When a meteoroid hits Earth, it’s not because the space rock has “fallen out of” its orbit. It’s because its orbit crosses over Earth’s orbit at the exact right (or wrong) moment.
Category Archives: Solar System
5 space probes leaving the solar system (for now)
As of 2019, only five space probes are leaving the solar system: Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons. The Voyagers already left the solar system and entered interstellar space (Voyager 1 on August 25, 2012, and Voyager 2 on November 5, 2018. The others also will leave the heliosphere (see …
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Speed of Light [perfect visual explanations]
The speed of light is the Universal speed limit – nothing can travel faster than light. In the vacuum (commonly denoted c), its exact value is 299,792,458 meters per second (around 186,000 miles per second). In other words, if you could travel at the speed of light, you could go around the Earth 7.5 times …
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Voyager 1: How far can it 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 …
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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?
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).
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.
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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