The amazing video below is a showcase of spectacular imagery obtained by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Kaguya/SELENE spacecraft which orbited the Moon or a year and eight months and returned stunning views from its HDTV camera suite. A must-watch!
Category Archives: Space Exploration
The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst
Thomas Moynihan, University of Oxford It is 1950 and a group of scientists are walking to lunch against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. They are about to have a conversation that will become a scientific legend. The scientists are at the Los Alamos Ranch School, the site for the Manhattan Project, where each […]
In space, there really might be no place like home
Few topics in science command as much attention as the discovery of extrasolar planets – those as-yet-unseen worlds, light years beyond our own Sun. In the quest to learn whether we are alone in the cosmos, astronomers are teasing out subtle wobbles and periodic dimmings of distant stars: telltale signs that a planet, much too […]
A Year Along the Geostationary Orbit (Short Film)
Our beautiful yet fragile Earth from the Geostationary orbit. “A Year Along the Geostationary Orbit” is a 16-minute short film by the German engineer Felix Dierich. He used the Japanese weather satellite Himawari 8 data made publicly available by the Japanese and Australian governments to craft a timelapse while producing this amazing time-lapse of Earth […]
Terrascope: Turning Earth into a giant telescope
We can turn Earth into a giant telescope. According to a recent study titled “The ‘Terrascope’: On the Possibility of Using the Earth as an Atmospheric Lens”, published by David Kipping of Columbia University, our planet offers an opportunity for pronounced lensing.
LightSail 2 raised its orbit using sunlight alone
The Planetary Society has announced that the LightSail mission is a success and LightSail 2 just raised its orbit around Earth using sunlight alone on their Twitter account @exploreplanets.
How to build a moon base
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of Birmingham Half a century after humans first walked on the moon, a number of private companies and nations are planning to build permanent bases on the lunar surface. Despite the technological progress since the Apollo era, this will be extremely challenging. So how should you […]
Descending to the Moon: scientists reconstruct what Buzz Aldrin saw
“Tranquility Base here. The eagle has landed.” Neil Armstrong said so as the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC.
Moon landing anniversary: One small step for man… a giant leap for space robots
Robin Chhabra, Carleton University Apollo 11’s successful mission 50 years ago was the turning point in the space industry. It is comparable to the Wright brothers’ flight in 1903 that marked the beginning of the aviation industry and James Watt’s invention of steam engine, the landmark of the industrialization era. The first step on the […]
Where are the spacecraft and planets now? An amazing NASA animation
To see exactly where the spacecraft and the celestial bodies (planets and other astronomical objects) really are, right now, you can use NASA’s real-time, 3D solar system model.
