How Are You Celebrating the Year of the Solar System?

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There are a lot of solar system space missions coming up, plus – as always – a plethora of astronomical events taking place, so NASA has decided to declare the "

Year of the Solar System" (YSS)

. But this year is so big, it won't fit into an Earth year -- however, a Martian year just about covers it, so from now until August, 2012 we're celebrating.

"During YSS, we'll see triple the usual number of launches, flybys and orbital insertions," said Jim Green, the director of Planetary Science at NASA headquarters. "There hasn't been anything quite like it in the history of the Space Age. History will remember the period Oct. 2010 through Aug. 2012 as a golden age of planetary exploration."

Below you'll see a list of mission activities that will take place, but also, the YSS organizers will have special events – both online and at various venues – to help us all celebrate.

One project near and dear to my heart is the

365 Days of Astronomy podcast

, which will be continuing at least through 2011. Universe Today readers, you'd help me out

A LOT

(I'm the 365 Days project manager) by signing up to do a podcast. Podcasting is an easy and wonderful way to share your knowledge, experiences and love of astronomy or space. We give you lots of info about what you need to do to created a podcast. Check out

the website

,

the calendar for available dates in 2011,

and you can

contact me directly

to sign up for a date!

For other things associated with the YSS, there are also activities and materials available for classrooms and teachers, afterschool programs, astronomy clubs and more.

Right now,

during December and January, the activities focus on investigations

of our planetary family tree. Conduct the Explore the Celestial Neighborhood ... in Your Neighborhood! activity and others fun projects that examine what a planet is and how we investigate planets.

There is also

information on how to observe the total lunar eclipse on December 21,

or activities to simply note the change in lunar phases over the course of a month.

You can also submit photographs, artwork, music, or words of your YSS experiences at the

Share Your Stories page.

[caption id="attachment_81617" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="This artist's illustration shows how the Sun would have looked from Carl Sagan Memorial Station at a specific time each month on Mars over the course of a Martian year. (Credit: Dennis Mammana)"]

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As far as the solar system missions going on we've already enjoyed the flyby of Comet Hartley 2 by the Deep impact/EPOXI spacecraft, and the NASA O/OREOS ("Organism/ORganic Exposure to Orbital Stresses,") spacecraft was launched in November 2010, to study "the durability of life in space." It is a nanosatellite (a cubesat), only 5.5 kilograms in mass, and we'll certainly be hearing more about that spacecraft soon.

NASA NanoSail-D was also launched by the same rocket, and it has been ejected from the spacecraft but hasn't yet unfurled its sails. We'll post something as soon as any news on that emerges. Here are more upcoming mission highlights as part of the YSS:

Stardust NExT encounters comet Tempel on February 14.

MESSENGER enters an orbit around the planet Mercury on March 18.

Dawn begins its approach to the asteroid Vesta in May, for a mission between 2011 and 2012. It will also visit the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015.

The Juno spacecraft will launch to Jupiter in August 2011. It will study the planet's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere.

GRAIL, or the NASA Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft will launch for a mapping mission to the Moon in September 2011.

Curiosity, or the Mars Science Lab will launch in November 2011. This is a big, car-sized rover that will look for potential habitable places, and more, on Mars. Curiosity is slated to land in August, 2012.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com