Categories
Space Exploration Solar System

How far can Voyager 1 go before we lose contact?

Launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, to study the outer solar system, the Voyager 1 is the furthest human-made object from Earth. As of October 2022, it is more than 14,749,847,051 miles (23,737,577,852 km) away from our home planet. It is also moving away at a speed of 38,026.77 mph (61,198.15 km/h) relative to the Sun.

Despite that huge distance (even the light covers that distance in almost 22 hours!), thanks to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), we can still communicate with it (also with its sister, Voyager 2). But how far can Voyager 1 go before we lose communication?

Categories
Planet Earth Evolution Life on Earth Solar System

What if the Earth was tidally locked to the Sun?

We only see one side of the moon, because it is tidally locked to the planet Earth (tidal locking the situation when an object’s orbital period matches its rotational period). What if the Earth was tidally locked to the Sun?

Categories
Space Exploration Astronomy Solar System

486958 Arrokoth image against a starry background

A beautiful 486958 Arrokoth image (initially nicknamed Ultima Thule) taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in original context against a starry background (i.e., not zoomed in).

Categories
Astronomy

100 Million Stars in the Andromeda Galaxy [amazing video!]

In January 2015, NASA released the largest image ever of the Andromeda galaxy, called the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT), taken by the Hubble telescope. This composite image involved thousands of observations, hundreds of fields, spanned about a third of the galaxy and resolved over 100 million stars.

Totaling 1.5 billion pixels and requiring 4.3 gigabytes of disk space, this photo provides a detailed glimpse at the sheer scale of our nearest galactic neighbor.

Using this gigantic image, filmmaker Dave Achtemichuk created an unforgettable interactive experience.

Categories
Solar System Astronomy Planet Earth

The sidereal days and axial tilts of the Planets

NASA Goddard Planetary Scientist James O’ Donoghue created a nice animation showing the sidereal days and axial tilts of the solar system planets.

Categories
Astronomy Technology

Casting a $20 Million Mirror for the World’s Largest Telescope (Giant Magellan Telescope)

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is a ground-based extremely large telescope under construction, planned for completion in 2025. When completed, it will be the world’s largest telescope and one member of the next class of giant ground-based telescopes that promises to revolutionize our view and understanding of the universe. It will be constructed in the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

GMT has a unique design that offers several advantages. It is a segmented mirror telescope that employs seven of today’s largest stiff monolith mirrors as segments. Six off-axis 8.4 meter or 27-foot segments surround a central on-axis segment, forming a single optical surface 24.5 meters, or 80 feet, in diameter with a total collecting area of 368 square meters. The GMT will have a resolving power 10 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope!

Categories
Solar System Astronomy

Farout: the most-distant body ever observed in Solar System

Researchers discovered the farthest known object in our solar system and named it “Farout” (far-out-there). It is about 120 times farther than Earth is from the Sun (120 AU, see notes 1). For comparison, the most distant planet, Neptune is about 30 AU from the Sun. At its most distant, once upon a time the ninth planet, now a dwarf planet, Pluto, can be 49 AU (7.29 billion km, or 4.53 billion miles) from the Sun. Currently, Pluto is at about 34 AU, making  Farout more than three-and-a-half times more distant than the Solar System‘s most-famous dwarf planet.

Categories
Solar System Astronomy

Yet Another Scale Model of the Solar System [Video]

Previously I posted articles titled “If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A Tediously Accurate Map Of The Solar System” and “A Scale Model Of Solar System Drawn In The Desert And The Result Is Stunning”. Since the human brain cannot deal with really large numbers, these articles provide amazing ways to understand how big actually our Solar System is.

Now, in his YouTube channel, The Science Asylum, physicist Nick Lucid provides yet another scale model of the solar system. A very nice video conceptualizing how mind-bogglingly big our solar system (and space) is.

Categories
Astronomy Solar System

Size Comparison of the Sun and the Planets

This size comparison of the Sun and the planets in our solar system is going around frequently, but it’s still amazing to see it. Created by the San Francisco-based artist Roberto Ziche, the image features the Sun in the background with the planets, Moon, and the four dwarf planets lined up in the foreground in the relative scale of size to one another.

Categories
Astronomy

How Many Stars Can One See with the Naked Eye?

When you look up at the night sky in a place without light pollution, the view is magnificent: thousands of stars and the Milky Way galaxy offer a unique visual feast. But have you ever wondered how many stars you are looking at at that moment? How many stars can you see in the sky with the naked eye?