Our Planet

Kepler-90i, the 8th Planet Orbiting a Distant Star was Discovered [using AI and Kepler data]

Using data from the exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope and a machine learning algorithm from Google, researchers discovered an 8th planet orbiting a distant star. The newly discovered planet is circling Kepler-90, a G-type main-sequence star (Sun-like star), 2,545 light-years from Earth. It is named Kepler-90i.

According to the press release from NASA, Kepler-90i is “a sizzling hot, rocky planet that orbits its star once every 14.4 days“. In this case, computers using Google’s machine learning algorithm, “learned” to identify planets by finding in Kepler data instances where the telescope recorded signals from planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets.

Apollo 17: The Last Mission to the Moon [in Real-Time!]

For the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission, NASA has published a website called “Apollo 17 in Real-time. The Last Mission to the Moon – A real-time journey through the Apollo 17 mission”. You can see the events in real-time either joining at 1 minute before the launch or in progress.

On the website apollo17.org, you can access over 300 hours of audio, over 22 hours of video, and over 4,200 photos, and relive every moment as it occurred in 1972.

An Island Forming in Tonga [Amazing Time-lapse]

In December 2014, an underwater volcano has made a new island with a 120-meter (400-foot) summit in the South Pacific, between two older islands (Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai) in the kingdom of Tonga. NASA satellites captured the amazing process.

On December 19, 2014, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, a volcano located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south-southeast of Fonuafo’ou (also known as Falcon Island) in the kingdom of Tonga began erupting. The nearby tourists filmed the huge explosion.

The eruption continued into 2015. On January 11, 2015, a tall ash cloud rose 9 kilometers (30,000 feet) into the sky, causing a number of other flights between New Zealand and Tonga to be canceled. By January 16, when the plume cleared and the ash settled, a new island had been formed by the explosion. The new island is also called Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai.

NASA’s 2017 Highlights

Orion spacecraft and Earthrise from the Moon

NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has published a video that contains highlights of important events and the space agency’s achievements over the year 2017.

The historic Apollo mission control room is set to be fully restored by the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing

The historic Apollo mission control room in Houston is set to be fully restored by the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission in July 2019. It will provide a snapshot of how it looked during the Moon landing on July 20, 1969.

ISS night pass from Seattle down to Baja [meteor at the 30th second (video)]

ISS Night pass over the North America (December 9, 2017)

The commander of Expedition 53 (the 53rd expedition to the International Space Station), NASA astronaut Randy “Komrade” Bresnik has published a breathtakingly beautiful video on his Twitter account. The video shows the International Space Station (ISS) night pass from Seattle down to Baja. What’s more, you can even see a meteor in the video, at the 30th second!

The Rise of 2017 Supermoon from the ISS (Video)

2017 supermoon rise from ISS (Randy Bresnik)

On Sunday, December 3, there was a Supermoon, the Moon was at its closest point (for 2017) to Earth while it was also a full moon. A series of nighttime photos were taken by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Paolo Nespoli to create this time-lapse of the Earth as seen from the International Space Station and the 2017 Supermoon rising above the horizon.

Voyager 1 Fired Up its Thrusters for the first Time in 37 Years

Voyager 1 in Deep Space (Artist Conception)

On Tuesday, November 28, 2017, a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up for the first time since November 1980, after 37 years without use.

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Having operated for more than 40 years as of December 4, 2017, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of 141 AU (see notes 1) (2.11×10¹⁰ km) or approximately 13 billion miles (21 billion km) from the Sun as of November 22, 2017, it is NASA’s farthest and fastest spacecraft. It is also the only human-made object in interstellar space, within the environment between the stars.

What is a Supermoon and when is the next one?

The Moon follows an elliptic orbit around Earth. Naturally, sometimes it gets closer to the Earth than the other times. When it’s also full moon at its closest point to the Earth, it’s called Supermoon. As a result, the moon appears larger and brighter than usual in the sky.

The counterpart of a supermoon is called Micromoon. A Supermoon looks around 12% to 14% bigger (in diameter) than the Micromoon.

National Ice Core Laboratory Stores Valuable Ancient Ice

Scientists working in the National Ice Core Laboratory

The US government keeps a massive archive of ancient ice inside the National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) in Denver, Colorado. This ice could hold important information about Earth and its climate throughout its history.