---
title: Planetary Science
description: Planetary science examines the geology, atmospheres, and interiors of planets, moons, and smaller bodies. Learners will understand the physical processes that shape planetary surfaces, drive atmospheric dynamics, and influence the thermal evolution of worlds inside and outside our solar system.
category: sciences
subcategory: astronomy-and-astrophysics
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/planetary-science
---

# Planetary Science

Planetary science examines the geology, atmospheres, and interiors of planets, moons, and smaller bodies. Learners will understand the physical processes that shape planetary surfaces, drive atmospheric dynamics, and influence the thermal evolution of worlds inside and outside our solar system.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 1 Courses • 1 Websites • 1 Papers

## Websites

### 1. NASA Planetary Data System (PDS)

NASA's permanent, peer-reviewed archive of data from every planetary mission, organized into seven discipline nodes spanning atmospheres, geosciences, imaging, ring-moon systems, small bodies, plasma and spacecraft geometry. Gives learners the actual observations needed to do original planetary analysis.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://pds.nasa.gov/

**Tags:** planetary-science, nasa, planetary-data, space-missions, data-archive

## Papers

### 1. Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032

**Author:** National Academies Committee on the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey

The National Academies' community-written research strategy for planetary science, organizing the field's priority science questions across origins, worlds and processes, and life, then justifying mission priorities. Readers see which problems are genuinely open and why specific missions were chosen.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26522

**Tags:** planetary-science, astrobiology, decadal-survey, space-missions, research-priorities

## Books

### 1. Planetary Surface Processes

**Author:** H. Jay Melosh

Advanced text treating impact cratering, tectonics, volcanism, mass wasting and aeolian and fluvial transport as quantitative physics applicable to any world. Built from Melosh's 25-year Arizona course, it teaches derivation of crater scaling laws and landform mechanics from first principles.
The only advanced text covering the full range of geologic processes shaping planetary surfaces outside a purely terrestrial framing.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521514185?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** planetary-geology, impact-cratering, volcanism, tectonics, geomorphology, planetary-science

### 2. Planetary Sciences (Updated Second Edition)

**Author:** Imke de Pater, Jack J. Lissauer

The standard graduate reference, covering orbital dynamics, planetary interiors, surfaces, atmospheres, magnetospheres, rings, small bodies, meteorites, planet formation and extrasolar planets, with over 300 exercises. Readers gain the quantitative framework physical scientists use to model any planetary body.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107091616?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** planetary-science, orbital-dynamics, planetary-atmospheres, planet-formation, exoplanets, small-bodies

## Courses

### 1. The Science of the Solar System (Caltech, Mike Brown)

**Author:** Mike Brown

Nine-week Caltech planetary science course, freely hosted with lecture videos, quizzes and unit tests, organized around four research questions: water on Mars, giant planet interiors, small bodies, and habitability. Students reason from spacecraft evidence rather than memorizing facts.
The best free accessible entry point in the field: taught by a working planetary astronomer, structured around open research questions instead of a facts tour, explicitly pitched from high-school through intro-graduate level, and fully free on Brown's own Caltech site.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://mikebrown.caltech.edu/teaching/science-solar-system

**Tags:** planetary-science, solar-system, mars, giant-planets, habitability

---

*This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge*

*Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).*

View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/planetary-science