Thirty years after the first exoplanets were discovered, hundreds of additional exoplanets have been identified within the “habitable zone,” a place where liquid water and maybe even life may exist. The MIT Press Reader asks, could a self-sustaining starship carry humans to distant worlds? https://flip.it/0q093h
#Science #Space #SolarSystem #Planets #Humans #SpaceExploration
spaceexploration
New research on black holes suggests these enigmatic objects of the universe could actually be entirely different celestial entities known as gravastars. Live Science has more: https://flip.it/30YfFs
#Science #Space #BlackHoles #SpaceExploration
Very sad to hear of the passing of Ed Stone, who has died at the age of 88.
Best known perhaps as the project scientist from 1972 to 2022 for the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, & Neptune, Ed played a key role in the history of space science, including 10 years leading NASA JPL.
I met him at a space particle & fundamental physics conference at CERN in 2012, where I took these pictures. Originals: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjCM5rJJ
Ad astra, Ed ✨
On this day, in 1969, for the first time in thousands of years of human history, people walked on the surface of a celestial body that was not our world.
First, tentative steps out of the cradle by those who really did go where no-one has gone before...
"We came in peace, for all mankind"
#Apollo11 #Apollo #science #OTD #1969 #history #NASA #SpaceExploration
Poetry in motion 🌕🛰️🌏
A week ago today, ESA's Jupiter-bound JUICE mission was approaching Earth, a day after its close flyby of the Moon.
You'll have seen some of the monitoring camera shots that @stim3on & I processed, & here's the chaser: a timelapse of both flybys that I set to some brilliant music by Gautier Acher 🎶
The full 4K version has been released by ESA here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2024/08/Juice_s_lunar-Earth_flyby_the_movie/?1
Credit: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
#SpaceFlight #SpaceScience #SpaceExploration #Astrodon #Astronomy
Here you go, folks – the first image from last night's Mercury flyby by BepiColombo, ESA & JAXA's mission to our innermost planet.
The south pole is near the top of the image, right at the terminator between night & day, where there a some craters that never see sunlight & may even hold ice.
This is just a first teaser image – we'll be publishing some very exciting images from the closest part of the flyby later on today 🙂👍