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Jet Propulsion Laboratory

California Institute of Technology

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California Institute of Technology

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New Website Gathering Public Input on NASA Mars Images

Mars researchers are soliciting volunteers to locate odd polar-area features on Mars that have names such as "Swiss cheese terrain" and "spiders."Read more

Could 'Windbots' Someday Explore the Skies of Jupiter?

Wind-harvesting robotic probes might someday explore the atmospheres of other planets, as well as our home planet, thanks to an innovative NASA JPL study.Read more

NASA Hosts Media Telecon About Latest Kepler Discoveries

NASA will host a news teleconference at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT) Thursday, July 23, to announce new discoveries made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope.Read more

Dawn Maneuvering to Third Science Orbit

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is using its ion propulsion system to descend to its third mapping orbit at Ceres, and all systems are operating well.Read more

First Close-up Images from Pluto Flyby

The first set of close-up images returned from NASA's New Horizons mission reveal surprises and new insights about Pluto and its moons.Read more

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What's Happening Now

news

| July 22, 2015

Researchers at JPL and UCLA have developed a technology that could reduce the power needed to send information from wearable devices.

A Wi-Fi Reflector Chip To Speed Up Wearables

video

| July 10, 2015

Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to fly by Mars and send home close-up images. Find out how the mission changed the way we explore the Red Planet.

Five Ways Mariner 4 Changed Mars Exploration

images

| December 18, 2014

Using publicly available data, astronomers have confirmed K2's first exoplanet discovery proving Kepler can still find planets.

Reborn Kepler Discovers First K2 Exoplanet (Artist Concept)

news

| July 21, 2015

Greenland's glaciers are badly undercut and melting faster than thought, raising sea levels faster than currently estimated.

Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, and JPL mapped remote Greenland fjords by ship in 2014.

Greenland's Undercut Glaciers Melting Faster than Thought

VideoS

| June 8, 2015

A new video animation of dwarf planet Ceres, based on images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, provides dramatic flyover views of this heavily cratered, mysterious world.

Fly Over Dwarf Planet Ceres

images

| July 22, 2015

This series of images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successively zooms into 'spider' features, or channels carved in the surface in radial patterns, in the south polar region of Mars.

Volunteers Help Decide Where to Point Mars Camera

news

| July 9, 2015

Magnetic waves from a black hole are set in motion as if a whip is being cracked.

Distant Black Hole Wave Twists Like Giant Whip

VideoS

| July 1, 2015

Take a grand tour of the Milky Way this month – with binoculars!

What's Up - July 2015

images

| July 21, 2015

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured these images of Pluto's moon Nix which shows a reddish spot that has attracted the interest of the mission scientists (left), and the small, irregularly shaped moon Hydra (right).

'Capturing' Nix and Hydra

Missions

JPL is the leading U.S. center for robotic exploration of the solar system, and has 19 spacecraft and 10 major instruments carrying out planetary, Earth science and space-based astronomy missions.

Explore

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Asteroid Watch

Detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets.

Asteroid Watch

In 1998, The NASA Near-Earth Object Program Office was established at JPL to coordinate NASA-sponsored efforts to detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could approach the Earth. The primary computational activities of this Office involve the continuous (and largely automatic) use of new data to update the orbits of Near-Earth objects so that their future orbital paths can be examined for close Earth approaches.

Tour the Cosmos

3-D Exploration

Interact with the entire solar system as you control space and time.

3-D Exploration

Interact with the entire solar system as you control space and time.

Fly along with NASA Satellites

Eyes on the Earth

Learn how we collect critical data about Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans.

Eyes on the Earth

Learn how we collect critical data about Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans.

Search for another Earth

Earthlike Planets

Explore a 3D simulation of all planets discovered around other stars.

Eyes on Exoplanets

Explore a 3D simulation of all planets that have been discovered around other stars.

10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Stardust

Celebrating NASA's first comet sample collection.

Celebrating 10 Years

click here to learn more

THE SEARCH FOR ANOTHER EARTH

PlanetQuest

See how astronomers find exoplanets and characterize them.

PlanetQuest's list of "candidate exoplanets" comes from the Kepler mission. Kepler has made thousands of likely exoplanet discoveries, but in order for each planet to be considered "confirmed", its existence has to be verified using other instruments, a process that takes time.

SEE LIGHT YEARS AWAY

Stars and Galaxies

View a whole new universe of dust and stars hidden from Earth-bound eyes.

Stars and Galaxies

The Universe is continually radiating a wealth of information to Earth, sending signals in wide-spectrum of light. However, not all of these messages reach the ground. Because our planet's atmosphere blocks most radiation coming in from space, humans need to launch telescopes beyond it to get a complete cosmic picture.

Create. Upload. Explore.

Infographics

Design and share your creation utilizing our library of data and imagery.

Infographics

What is an infographic? As we see it, an infographic is artwork for your brain. It is a way of taking numbers, spreadsheets and all types of other highly technical data and combining it with interesting images and turning it into a one-page, easily digestible, fun-to-look-at graphic.

VIEW OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD

The Solar System

Discover the planets, their moons and other small bodies that orbit our Sun.

The Solar System

The solar system consists of a central star, the Sun, and all of the smaller celestial bodies that continuously travel around it. The smaller bodies include eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, which are themselves orbited by more than 140 moons. In addition, the solar system contains millions of rocky asteroids and billions of icy comets as well as giant clouds of dust and gas.

YOUR PLANET IS CHANGING. WE'RE ON IT.

Earth Right Now

Learn more about the vital signs of our changing planet.

Earth Right Now

Earth system science is the study of how scientific data stemming from various fields of research, such as the atmosphere, oceans, land ice and others, fit together to form the current picture of our changing climate. Climate scientists separate factors that affect climate change into three categories: forcings, feedbacks, and tipping points.

THE SEARCH FOR ANOTHER EARTH

PlanetQuest

See how astronomers find exoplanets and characterize them.

The Search for Exoplanets

FOLLOW YOUR CURIOSITY

Mars Exploration

Discovering the possibilities for past or present life on the Red Planet.

Mars Exploration

Among our discoveries about Mars, one stands out above all others: the possible presence of liquid water on Mars, either in its ancient past or preserved in the subsurface today.

Galactic Pyrotechnics on Display

Image of the Day

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Education and Public Events

California's history is written in great droughts. As of December 2014, the ongoing California drought has turned more serious.

August 13 & 14

Drought: Are We In or Out?

With thousands of planets now known around other stars, it's natural to wonder why so many planetary systems are quite different from our own.

September 10 & 11

The Birth of Planets Around the Sun and Other Stars

Prior to Dawn's arrival, the dwarf planet Ceres was the largest unexplored world in the inner solar system.

October 8 & 9

Unveiling an Alien World: Dawn at Ceres

Launched in August of 2011, the Juno spacecraft will reach Jupiter in July of 2016.

November 5 & 6

The Juno Mission to Jupiter

The InSight mission to Mars, the twelfth mission in NASA's Discovery Program, will launch in March of 2016, landing six months later in Elysium Planitia.

December 3 & 4

The InSight Mission: Journey to the Center of Mars