European Space Agency (ESA) new Solar Orbiter mission launched successfully from Cape Canaveral at 04:03 GMT (05:03 CET) on 10 February 2020. This mission is exciting and will be off to go study the Sun up-close and personal. The Solar Orbiter mission is led with a strong partnership with NASA and studies the Sun’s poles which have never been seen before! The Solar Orbiter was launched atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket which also launched other famous missions like NASA’s Mars orbiter MAVEN. It even has an almost perfect record of 82 successful launches out of 82, with one partial success. Animation showing the trajectory of Solar Orbiter around the Sun, highlighting the gravity assist manoeuvres that will enable the spacecraft to change inclination to observe the Sun from different perspectives. It’ll take about a year and a half for Solar Orbiter to...

Mercury, the small rocky planet in our Solar System closest to the Sun, will be making a rare transit across the Sun on Monday May 9th, 2016. The transit itself will last from 7 a.m to 4 p.m EDT. However, why is it such a big deal to see a planet move across the Sun from Earth’s perspective? What does this mean for humans and science? Why the big fuss? Well I’m here to help break it down as it’s filled with a rich history that’s been on-going for hundreds of years and has progressed humankind as a result. So here’s why the 2016 Transit of Mercury is incredibly cool. A word to the wise: DO NOT view the transit without proper solar viewing equipment. You will do irreversible damage to your eyes if you look at the Sun directly. Please contact your closest science centre or observatory for viewing opportunities. It’s an incredibly rare event, but why?...

  Quick Facts About Mars: 1) Since Mars has only 15% of Earth’s volume, Martian gravity is only 37% of the Earth’s. Meaning you could jump 3x higher on Mars than on Earth. 2) In this particular image you can see the BIGGEST volcano in the Solar System. This beast is 21 km high (compared to Mt. Everest’s 8 km) and a whopping 600 km in diameter. Even though this volcano formed over billions of years, many scientists believe this volcano is still active. 3) Average temperatures on Mars is about -60 degrees C or maybe you rather be closer to the equator where it’s about 20 degrees C! It also snows on Mars! 4) If you were to compare how the sun looks in the sky on Earth vs. on Mars, the sun would look half the size on Mars. 5) Out of the total of 47 missions there have only been 19 successful ones! 6) Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System. These...

  10 years ago today Spirit rover lands on Mars, marking it a beautiful time in human history.  It landed in 2004 and was active until 2010. It was one of the two rovers, at the time, that took part in NASA’s ongoing mission called Mars Exploration Rover Mission. The other rover, Opportunity, landed on the other side of the red planet 3 weeks later than Spirit. The objective for Spirit’s mission was to search for and characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity. It wa also sent to determine what geological processes have shaped the local terrain. Spirit rover was built to last for 600 m and about 90 sol (sol is one day on Mars), but lasted for an astounding 2,208 sols and drove 7 km! Unfortunately in 2009 the rover became stuck and its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010. JPL continued to make contact with Spirit...

Happy 36th Birthday Voyager 1! We Hope You Aren’t too Lonely!     Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5th 1977. It is one of the most exciting spacecrafts NASA has launched simply because it’s travelling as far as it can go and it’s pushing the boundaries of space exploration. It is traveling at a break-neck speed of 17 km per second! For some comparison Earth orbits at 28 km per second. One of the saddest things is that Voyager 1 will no longer be able to power any of instruments in 2025. It’s amazing to think we were able to build something that would last at least 30 years in space where it’s astronomically difficult to account for everything! One of Voyagers first pictures was of Jupiter.     One of the most controversial topics is whether Voyager 1 has actually left our solar system. This doesn’t mean has it gone past...

  Tonight and tomorrow night you will be able to see the Geminids meteor shower. It’s where we see a meteor shower pass through the constellation Gemini. You can see anywhere from 60-120 meteors per hour! Here let’s get started with some interesting facts about why I LOVE the Geminids meteor shower:   1) An Unexplained Meteor Shower   One mind boggling thing about this meteor shower is that it’s UNLIKE no other! Usually most meteor showers are caused by debris from comets passing by (far away). This one has a parent asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. You would think that it’s this strange rock that’s causing all these meteors but actually it only makes up a very small fraction. It’s very very strange. They believe that this rock might have been broken off another larger asteroid and all the debris may have came along for the ride....