The Planetary Society is a large, publicly supported, not-for-profit organization that has many research projects related to astronomy. It is based in Pasadena, California (the same city as NASA's Jet Propultion Laboratory) but has an international membership. It was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman. The Society is dedicated to the exploration of Mars and the rest of the Solar System, the search for Near Earth Objects, and the search for extraterrestrial life. Its mission is "To inspire the people of Earth through education, research, and public participation to explore other worlds and seek other life." Astrology: the study of the positions of the celestial objects relative to the Earth and how these positions affect happenings on the lives of cultures, nations and the natural environment. ... Pasadena is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. ... NASA logo Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2005-09-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrobiologist and highly successful science popularizer. ... For the Roman god, see Mars (god). ... Presentation of the solar system (not to scale) The solar system comprises our Sun and the retinue of celestial objects gravitationally bound to it. ... Near-Earth objects (NEO) are asteroids, comets and large meteoroids whose orbit intersects Earths orbit and which may therefore pose a collision danger. ... The existence of extraterrestrial life remains hypothetical though human beings continue to search Extraterrestrial life is life that may exist and originate outside the planet Earth. ...

The Society launched the Cosmos 1 craft in June 2005 to test the feasibility of Solar sailing, but the satellite's launch rocket failed shortly after liftoff. It is now raising seed funding for the next solar sail spacecraft. An artists rendering of Cosmos 1 orbiting the Earth. ... Concept image of a solar sail spacecraft in the process of unfurling sails. ...

Projects

The Planetary Society sponsors projects to seed further exploration. Members privately fund these projects:

• Earthdials
• Mars Stations
• Near-Earth Objects Research and Missions
• Planetrek
• Political Action
• Red Rover Goes to Mars
• Red Rover, Red Rover
• Scholarships
• Search for Extraterrestrial Life
• Solar sailing with Cosmos 1

A scholarship is an award of access to an institution or a financial aid award for an individual (a scholar) for the purposes of furthering their education. ... SETI (pronounced , to rhyme with Betty) stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. ... Concept image of a solar sail spacecraft in the process of unfurling sails. ... An artists rendering of Cosmos 1 orbiting the Earth. ...

The Planetary Report

The Planetary Report is the bimonthly flagship magazine of the Society. As one of the membership benefits, it reaches over 100,000 members six times a year (as of 2005). Over 90 percent of Society members view it as their first source of news about space exploration. A collection of magazines A magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising and/or purchase by readers. ...

External link

• The Planetary Society official site
• Planetary Society Antarctic Expedition - Elonka Dunin's website about the 1999 expedition aboard the Akademik Sergey Vavilov to Antarctica, organized by Dr. Louis Friedman.