Category Archives: Space Exploration

Sputnik 1: the 62nd anniversary of humanity’s space exploration

On October 4, 1957, the first artificial satellite. Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union. Thus, began the space age. It orbited the Earth until January 4, 1958. Sputnik made 1440 orbits and traveled about 70 million kilometers (43 million miles). The successful launch shocked the world, according to NASA, and giving the former […]

Wandering Earth: rocket scientist explains how we could move our planet

Matteo Ceriotti, University of Glasgow In the Chinese science fiction film The Wandering Earth, recently released on Netflix, humanity attempts to change the Earth’s orbit using enormous thrusters in order to escape the expanding sun – and prevent a collision with Jupiter. The scenario may one day come true. In five billion years, the sun […]

What Earth’s changing climate can teach us about altering the surface of Mars

Gareth Dorrian, University of Birmingham and Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University In a rare instance of environmental success, the United Nations has just announced it believes the damage to the Earth’s protective ozone layer will be fully restored by the year 2050. This stands in stark contrast to the increasing alarm over the climate emergency, […]

Expedition 61 Launch from the ISS – an amazing view

American astronaut Christina H. Koch shot an amazing view of the Expedition 61 launch from the International Space Station (ISS). Koch tweeted: “What it looks like from @Space_Station when your best friend achieves her lifelong dream to go to space. Caught the second stage in progress! We can’t wait to welcome you onboard, the crew […]

Amazing imagery from JAXA Kaguya/SELENE Lunar Orbiter

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!

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.