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…
Houston: ISS, this is Houston, we’re good-to-go on your return to Earth. Please make your way to the Soyuz capsule and get yourselves comfortable. ISS: Houston, this is ISS. Listen, we’ve had a bit of a chinwag up here. Basically, we’re thinking of extending our…
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…
