NASA Solar System Exploration

Space books can become outdated quickly, and many parents worry about giving kids old information on planets, moons, and missions. NASA’s Solar System Exploration site is our go-to for up-to-date, visually stunning information straight from the source. Maintained by NASA, the portal offers mission updates, interactive models, fact sheets, and galleries for planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, all free to access. We love how each world gets its own overview, timeline, and multimedia, making it easy to turn a kid’s question into a full mini-lesson. It’s ideal for space-obsessed kids from upper-elementary through high school and works well as a spine for longer-term solar system projects. Some pages assume a bit of background knowledge and can feel technical, but you can easily scale down by focusing on images and key facts for younger learners. Pro tip: let kids pick one solar system object to “adopt” and create a poster or slideshow using data and images pulled directly from the site.