The UAE Space Agency’s Hope probe has reached Mars, slowed and adjusted it’s trajectory and entered into a wide orbit around the red planet. This is the first image it sent back to Earth, with the solar system’s largest volcano – Olympus Mons – emerging…
As I dialled in and focussed the view finder, Mars began to form with increasing clarity in my eye. It’s red and barren landscape giving up stories which detail millions upon millions of years of history. And as I was able to track the red…
The first captured glance of another solar system that is, at least in part, similar to our own. Although astronomers have long glimpsed at other stars, many have very few planets orbiting them, often perhaps only one. Or those that have multiple planets, but orbiting…
The Day The Earth Smiled is named for July 19th, 2013, when NASA asked the Cassini space probe to turn around and capture part of Saturn’s rings and planet Earth during a solar eclipse. Much like with the Voyager mission capturing the Pale Blue Dot…
NASA’s flight plan for Apollo 11 from 1969. In itself, a beautiful work of art, only made more impressive by what it represents. And moreso remastered.
The original title of this was What Does 239,000 Miles Look Like?, but as with just about everything I write, it sort of evolved from being a simple question to wondering about the sheer scale of distances involved in our solar system. It is often…
This image of Earth is one of 60 frames taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14th, 1990 from a distance of more than 6 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In the image the Earth is…