Category: Space Exploration

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Moon Landing Astrobiology Space Exploration

Moon Plants: Another historic first by China’s Lunar Lander

First moon plants (cropped)
First in human history: A cotton seed brought to the moon by China's Chang'e 4 probe has sprouted, the latest test photo has shown, marking the completion of humankind's first biological experiment on the moon. The photograph was taken January 7, 2019. Source: People's Daily, China on Twitter

Scientists from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) have confirmed that the seedlings taken to the far side of the moon with Chang’e 4 lunar lander have started sprouting. Or to put it another way: this is the first time something has grown on an astronomical body outside of the Earth! Now we have “moon plants”!

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Moon Landing Software Space Exploration Technology

Margaret Hamilton, the first software engineer [her code got humans on the moon!]

Margaret Hamilton standing next to Apollo 11 Code (cropped image)
Margaret Hamilton in 1969, lead software engineer of the Apollo Project, standing next to a huge stack of code she and her MIT team produced for the Apollo project. This is perhaps her most famous photo. Image source: Intel

Margaret Hamilton is not only one of the first software developers, but she also literally created the term “Software Engineering” to describe her work. The code she wrote successfully put humans on the moon for the first time.

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Earth from Space Space Exploration

First Flower Grown in Space

the first flower grown in space
Back in 2016, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared this beautiful photo showing the first flower grown in space (a zinnia flower) with our beautiful Earth in the background. This flowering crop experiment began on Nov. 16, 2015, when NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren activated the Veggie system and its rooting "pillows" containing zinnia seeds. The challenging process of growing the zinnias provided an exceptional opportunity for scientists back on Earth to better understand how plants grow in microgravity, and for astronauts to practice doing what they'll be tasked with on a deep space mission: autonomous gardening.

A beautiful photo showing the first flower grown in space (a zinnia flower) with our beautiful Earth in the background. Now retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly shared photographs of a blooming zinnia flower in the Veggie plant growth system aboard the International Space Station on his Twitter account back in 2016.

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Space Exploration Solar System

How far can Voyager 1 go before we lose contact?

Voyager 1 in Deep Space (Artist Conception)
Voyager 1 in Deep Space (Artist's Conception). Since the Voyager spacecraft are identical, it could be Voyager 2, as well. The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. California. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Image: NASA.gov

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?

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Space Exploration Mars

SpaceX Starhopper, Starship and Super Heavy Booster 3D Models Comparison

SpaceX Starhopper - Starship - Super Heavy booster - Falcon 9 3D comparison (cropped image)
SpaceX's Starhopper, Starship, Super Heavy booster, and Falcon 9 3D model comparison. Starhopper is the miniaturized version of SpaceX's super-heavy launch vehicle, which is known as the Starship (previously known as the BFS - Big Falcon Spaceship or Big Fragging Spaceship). Starship will be SpaceX's interplanetary spaceship, which will take people to and from Mars and beyond (according to the American company). Super Heavy booster, (previously known as the BFR - Big Falcon Rocket or Big Fragging Rocket) will be the powerhouse behind these two spaceships which launch them into space. Starhopper and Starship will be stainless steel (if you spent enough time around cyclists you might have heard the phrase "steel is real"). Super Heavy may yet be built mostly out of carbon fiber, since it won't reach orbit and will instead land back on or near its launchpad for reuse. In the last model, the Spaceship is attached atop the Super Heavy booster. Falcon 9 is a two-stage-to-orbit medium lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is 70 m (230 ft) in height and 3.7 m (12 ft) in diameter. Unlike most rockets, which are expendable launch systems, Falcon 9 is partially reusable, with the first stage capable of re-entering the atmosphere and landing back vertically after separating from the second stage. This feat was achieved for the first time on flight 20 with the v1.2 version in December 2015. Falcon 9 can lift payloads of up to 22,800 kilograms (50,300 lb) to low Earth orbit, 8,300 kg (18,300 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) when expended, and 5,500 kg (12,100 lb) to GTO when the first stage is recovered. Image: Kimi Talvitie

Finnish 3D artist Kimi Talvitie has made some really impressive 3D models of SpaceX’s stainless steel Starhopper (the shorter test vehicle of Starship), Starship (previously known as the BFS – Big Fragging Spaceship) and Super Heavy booster (previously known as the BFR – Big Fragging Rocket) and published them on his Twitter account. They are amazing!

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Space Exploration

SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon on the launchpad

SpaceX Crew Dragon on the Launchpad
SpaceX's first Crew Dragon, which will carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) is on the launchpad with the new astronaut walkway ahead of the first major test flight. The spacecraft is designed to carry up to seven astronauts to and from the low Earth orbit (LEO). It will launch on the company's reliable Falcon 9 rocket, like the uncrewed Dragon cargo ship. It will use parachutes to splash down in the ocean, also like the uncrewed Dragon.

A beautiful photo! SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon, which will carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) is on the launchpad with the new astronaut walkway ahead of the first major test flight.

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Physics Space Exploration

Astronauts demonstrate Newton’s second and third laws of motion

Astronaut demonstrates Newton's third law of motion
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei demonstrates Newton’s Third Law of Motion on the International Space Station by exhibiting an equal and opposite force pair. What are some examples of equal and opposite force pairs on earth and in space? The third law states that for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, if object A exerts a force on object B, then object B also exerts an equal force on object A. Notice that the forces are exerted on different objects. The third law can be used to explain the generation of lift by a wing and the production of thrust by a jet engine.

A microgravity environment is a perfect place to demonstrate basic physics, i.e. Newton’s laws of motion. In the videos published by the NASA Johnson channel, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) just do that.

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Space Exploration Astronomy Solar System

486958 Arrokoth image against a starry background

Ultima Thule (cropped image)
An Ultima Thule image in original context against a starry background (i.e., not zoomed in).

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).

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Moon Landing Earth from Space Space Exploration

China Puts Chang’e 4 Lander on the Far-Side of the Moon!

The first photos from the Chang'e 4 lunar lander and rover
Chang'e-4 lands on the Moon and sends back first images. China's lunar mission (lander and rover) landed in the Von Kármán Crater, located in the Aitken Basin, in the South Pole region on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019, at 02:26 UTC (10:26 Beijing time). The Chang'e-4 lunar mission was launched by a Long March-3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province, southwest China, on 7 December 2018, at 18:23 UTC (8 December at 02:23 local time). Image Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)

Today, on January 3, 2019, China’s lunar lander and rover Chang’e 4 achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon in the history of humanity’s space exploration. It’s a space feat no nation or space agency (including NASA) has accomplished until now.

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Space Exploration Moon Landing

For All Moonkind [Messages of Peace]

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon (cropped)
Moon Landing: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, stands on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module, Eagle, during the Apollo 11 moonwalk. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, mission commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the lunar module to explore the Sea of Tranquility, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained in lunar orbit with the Command and Service Module, Columbia.
This is the actual photograph as exposed on the moon by Armstrong. He held the camera slightly rotated so that the camera frame did not include the top of Aldrin's portable life support system ("backpack").
A communications antenna mounted on top of the backpack is also cut off in this picture. When the image was released to the public, it was rotated clockwise to restore the astronaut to vertical for a more harmonious composition, and a black area was added above his head to recreate the missing black lunar "sky" (Related: Why there are no stars in space photos?). The edited version is the one most commonly reproduced and known to the public, but the original version, above, is the authentic exposure. This image was cataloged by NASA Headquarters of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: AS11-40-5903. Image: Wikipedia

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to walk on the moon. After more than ​21 1⁄2 hours on the lunar surface, in addition to the scientific instruments, they left behind an Apollo 1 mission patch (see notes 1) and a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace and a silicon message disk.

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