Planets: New Worlds, New Discoveries

NASA is at the leading edge of a journey of scientific discovery that promises to reveal new knowledge of our solar system’s content, origin, evolution and the potential for life elsewhere. NASA Planetary Science is engaged in one of the oldest of scientific pursuits: the observation and discovery of our solar system’s planetary objects. With an exploration strategy based on progressing from flybys, to orbiting, to landing, to roving and finally to returning samples from planetary bodies, NASA advances the scientific understanding of the solar system in extraordinary ways, while pushing the limits of spacecraft and robotic engineering design and operations. Since the 1960s, NASA has broadened its reach with increasingly sophisticated missions launched to a host of nearby planets, moons, comets and asteroids. NASA Planetary Science continues to expand our knowledge of the solar system, with spacecraft in place from the innermost planet of our solar system to the very edge of our sun's influence.