The Planetary Society - Southern California

The Planetary Society - Southern California Southern California Volunteer Network As of 2011, the Planetary Society is the largest and most influential public space organization group on Earth.

The Planetary Society was founded in 1980 to inspire and involve the public in space exploration, through advocacy, projects, and education by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, & Louis Friedman. In 2010, Bill Nye (The Science Guy) stepped in as Executive Director of the organization and has been motivating everyone to work towards inspiring our youth. As a nonprofit organization, it is largely funded by t

he support of its members and powered by its dedicated staff and volunteers. Our local Southern California Region of Volunteers is fortunate enough to be based in Pasadena, California and use Planetary Society Headquarters as our meeting place of choice. We help to organize, coordinate, and co-sponser events led by The Planetary Society.

02/18/2026
02/18/2026

10 years ago, National Science Foundation (NSF)’s LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced its first detection of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time caused by massive orbiting objects. This came 100 years after Albert Einstein predicted them in his 1915 general theory of relativity, and it opened a new chapter in astronomy.

The first gravitational waves LIGO detected were from a pair of merging black holes. NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration telescopes didn’t catch a definitive light signal from that event, but we sure did a couple years later, in August 2017, from merging neutron stars: https://go.nasa.gov/3MqlqYq

In the next decade, LIGO will be joined by ESA - European Space Agency’s LISA, a partnership with NASA. This trio of satellites will “listen” for gravitational waves from across the universe. We can’t wait to see what we learn next from studying space with all of our “senses”: https://go.nasa.gov/4aaP5Oq

02/18/2026

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