Our Planet

Kessler Syndrome: Space junk can end space exploration [and destroy the modern way of life]

Kessler Syndrome: Explosions of satellites and rocket bodies

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first human-made object to orbit Earth. This event marks the beginning of humanity’s space exploration history. After that, humanity went to the moon, astronauts and cosmonauts performed countless spacewalks, and since the arrival of Expedition 1 on November 2, 2000, the International Space Station station has been continuously occupied. To date, this is the longest continuous human presence in space, having surpassed the previous record of 9 years and 357 days held by Mir.

But, maybe even more important, we launched thousands of artificial satellites into the Earth’s orbit. These artificial satellites shape our modern life: weather forecasts, broadcasting, communication, and GPS are just a few examples. But, there’s a side effect: just like here on the Earth, we are slowly filling the most important part just above us, with junk. And this junk can end space exploration, and destroy our modern way of life. This (very possible) scenario known as the Kessler Syndrome, proposed by the American astrophysicist and former NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978.

Spacewalker [Story of the First Spacewalk – Movie]

I recently watched the 2017 Russian film “The Spacewalker”. It tells the story of humanity’s first spacewalk. On March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov stepped out of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft into the void of space and became the first spacewalker ever.

Why it’s only science that can answer all the big questions

Science has proved itself to be a reliable way to approach all kinds of questions about the physical world. As a scientist, I am led to wonder whether its ability to provide understanding is unlimited. Can it in fact answer all the great questions, the ‘big questions of being’, that occur to us?

Albert Square, Manchester [Historical Painting vs Contemporary Photo]

Albert Square, Manchester: an old painting and a contemporary photo

Two images, two different times, almost the same composition: Albert Square – a public square in the center of Manchester, England; on the left, as depicted in a 1910 oil painting by the French impressionist painter Adolphe Valette (13 October 1876 – 1942). The Albert Memorial (left) and Gladstone statue (right) can be seen in the foreground. On the right a photo of the same spot in 2018. In the contemporary photo, there’s a taxi iğnstead of the horse cart in the old painting. And in both images, a man pushing a handcart at the exact same spot, and a horse carriage/car parked in front of the Albert Memorial. Beautiful.

Lunar Landmarks meets Debussy’s “Moonlight” in this Amazing NASA Video

NASA has published an amazing video titled “Moonlight (Clair de Lune)”, which attempts to capture the mood of the French composer Claude Debussy’s (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) best-known composition, Clair de Lune (moonlight in French).

A cosmonaut’s view, just after launching a tiny satellite into the orbit

Cosmonauts deliver a tiny satellite from the ISS (August 15, 2018)

On August 15, 2018, two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station performed one of the longest spacewalks in the history of space exploration. During the spacewalk lasting 7 hours and 46 minutes, Expedition 56 Flight Engineers Sergey Prokopyev and Oleg Artemyev manually launched four small technology satellites and installed a German-led animal-tracking project named Icarus onto the Russian segment of the space station. Two of the satellites were only the size of tissue boxes.

Life on the Moon? New study suggests there was a habitability window 4 billion years ago

The Moon is completely uninhabitable and lifeless today – a dusty, dry rock. It has no atmosphere, there is no liquid water on the surface, and, maybe most important, it has no magnetosphere to protect its surface from solar wind and cosmic radiation. But, according to a new study published in Astrobiology, it may have looked quite different around four billion years ago: its surface was not as dry as it is today, and conditions to support simple life on the Moon existed twice during the early years.

We have an ethical obligation to relieve individual animal suffering

Last winter, unforgettable video footage online showed a starving polar bear, struggling in its Arctic hunting grounds. Because of global warming, the ice was thin and the food supply was scarce. The video generated a wellspring of sympathy for the plight of this poor creature, and invigorated calls for stronger efforts to combat climate change – and rightly so.

Such advocacy on behalf of wildlife usually focuses on species and the effects of human-caused climate change on their survival and wellbeing as the ecosystems on which they depend undergo drastic changes. Thus, we should act to save the polar bear – that is, the polar bear species – by doing what we can to preserve its natural ecosystem. I am fully behind this kind of advocacy. Anybody who cares about the future of our planet and its occupants should be.

Hồ Thuỷ Tiên, an abandoned water park in Vietnam

The dragon of Hồ Thuỷ Tiên abandoned water park (featured image)

Hồ Thuỷ Tiên is an abandoned water park in Vietnam. It was built in 2004 in an edge of the Vietnamese city of Huế, to the tune of approximately $3 million dollars. The idea was to create a family water park with amusement rides, slides, pools, shows, and an aquarium. But when the park opened its gates to the public, it was only partially completed.

After its opening, an excited population of park-goers began flocking to the park. But, somehow, it wasn’t enough. Within just a few years after its opening, the business started to experience financial problems. It closed not too long afterward and everything that had been built on the site had just been left as it was.

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will scan the skies for asteroids that threaten Earth

Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid (or a comet) with a diameter of at least 10 kilometers (6 miles) impacted a few miles from the present-day town of Chicxulub in Mexico at around 64,000 kilometers per hour (40,000 mph). The impact triggered a chain of events what is known today as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, also known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction, and wiped out three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs.

If this Chicxulub impactor happened today, it would wipe out human civilization. Luckily, events like Chicxulub impact are rare. Asteroids with a 1 km (0.62 mi) diameter strike Earth every 500,000 years on average. But that doesn’t mean we are totally safe. Asteroids with a diameter of at least 140 meters (460 ft) are big enough to cause regional devastation to human settlements unprecedented in human history in the case of a land impact or a major tsunami in the case of an ocean impact.