Starlost - Space Fucks

Over 800 terrestrial exoplanets visualized and arranged according to their equilibrium temperature and size.

chart by u/mVargic

how is everyone not wailing and shouting in the streets everytime a new james webb telescope image comes out how are people not immediately rent asunder by the terrifying beauty of space with every new release

It was a huge disappointment as a child to fall in love with the stars and then find out how much math it requires to get anywhere near them. 

Time for a bonus comic! 

Look out for “Temperature of Mars” on Saturday and “Seasons on Mars” on Sunday!

http://www.space.com/20413-phobos-deimos-mars-moons.html

the three BLACK WOMEN (mary jackson, katherine g. johnson, and dorothy vaughan) that changed astronomy and history.

mary jackson, an accomplished engineer, broke down barriers as the first african american woman to work as an engineer at NASA. her expertise and determination paved the way for future generations of women in the field.

katherine johnson, a brilliant mathematician, calculated the trajectory for john glenn's historic 1962 spaceflight, making her an invaluable asset to NASA's space task group. her calculations were pivotal in ensuring a successful mission

dorothy vaughan was a talented mathematician and the first african-american supervisor at NASA. she was instrumental in introducing computer programming skills to her colleagues, which played a significant role in advancing the space program.

through their dedication and groundbreaking achievements, mary jackson, katherine johnson, and dorothy vaughan left an indelible mark on history, proving that talent knows no boundaries, and that anyone, regardless of their background, can reach for the stars. their triumphs were celebrated in the 2016 film hidden figures, a personal favorite of mine.

i urge you all to read up on these magnificent women and their astronomical (no pun intended) impact on the world. celebrate and encourage black women in STEM. they are magical

Hubble Telescope image vs. James Webb Telescope

See intricate cloud patterns in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter in this new view taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

The color-enhanced image was taken on April 1 at 2:32 a.m. PST (5:32 a.m. EST), as Juno performed its twelfth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 7,659 miles (12,326 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a northern latitude of 50.2 degrees.

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

Squidolus [Day:1333 Hour:0]

Ten interesting facts about Pluto

Here is a list of some interesting facts about Pluto. A dwarf planet with a very different geology than previously thought, and despite being a small celestial body - Pluto has its own moons.

Pluto was known as the smallest planet in the solar system and the ninth planet from the sun until it was reclassified by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.

Today, Pluto is called a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet orbits the sun just like other planets, but it is smaller. It is large enough for its gravity to pull it into the shape of a ball but it is too small to clear other objects and debris out of its path around the sun.

Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930 by the Lowell Observatory. For the 76 years between Pluto being discovered and the time it was reclassified as a dwarf planet it completed under a third of its orbit around the Sun.

On average, Pluto is more than 3.6 billion miles (5.8 billion kilometers) away from the sun. That is about 40 times as far from the sun as Earth is. Pluto orbits the sun in an oval like a racetrack. Because of its oval orbit, Pluto is sometimes closer to the sun than at other times. At its closest point to the sun Pluto is still billions of miles away but is actually closer than Neptune.

This dwarf planet has five moons. Its largest moon is named Charon (KAIR-uhn). Charon is about half the size of Pluto. 

Pluto has four other, much smaller, moons. They are named Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx. They were discovered in 2005, 2005, 2011, and 2012, respectively. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took pictures of the new moons. All four are small.

Observations of Pluto’s surface by the New Horizons spacecraft revealed a variety of surface features, including mountains that reach as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters), comparable to the Rocky Mountains on Earth. While methane and nitrogen ice cover much of the surface of Pluto, these materials are not strong enough to support such enormous peaks, so scientists suspect that the mountains are formed on a bedrock of water ice.

Pluto’s surface is one of the coldest places in the solar system, at roughly minus 375 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 225 degrees Celsius). When compared with past images, pictures of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that the dwarf planet had apparently grown redder over time, apparently due to seasonal changes.

When Pluto is closer to the sun, its surface ices thaw and temporarily form a thin atmosphere, consisting mostly of nitrogen, with some methane. 

Pluto’s low gravity, which is a little more than one-twentieth that of Earth’s, causes this atmosphere to extend much higher in altitude than Earth’s.

sources: solarsystem.nasa and space.com

image credit: NASA/JPL - Lowell Observatory Archives