Space Junk is a growing problem. Even though there is a lot of room in low Earth orbit, it’s estimated that 3,000 tons of space debris is floating around at different altitudes and speeds, posing a significant threat to present and future orbital infrastructure. The number of objects classed as space junk doubled in 2014 to 4000 individual pieces, mostly due to collisions between objects already in space. Most of this space junk is old derelict satellites and rocket bodies and engines leftover from 50 years of space exploration. Because of the wide variety of altitudes, trajectories, and speeds, it can...
Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) are the most beautiful result of the Earth protecting us from a horrible death by solar radiation. Every time I see it, I marvel in the beauty and remind myself that I am still safe from being cooked by that giant ball of gas that is responsible for fundamentally fuelling all life on Earth. So when we have a lot of auroral activity, I pop over to spaceweather to see if it will be visible from where I live. Though it usually isn’t, today’s aurora are potentially visible, so I might...
The Sun is the driving force behind our planetary system. It’s energy warms our planet, drives weather and climate patterns, and fuels the aurorae that surround our magnetic poles. The Sun also has a much grander sphere of influence beyond the orbit of the Earth, stretching into the vast space between itself and the other members of the stellar neighbourhood. The charged particles that are released from the Sun, called the solar wind, stretch out to 120 Astronomical Units, about 18 Billion Km. The bubble of the Sun’s influence is known as the Heliosphere, though it is anything but a...
