Portal:Outer space
Introduction
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, neutrinos, dust, and cosmic rays. The baseline temperature of outer space, as set by the background radiation from the Big Bang, is 2.7255 kelvins (−270.4245 °C; −454.7641 °F) +/-0.002 K. The plasma between galaxies is thought to account for about half of the baryonic (ordinary) matter in the universe, having a number density of less than one hydrogen atom per cubic metre and a temperature of millions of kelvins. Local concentrations of matter have condensed into stars and galaxies. Studies indicate that 90% of the mass in most galaxies is in an unknown form, called dark matter, which interacts with other matter through gravitational but not electromagnetic forces. Observations suggest that the majority of the mass-energy in the observable universe is dark energy, a type of vacuum energy that is poorly understood. Intergalactic space takes up most of the volume of the universe, but even galaxies and star systems consist almost entirely of empty space.
Outer space does not begin at a definite altitude above the Earth's surface. The Kármán line, an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) above sea level, is conventionally used as the start of outer space in space treaties and for aerospace records keeping. The framework for international space law was established by the Outer Space Treaty, which entered into force on 10 October 1967. This treaty precludes any claims of national sovereignty and permits all states to freely explore outer space. Despite the drafting of UN resolutions for the peaceful uses of outer space, anti-satellite weapons have been tested in Earth orbit.
Humans began the physical exploration of space during the 20th century with the advent of high-altitude balloon flights. This was followed by crewed rocket flights and, then, crewed Earth orbit, first achieved by Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union in 1961. Due to the high cost of getting into space, human spaceflight has been limited to low Earth orbit and the Moon. On the other hand, uncrewed spacecraft have reached all of the known planets in the Solar System.
Outer space represents a challenging environment for human exploration because of the hazards of vacuum and radiation. Microgravity also has a negative effect on human physiology that causes both muscle atrophy and bone loss. In addition to these health and environmental issues, the economic cost of putting objects, including humans, into space is very high. (Full article...)
Selected article
Black Arrow was a British satellite carrier rocket. Developed during the 1960s, it was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971. Its final flight was the first successful orbital launch to be conducted by the United Kingdom, and placed the Prospero satellite into low Earth orbit. Black Arrow originated from studies by the Royal Aircraft Establishment for carrier rockets based on the Black Knight rocket, with the project being authorized in 1964. It was initially developed by Saunders-Roe, and later Westland Aircraft as the result of a merger. Black Arrow was a three-stage rocket, fueled by RP-1 paraffin and high test peroxide, a concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide. It was retired after only four launches in favor of using American Scout rockets, which the Ministry of Defense calculated to be cheaper than maintaining the Black Arrow programme.
Selected picture
Credit: William Anders"Earthrise," the first occasion in which humans saw the Earth seemingly rising above the surface of the Moon, taken during the Apollo 8 mission on December 24, 1968. This view was seen by the crew at the beginning of its fourth orbit around the Moon, although the very first photograph taken was in black-and-white. Note that the Earth is in shadow here. A photo of a fully lit Earth would not be taken until the Apollo 17 mission.
Photo: Yuri Beletsky, ESOA laser shoots towards the centre of the Milky Way from the Very Large Telescope facility in Chile, to provide a laser guide star, a reference point in the sky for the telescope's adaptive optics (AO) system. AO technology improves the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of atmospheric distortion. AO was first envisioned by Horace W. Babcock in 1953, but did not come into common usage until advances in computer technology during the 1990s made the technique practical.
NGC 4414 is an unbarred spiral galaxy about 62 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It is a flocculent spiral galaxy, with short segments of spiral structure but without the dramatic well-defined spiral arms of a grand design spiral. NGC 4414 is a very isolated galaxy, with no signs of past interactions with other galaxies.
Credit: NASAThis Supernova remnant of Kepler's Supernova (SN 1604) is made up of the materials left behind by the gigantic explosion of a star. There are two possible routes to this end: either a massive star may cease to generate fusion energy in its core, and collapse inward under the force of its own gravity, or a white dwarf star may accumulate material from a companion star until it reaches a critical mass and undergoes a similar collapse. In either case, the resulting supernova explosion expels much or all of the stellar material with great force.
Image: Tom RuenAn animation of the phases of the Moon. As the Moon revolves around the Earth, the Sun lights the Moon from a different side, creating the different phases. In the image, the Moon appears to get bigger as well as "wobble" slightly. Tidal locking synchronizes the Moon's rotation period on its axis to match its orbital period around the earth. These two periods nearly cancel each other out, except that the Moon's orbit is elliptical. This causes its orbital motion to speed up when closer to the Earth, and slow down when farther away, causing the Moon's apparent diameter to change, as well as the wobbling motion observed.
Image credit: SeavAn animated image showing the apparent retrograde motion of Mars in 2003 as seen from Earth. All the true planets appear to periodically switch direction as they cross the sky. Because Earth completes its orbit in a shorter period of time than the planets outside its orbit, we periodically overtake them, like a faster car on a multi-lane highway. When this occurs, the planet will first appear to stop its eastward drift, and then drift back toward the west. Then, as Earth swings past the planet in its orbit, it appears to resume its normal motion west to east.
An animated view of Voyager I's approach to Jupiter. One frame of this image was taken each Jupiter day (approximately 10 hours) between January 6 and February 9, 1979, as the space probe flew from 58 million to 31 million kilometers from Jupiter during that time. The small, round, dark spots appearing in some frames are the shadows cast by the moons passing between Jupiter and the Sun, while the small, white flashes around the planet, are the moons themselves.
Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of ArizonaThe Helix Nebula is a large planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, probably before 1824, it is one of the closest to Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae, about 215 parsecs (700 light-years) away. It is similar in appearance to the Cat's Eye Nebula and the Ring Nebula.- A TRACE image of sunspots on the surface, or photosphere, of the sun from September 2002, is taken in the far ultraviolet on a relatively quiet day for solar activity. However, the image still shows a large sunspot group visible as a bright area near the horizon. Although sunspots are relatively cool regions on the surface of the sun, the bright glowing gas flowing around the sunspots have a temperature of over one million °C (1.8 million °F). The high temperatures are thought to be related to the rapidly changing magnetic field loops that channel solar plasma.
Mercury is the smallest and closest to the Sun of the eight planets in the Solar System. It has no known natural satellites. The planet is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger to the gods.
Photograph: NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA), and The Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble CollaborationAn image of NGC 4449, highlighting its qualities as a starburst galaxy. NGC 4449, an irregular galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici located about 12 million light years from Earth, has a rate of star formation twice that of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Interactions with nearby galaxies are thought to have influenced this star formation.
Credit: NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar ObservatoryThe Pleiades (also known as M45 or the Seven Sisters) is an open cluster in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest to the Earth of all open clusters, probably the best known and certainly the most striking to the naked eye.
Six beryllium mirror segments of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) undergoing a series of cryogenic tests at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The JWST is a planned space telescope that is a joint collaboration of 20 countries. It will orbit the Sun approximately 1,500,000 km (930,000 mi) beyond the Earth, around the L2 Lagrange point. It is expected to launch in December 2021.
Photograph: Ken CrawfordNGC 4565 (also known as the Needle Galaxy) is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. NGC 4565 is a giant spiral galaxy more luminous than the Andromeda Galaxy, and has a population of roughly 240 globular clusters, more than the Milky Way.
Credit: NASAA Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is a jet pack (propulsion backpack that snaps onto the back of the space suit) which has been used on untethered spacewalks from NASA's Space Shuttle, allowing an astronaut to move independently from the shuttle. The MMU was used on three Shuttle missions in 1984. It was first tested on February 7 during mission STS-41-B by astronauts Bruce McCandless II (seen here) and Robert L. Stewart.
Credit: NASAExtra-vehicular activity (EVA) is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth and outside of his or her spacecraft. EVAs may be made outside a craft orbiting Earth (a spacewalk) or on the surface of the Moon (a moonwalk). Shown here is Steve Robinson on the first EVA to perform an in-flight repair of the Space Shuttle (August 3 2005).
Map credit: Ignace-Gaston PardiesIgnace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) was a French Catholic priest and scientist. His celestial atlas, entitled Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio, comprised six charts of the night sky and was first published in 1674. The atlas uses a gnomonic projection so that the plates make up a cube of the celestial sphere. The constellation figures are drawn from Uranometria, but were carefully reworked and adapted to a broader view of the sky. This is the second plate from a 1693 edition of Pardies's atlas, featuring constellations including Pegasus and Andromeda, visible in the northern sky.
NASA astronaut Robert Curbeam (left) and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang participate in STS-116's first of three planned sessions of extra-vehicular activity (EVA) as construction resumes on the International Space Station. The landmasses depicted in the background are the South Island (left) and North Island (right) of New Zealand.
Image credit: United States Geological SurveyA composite image of Olympus Mons on Mars, the tallest known volcano and mountain in the Solar System. This image was created from black-and-white imagery from the USGS's Mars Global Digital Image Mosaic and color imagery acquired from the 1978 visit of Viking 1.
Photo credit: Spirit roverA 360° panorama taken during the descent from the summit of Husband Hill, one of the Columbia Hills in Gusev crater, Mars. This stitched image is composed of 405 individual images taken with five different filters on the panoramic camera over the course of five Martian days.
The Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation. It was discovered in the late 1700s. It is about 28 million light years away and is just faint enough to be invisible to the naked eye but easily visible with small telescopes. In our sky, it is about one-fifth the diameter of the full moon. M104 is moving away from Earth at about 1,000 kilometers per second.
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Space news
- April 7: NASA's helicopter Ingenuity survives its first night at Mars
- December 25: 'Earth-based life can survive in hydrogen-rich atmospheres': MIT professor Dr Seager tells Wikinews about her research on organisms thriving in oxygen-less environment
- July 7: Astronomer Anthony Boccaletti discusses observation of birth of potential exoplanet with Wikinews
- May 31: SpaceX successfully launches its first crewed spaceflight
- May 22: Astronomer tells Wikinews about discovery of closest black hole known so far
- October 12: Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov dies at age 85
- October 10: Swedish academy announces 2019 Nobel Prize winners in physics
- September 14: Astronomers find water vapour in atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b
- March 5: SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docks with International Space Station
- January 9: Simple animals could live in Martian brines: Wikinews interviews planetary scientist Vlada Stamenković
- November 29: NASA's InSight Lander makes it to Mars
- October 12: Manned Soyuz space mission aborts during launch
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Upcoming spaceflight launches
General images
Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer image NGC 1952 (from Space exploration)
A MESSENGER image from 18,000 km showing a region about 500 km across (2008) (from Space exploration)
2008 launch of the SM-3 missile used to destroy American reconnaissance satellite USA-193
The United States' planned Space Launch System concept art (from Space exploration)
Smooth chondrite interplanetary dust particle. (from Cosmic dust)
Spatial density of LEO space debris by altitude, according to 2011 a NASA report to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (from Space debris)
Tupan Patera on Io(from Space exploration)
Self-portrait of Curiosity rover on Mars's surface (from Space exploration)
Map showing the Sun located near the edge of the Local Interstellar Cloud and Alpha Centauri about 4 light-years away in the neighboring G-Cloud complex (from Interstellar medium)
Spatial density of space debris by altitude according to ESA MASTER-2001, without debris from the Chinese ASAT and 2009 collision events (from Space debris)
The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) is an important source of information on small-particle space debris. (from Space debris)
Debris impacts on Mir's solar panels degraded their performance. The damage is most noticeable on the panel on the right, which is facing the camera with a high degree of contrast. Extensive damage to the smaller panel below is due to impact with a Progress spacecraft. (from Space debris)
Aurora australis observed from the Space Shuttle Discovery, on STS-39, May 1991 (orbital altitude: 260 km)
Zodiacal light caused by cosmic dust. (from Cosmic dust)
Gabbard diagram of almost 300 pieces of debris from the disintegration of the five-month-old third stage of the Chinese Long March 4 booster on 11 March 2000 (from Space debris)
A dusty trail from the early Solar System to carbonaceous dust today. (from Cosmic dust)
The Blue Marble Earth picture taken during Apollo 17 (1972) (from Space exploration)
Orbit of 2020 SO (from Space debris)
A picture of Saturn taken by Cassini (2004) (from Space exploration)
MESSENGER image of Mercury (2013) (from Space exploration)
Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked. (from Space climate)
Vanguard 1 is expected to remain in orbit for 240 years. (from Space debris)
Buzz Aldrin and Apollo 11's lunar lander on the Moon's surface (from Space exploration)
Saudi officials inspect a crashed PAM-D module in January 2001. (from Space debris)
This is an artist's concept of the metric expansion of space, where a volume of the Universe is represented at each time interval by the circular sections. At left is depicted the rapid inflation from the initial state, followed thereafter by steadier expansion to the present day, shown at right. (from Outer space)
Cosmic dust of the Andromeda Galaxy as revealed in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
The original Magdeburg hemispheres (lower left) used to demonstrate Otto von Guericke's vacuum pump (right)
Atmospheric attenuation in dB/km as a function of frequency over the EHF band. Peaks in absorption at specific frequencies are a problem, due to atmosphere constituents such as water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). (from Interstellar medium)
Part of the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image showing a typical section of space containing galaxies interspersed by deep vacuum. Given the finite speed of light, this view covers the past 13 billion years of the history of outer space.
V-2 Rocket in the Peenemünde Museum (from Space exploration)
Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51) (from Space exploration)
Comet 103P/Hartley (2010) (from Space exploration)
Surface of Mars by the Spirit rover (2004) (from Space exploration)
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin had a personal Communion service when he first arrived on the surface of the Moon. (from Space exploration)
Delta-v's in km/s for various orbital maneuvers (from Space exploration)
Large scale matter distribution in a cubic section of the universe. The blue fiber structures represent the matter and the empty regions in between represent the cosmic voids of the intergalactic medium. (from Outer space)
Objects in Earth orbit including fragmentation debris. November 2020 NASA:ODPO (from Space debris)
Space Shuttle Discovery's lower starboard wing and Thermal Protection System tiles, photographed on STS-114 during an R-Bar Pitch Manoeuvre where astronauts examine the TPS for any damage during ascent (from Space debris)
Apollo CSM in lunar orbit (from Space exploration)
Asteroid 4 Vesta, imaged by the Dawn spacecraft (2011) (from Space exploration)
Most orbital flight actually takes place in upper layers of the atmosphere, especially in the thermosphere (not to scale) (from Space exploration)
New Horizons image of Pluto (2015) (from Space exploration)
Voyager 1 is the first artificial object to reach the interstellar medium. (from Interstellar medium)
Cosmic dust of the Horsehead Nebula as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
Mariner 10 image of Venus (1974) (from Space exploration)
A proposed timeline of the origin of space, from physical cosmology (from Outline of space science)
Space Shuttle Endeavour had a major impact on its radiator during STS-118. The entry hole is about 5.5 mm (0.22 in), and the exit hole is twice as large. (from Space debris)
The Moon as seen in a digitally processed image from data collected during the 1992 Galileo spacecraft flyby (from Space exploration)
A view beneath the clouds of Titan, as seen in false colour, created from a mosaic of images taken by Cassini (2013) (from Space exploration)
Baker-Nunn cameras were widely used to study space debris. (from Space debris)
Crew quarters on Zvezda the base ISS crew module (from Space exploration)
A laser-guided observation of the Milky Way Galaxy at the Paranal Observatory in Chile in 2010 (from Outline of space science)
Bow shock formed by the magnetosphere of the young star LL Orionis (center) as it collides with the Orion Nebula flow
A drifting thermal blanket photographed in 1998 during STS-88. (from Space debris)
Three-dimensional structure in Pillars of Creation. (from Interstellar medium)
Herbig–Haro object HH 110 ejects gas through interstellar space. (from Interstellar medium)
Known orbit planes of Fengyun-1C debris one month after the weather satellite's disintegration by the Chinese ASAT (from Space debris)
Major elements of 200 stratospheric interplanetary dust particles. (from Cosmic dust)
Concept art for a NASA Vision mission (from Space exploration)
The interface between the Earth's surface and outer space. The Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) is shown. The layers of the atmosphere are drawn to scale, whereas objects within them, such as the International Space Station, are not. (from Outer space)
Star cluster Pismis 24 and NGC 6357 (from Space exploration)
The sparse plasma (blue) and dust (white) in the tail of comet Hale–Bopp are being shaped by pressure from solar radiation and the solar wind, respectively
Artist's impression of dust formation around a supernova explosion. (from Cosmic dust)
Spent upper stage of a Delta II rocket, photographed by the XSS 10 satellite (from Space debris)
Phobos (moon) (2008) (from Space exploration)
A computer-generated image representing the locations, but not relative sizes, of space debris as could be seen from high Earth orbit. The two main debris fields are the ring of objects in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and the cloud of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO). (from Space debris)
Ganymede (moon) (from Space exploration)
SpaceShipOne completed the first human private spaceflight in 2004, reaching an altitude of 100.12 km (62.21 mi).
Cislunar space seen from Mars (from Outer space)
Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite orbited Earth at 939 to 215 km (583 to 134 mi) in 1957, and was soon followed by Sputnik 2. See First satellite by country (Replica Pictured) (from Space exploration)
A micrometeoroid left this crater on the surface of Space Shuttle Challenger's front window on STS-7. (from Space debris)
Because of the hazards of a vacuum, astronauts must wear a pressurized space suit while off-Earth and outside their spacecraft.
New Horizons image of Charon (2015) (from Space exploration)
This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar. (from Interstellar medium)
The distribution of ionized hydrogen (known by astronomers as H II from old spectroscopic terminology) in the parts of the Galactic interstellar medium visible from the Earth's northern hemisphere as observed with the Wisconsin Hα Mapper (Haffner et al. 2003). (from Interstellar medium)
Porous chondrite interplanetary dust particle. (from Cosmic dust)
A picture of Neptune taken by Voyager 2 (1989) (from Space exploration)
Perseverance's backshell sitting upright on the surface of Jezero Crater (from Space debris)
Artistic image of a rocket lifting from a Saturn moon (from Space exploration)
Apollo 16 LEM Orion, the Lunar Roving Vehicle and astronaut John Young (1972) (from Space exploration)
Triton as imaged by Voyager 2 (1989) (from Space exploration)
First television image of Earth from space, taken by TIROS-1. (1960) (from Space exploration)
The Moon (2010) (from Space exploration)
A piece of a thermal blanket that may have come from the descent stage of the Perseverance (from Space debris)
Satellite hit by a space debris, animation by ESA (from Space debris)
Astronaut Piers Sellers during the third spacewalk of STS-121, a demonstration of orbiter heat shield repair techniques (from Outline of space science)
The diversity found in the different types and scales of astronomical objects make the field of study increasingly specialized. (from Outline of space science)
Model of Vostok spacecraft (from Space exploration)
Mars, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (2003) (from Space exploration)
The first image taken by a human of the whole Earth, probably photographed by William Anders of Apollo 8. South is up; South America is in the middle. (from Outer space)
Uranus as imaged by Voyager 2 (1986) (from Space exploration)
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