The Planetary Society - Southern California

Public Star Party - June 15, 2024 - Griffith Observatory - Southern California’s gateway to the cosmos! Once a month, the Observatory partners with local telescope groups to share their telescopes and knowledge with the public. With dozens of telescopes on the lawn, there's always something to see!

Every light impacts the night!

This international Dark Sky Week you can celebrate the night by doing your part to protect it.

Check out our Five Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting to prevent and reduce light pollution around your home and community!

Learn more by visiting https://bit.ly/3U0zrNy

Experience the Total Solar Eclipse A total solar eclipse is coming across North America on April 8, 2024, and you're invited to experience it with The Planetary Society. Explore maps,…

Happy Friday! (Galactic) high five ✋
Infrared from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and X-ray data from Chandra X-ray Observatory make the five galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet shine. Four of the galaxies are performing an intricate dance. (The fifth, left, is at a different distance.) https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2022/chandrawebb/more.html

We've added 14 exoplanets to the known worlds! We've now confirmed 5,587 planets beyond our solar system and often add more every week. Check out our interactive graphic to see discoveries by year, type and observation method: https://go.nasa.gov/42VYFiN

Surprise! The Kuiper Belt may be way bigger than anyone imagined. ✨

New observations from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft hint that the vast, distant outer zone of our solar system populated by hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks – might stretch much farther out than we thought.

Read more: https://nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-detects-dusty-hints-of-extended-kuiper-belt/

Congratulations to Geovanni Somoza, a LAAS member and past club president who was awarded the G. Bruce Blair Medal by the consortium of Western Amateur Astronomers,.

The WAA was impressed by his nearly maniacal devotion to outreach, especially for the kids at his school, and the growing Planetary Society outreach volunteer program.