night sky.
OSIRIS-REx started its journey back to Earth with precious cargo, and two new asteroid missions – Lucy and DART – launched to the skies. Here’s the 2021 round-up of NASA planetary science, highlighting the year’s most spectacular images, the most ground-breaking discoveries, and the most incredible mission milestones.
The Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star – a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium – at the center of our solar system. It’s about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth and it’s our solar system’s only star. Without the Sun’s energy, life as we know it could not exist on our home planet.
For more than a decade, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shared the wonders of Saturn and its family of icy moons—taking us to astounding worlds where methane rivers run to a methane sea and where jets of ice and gas are blasting material into space from a liquid water ocean that might harbor the ingredients for life.
In April 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft began writing the final, thrilling chapter of its remarkable 20-year-long story of exploration: its Grand Finale. Every week, Cassini dived through the approximately 1,200-mile-wide (2,000-kilometer-wide) gap between Saturn and its rings.
NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system.
Sending the first Artemis mission to the Moon in preparation for human missions, landing a new rover on Mars, and launching the James Webb Space Telescope into space, expanding our ability to see deep into the universe, are just a few of the things NASA has planned for 2021.
We provide the public with reliable, accurate, up-to-date information about the planets, moons, asteroids, comets and everything else in our solar system. We also provide a complete historical record of deep space exploration.
Most of this ancient space rubble can be found orbiting our Sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt. Asteroids range in size from Vesta – the largest at about 329 miles (530 kilometers) in diameter – to bodies that are less than 33 feet (10 meters) across.
This is place to find all the latest and greatest stuff created just for kids by NASA. There are plenty of games, stories, arts and crafts, plus links to the coolest NASA sites. Sorry grownups, this space is for kids only.