Planetary Science

Whether it’s finding hidden water ice in Mercury’s craters, mapping the composition of Mars, or providing images of Pluto’s glaciers and craters and the crevices on asteroids, APL is at the forefront of planetary science.

APL is a pioneer in the robotic exploration of the solar system. Our scientists and engineers led the NEAR Shoemaker mission that captured the first close-up images of an asteroid, the MESSENGER mission that first mapped Mercury, and the New Horizons mission that captured the first images of Pluto’s icy heart. They have provided a spectrometer to find ancient wet Martian environments and built others to decipher the origins of Mars’ moon Phobos and the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche. They are leaders in the development of planetary particle and plasma investigations, conducting analyses of Jupiter’s powerful aurora and Pluto’s dynamic atmosphere. APL also built or contributed to the imager, spectrometer and plasma instruments aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft to study Jupiter’s potentially habitable moon Europa. They are helping to plan potential future explorations across the solar system and will lead, build and operate NASA’s nuclear-powered dual quadcopter called Dragonfly to study the molecular building blocks of life on Saturn’s moon Titan.