Category: Space
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Explore the incredible crater of Australia’s Gosses Bluff
Gosses Bluff is an eroded crater remnant in central Australia formed from an asteroid or comet collision during the earliest Cretaceous period, 142 million years ago. The 3-mile wide crater was originally believed to be 12 miles in diameter before natural erosion took its course. The aboriginal Western Arrernte were the first to recognize the […]
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Meet the first flower grown entirely in space, a zinnia flower
“The earth laughs in flowers,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in Nature and Selected Essays. We, humans, spend our entire lives blistering through space on a giant rock we call Earth with flowers in abundance. It is fascinating to know that we too can pollinate the cosmos. NASA astronaut and American engineer Scott Kelly captured the […]
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What cities look like at night without electricity
In his series Villes éteintes (Darkened Cities), French photographer Thierry Cohen imagines the world’s biggest cities at night without urban light. Cohen uses a special exposure technique called day for night which enables him to capture the cities in the daytime but increases darkness levels. Then, he combines the city skylines into the backdrop of […]
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Mysterious metal monolith found in remote Utah desert
As if 2020 couldn’t get any weirder, the Utah Department of Public Safety stumbled upon a mysterious shiny monolith among red rocks in the remote Utah desert. The crew spotted the “unusual object” during a routine flyover to survey the area for bighorn sheep. In a public statement issued on Tuesday, Utah officials announced that they’re keeping […]
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NASA and ESA capture closest images of the sun ever taken
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have snapped the closest pictures ever taken of the sun. The images, taken nearly 48 million miles away from the sun’s surface by the Solar Orbiter probe (launched February 9), reveal countless tiny flares which scientists have called “campfires.” Scientists hope that these never-before seen exterior shots will […]
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Take a look back at NASA’s true-color view of Pluto
On this day in 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft gave us the first look at Pluto’s dynamic planetary body. The flyby images capture a world with ice mountains, nitrogen glaciers, and hauntingly beautiful blues hazes in the dwarf planet’s atmosphere. Writes NASA in its love letter to Pluto, the farthest world in our solar system: […]
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Friday’s ‘Strawberry Moon’ is the sixth Full Moon of the year
In what will be the sixth full moon of the year, the Strawberry Moon will bring a penumbral lunar eclipse. The term “Strawberry Moon” originates from the berries that harvest in North America in June. Other names include the Rose Moon, Hot Moon, Mead Moon, and Honey Moon. A penumbral eclipse occurs when the Earth’s […]
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The evolution of the spacesuit
As spacesuit design continues to become thinner, intricate, and more dynamic — there are touchscreen sensitive gloves, an attached helmet and built-in ventilation in the latest uniform — it’s worth looking at how both US and Russian spacesuits have evolved over time. Start by looking at the original suit (the Marshmallow Moon-Suit) designed for the moon mission […]
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What the northern lights look like from a U-2 spy plane at 70,000ft.
U-2 pilot and instructor and avid photographer Ross Franquemont took these snaps of the spectacular aurora borealis — or, northern lights, while flying the legendary U-2 spycraft. “I had no idea how fast the aurora moved and changed. It danced around, changing shape several times a second. That made it a challenge for the photographer […]
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See the sharpest movie of the sun ever made, with each plasma cell the size of Texas
The sun is about 93,000,000 miles away from Earth. The sun’s light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, in total taking just 8 minutes to reach us. The National Solar Observatory (NSO) has brought us the sharpest view of the sun we’ve seen yet using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. Each […]
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Breathtaking views of the Earth from the International Space Station
Ever wanted to see Planet Earth from 248 miles away? That’s how high the International Space Station orbits above the earth, which is about the same distance as New York to Washington DC, or London to Durham. Thanks to these epic views of our planet from the International Space Station in the thermosphere, now you […]
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Nasa unveils Pumpkin sun just in time for Halloween
Just in time for Halloween, NASA has posted a photo of the sun that looks like a massive flaming jack-o’-lantern. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shot the photo earlier this month. The fiery slits in the image reveal the most active parts of the sun. Writes NASA: Active regions on the sun combined to look something […]