Portal:Outer space
Portal maintenance status: (April 2019)
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Introduction

Outer space, or simply space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth's atmosphere and between celestial bodies. It contains ultra-low levels of particle densities, constituting a near-perfect vacuum of predominantly hydrogen and helium plasma, permeated by electromagnetic radiation, cosmic rays, neutrinos, magnetic fields and dust. The baseline temperature of outer space, as set by the background radiation from the Big Bang, is 2.7 kelvins (−270 °C; −455 °F).
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 kinetic temperature of millions of kelvins. Local concentrations of matter have condensed into stars and galaxies. Intergalactic space takes up most of the volume of the universe, but even galaxies and star systems consist almost entirely of empty space. Most of the remaining mass-energy in the observable universe is made up of an unknown form, dubbed dark matter and dark energy.
Outer space does not begin at a definite altitude above 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. Certain portions of the upper stratosphere and the mesosphere are sometimes referred to as "near space". 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.
The concept that the space between the Earth and the Moon must be a vacuum was first proposed in the 17th century after scientists discovered that air pressure decreased with altitude. The immense scale of outer space was grasped in the 20th century when the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy was first measured. Humans began the physical exploration of space later in the same 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. The economic cost of putting objects, including humans, into space is very high, limiting human spaceflight 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 has a negative effect on human physiology that causes both muscle atrophy and bone loss. (Full article...)
Selected article
The Kuiper belt is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive. It consists mainly of small bodies, or remnants from the Solar System's formation. While the asteroid belt is composed primarily of rock, ices, and metal, the Kuiper objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles, such as methane, ammonia and water. The classical (low-eccentricity) belt is home to at least three dwarf planets: Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, are also believed to have originated in the region. Since the belt was discovered in 1992, the number of known Kuiper belt objects has increased to over a thousand, and more than 70,000 KBOs over 100 km (62 mi) in diameter are believed to exist. Pluto is the largest known member of the Kuiper belt, if the scattered disc is excluded. In Pluto's honour, the four currently accepted dwarf planets beyond Neptune's orbit are called "plutoids".
Selected picture
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Image 1The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-98, February 7 2001, at sunset. The sun is behind the camera, and the shape of the plume is cast across the vault of the sky, intersecting the rising full moon. The top portion of the plume is bright because it is illuminated directly by the sun; the lower portions are in the Earth's shadow. After launch, the shuttle must engage in a pitch and roll program so that the vehicle is below the external tank and SRBs, as evidenced in the plume trail. The vehicle climbs in a progressively flattening arc, because achieving low orbit requires much more horizontal than vertical acceleration.
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Image 2Photo credit: Spitzer Space TelescopeThis infrared image shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy. In visible-light pictures, this region cannot be seen at all because cosmic dust lying between Earth and the galactic center blocks our view.
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Image 3The Pillars of Creation, a series of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, are the subject of a famous Hubble Space Telescope photograph taken in 1995. They are so named because the depicted gas and dust, while being eroded by the light from nearby stars, are in the process of creating new stars. Shown here is a 2014 rephotograph, which was unveiled in 2015 as part of the telescope's 25th anniversary celebrations.
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Kepler's Supernova 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 5Mercury 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.
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Planet Mars Credit: NASAMars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood red color. Mars has two small, oddly-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. At some point in the future Phobos will be broken up by gravitational forces. The atmosphere on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide. In 2003 methane was also discovered in the atmosphere. Since methane is an unstable gas, this indicates that there must be (or have been within the last few hundred years) a source of the gas on the planet. -
Image 7Photo credit: Mars Reconnaissance OrbiterFalse-color Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of a side of the Chasma Boreale, a canyon in the polar ice cap of the Planum Boreum (north pole of Mars). Light browns are layers of surface dust, greys and blues are layers of water and carbon dioxide ice. Regular geometric cracking is indicative of higher concentrations of water ice.
The Planum Boreum's permanent ice cap has a maximum depth of 3 km (1.9 mi). It is roughly 1200 km (750 mi) in diameter, an area equivalent to about 1½ times the size of Texas. The Chasma Boreale is up to 100 km (62.5 mi) wide and features scarps up to 2 km (1.25 mi) high. For a comparison, the Grand Canyon is approximately 1.6 km (1 mi) deep in some places and 446 km (279 mi) long but only up to 24 km (15 mi) wide. -
Image 8A 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.
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Image 9Image 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.
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Image 10Image credit: Dave JarvisAn illustration of relative astronomical orders of magnitude, starting with the terrestrial planets of the Solar System in image 1 (top left) and ending with the largest known star, VY Canis Majoris, at the bottom right. The biggest celestial body in each image is shown on the left of the next frame.
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Image 11NGC 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.
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Image 12Map 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.
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Image 13The asteroid 433 Eros was named after the Greek god of love Eros. This S-type asteroid is the second-largest near-Earth asteroid. This image shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end.
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Image 14NASA 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.
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Image 15Image credit: NASAA radar image of the surface of Venus, centered at 180 degrees east longitude. This composite image was created from mapping by the Magellan probe, supplemented by data gathered by the Pioneer orbiter, with simulated hues based on color images recorded by Venera 13 and 14. No probe has been able to survive more than a few hours on Venus's surface, which is completely obscured by clouds, because the atmospheric pressure is some 90 times that of the Earth's, and its surface temperature is around 450 °C (842 °F).
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Image 16Image: 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.
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Image 17Photo credit: Harrison SchmittAstronaut Eugene Cernan makes a short test drive of the lunar rover (officially, Lunar Roving Vehicle or LRV) during the early part of the first Apollo 17 extravehicular activity. The LRV was only used in the last three Apollo missions, but it performed without any major problems and allowed the astronauts to cover far more ground than in previous missions. All three LRVs were abandoned on the Moon.
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Image 18An 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.
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Image 19The Pioneer plaque, which was included on both Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 unmanned spacecraft, the first man-made objects to leave the Solar System. Made from gold-anodised aluminium, the plaque shows the figures of a man and a woman along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. However, the mean time for the spacecraft to come within 30 astronomical units of a star is longer than the current age of our galaxy.
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Image 20A composite photo of the Orion Nebula, the closest region of star formation to Earth. It is composed of 520 separate images and NASA calls it "one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced". The nebula is located below Orion's Belt and is visible to the naked eye at night. It is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely-studied celestial features.
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Image 21Photo credit: NASAThe Eagle Nebula (also known as Messier Object 16, M16 or NGC 6611) is a young open cluster of stars. The nebula is an active region of star formation. Light from the bright, hot, young stars near the centre of the cluster illuminate the clouds of hydrogen gas and dust still collapsing to form new stars.
As projected on the sky, the Eagle Nebula lies in the constellation of Serpens Cauda. In three dimensions, it is relatively close to the Solar System being some 7,000 light years away on the edge of the Sagittarius Arm, the next nearest spiral arm towards the centre of the Milky Way.
In fact, when the picture is not coloured, is only red colored, the "Eagle" can be seen as a dark spot in the center of the nebula. -
Image 22A solar flare, a sudden flash of brightness observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb which is interpreted as a large energy release, recorded on August 31, 2012. Such flares are often, but not always, followed by a colossal coronal mass ejection; in this instance, the ejection traveled at over 900 miles (1,400 km) per second.
Space-related portals
General images
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Image 1Spatial density of space debris by altitude according to ESA MASTER-2001, without debris from the Chinese ASAT and 2009 collision events (from Space debris)
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Image 2For the first time, the NASA / ESA / Canadian Space Agency / James Webb Space Telescope has observed the chemical signature of carbon-rich dust grains at redshift z ≈ 7, which is roughly equivalent to one billion years after the birth of the Universe, this observation suggests exciting avenues of investigation into both the production of cosmic dust and the earliest stellar populations in our Universe. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 4This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar. (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 5Major elements of 200 stratospheric interplanetary dust particles. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 6Apollo 16 LEM Orion, the Lunar Roving Vehicle and astronaut John Young (1972) (from Space exploration)
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Image 10View of an orbital debris hole made in the panel of the Solar Max satellite (from Space debris)
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Image 11The original Magdeburg hemispheres (left) used to demonstrate Otto von Guericke's vacuum pump (right)
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Image 12Illustration of a satellite breaking up into multiple pieces at higher altitudes (from Space debris)
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Image 13Artist's impression of dust formation around a supernova explosion. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 14A proposed timeline of the origin of space, from physical cosmology (from Outline of space science)
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Image 15A wide field view of outer space as seen from Earth's surface at night. The interplanetary dust cloud is visible as the horizontal band of zodiacal light, including the false dawn (edges) and gegenschein (center), which is visually crossed by the Milky Way (from Outer space)
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Image 17Debris density in low Earth orbit (from Space debris)
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Image 18South is up in the first image of Earth taken by a person, probably by Bill Anders (during the 1968 Apollo 8 mission) (from Outer space)
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Image 20Near-Earth space showing the low-Earth (blue), medium Earth (green), and high Earth (red) orbits. The last extends beyond the radius of geosynchronous orbits (from Outer space)
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Image 21Smooth chondrite interplanetary dust particle. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 22Artistic image of a rocket lifting from a Saturn moon (from Space exploration)
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Image 23Cosmic dust of the Andromeda Galaxy as revealed in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 24Infographic showing the space debris situation in different kinds of orbits around Earth (from Space debris)
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Image 25Astronaut Buzz Aldrin had a personal Communion service when he first arrived on the surface of the Moon. (from Space exploration)
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Image 26A computer-generated animation by the European Space Agency representing space debris in low earth orbit at the current rate of growth compared to mitigation measures being taken (from Space debris)
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Image 28Gabbard diagram of debris from the disintegration of the third stage of a Chinese Long March 4 booster (from Space debris)
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Image 29NASA computer-generated image of growth of space debris (from Space debris)
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Image 30Space debris identified as WT1190F, burning up in a fireball over Sri Lanka (from Space debris)
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Image 31Atmospheric 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)
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Image 32A micrometeoroid left this crater on the surface of Space Shuttle Challenger's front window on STS-7. (from Space debris)
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Image 33Astronaut Piers Sellers during the third spacewalk of STS-121, a demonstration of orbiter heat shield repair techniques (from Outline of space science)
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Image 34After reentry, Delta 2 second stage pieces were found in South Africa. (from Space debris)
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Image 35Spent upper stage of a Delta II rocket, photographed by the XSS 10 satellite (from Space debris)
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Image 36Concept for a space-based solar power system to beam energy down to Earth (from Outer space)
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Image 37Voyager 1 is the first artificial object to reach the interstellar medium. (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 39Collision on Launch Avoidance lead to delayed spacecraft launches to avoid potential conjunctions/collisions during launch. Seen here is a Collision Avoidance analysis that mandated a four-minute delay for the launch of SPADEX in 2024. (from Space debris)
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Image 40Because of the hazards of a vacuum, astronauts must wear a pressurized space suit while outside their spacecraft.
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Image 41The diversity found in the different types and scales of astronomical objects make the field of study increasingly specialized. (from Outline of space science)
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Image 43Spatial 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)
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Image 44The 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.
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Image 45Known orbit planes of Fengyun-1C debris one month after the weather satellite's disintegration by the Chinese ASAT (from Space debris)
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Image 46Growth of tracked objects in orbit and related events; efforts to manage outer space global commons have so far not reduced the total amount of debris or the growth of objects in orbit. (from Space debris)
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Image 47Illustration of Earth's atmosphere gradual transition into outer space (from Outer space)
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Image 48A MESSENGER image from 18,000 km showing a region about 500 km across (2008) (from Space exploration)
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Image 49Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside the Solar System in infrared light. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 52Objects in Earth orbit including fragmentation debris, November 2020, NASA: ODPO (from Space debris)
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Image 53A computer-generated map of objects orbiting Earth, as of 2005. About 95% are debris, not working artificial satellites (from Outer space)
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Image 54Earth and the Moon as seen from cislunar space on the 2022 Artemis 1 mission (from Outer space)
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Image 55A laser-guided observation of the Milky Way Galaxy at the Paranal Observatory in Chile in 2010 (from Outline of space science)
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Image 56Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked. (from Space climate)
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Image 57Newton's cannonball, an illustration of how objects can "fall" in a curve around the planet (from Outer space)
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Image 58Space 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)
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Image 59Timeline of the expansion of the universe, where space is represented schematically at each time by circular sections. On the left, the dramatic expansion of inflation; at the center, the expansion accelerates (artist's concept; neither time nor size are to scale) (from Outer space)
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Image 61View from International Space Station, showing the yellow-green airglow of Earth's ionosphere with the Milky Way in the background. (from Outer space)
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Image 64First television image of Earth from space, taken by TIROS-1 (1960) (from Space exploration)
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Image 66The 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) harv error: no target: CITEREFHaffnerReynoldsTufteMadsen2003 (help). (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 68The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) is an important source of information on small-particle space debris. (from Space debris)
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Image 69Distribution of Matter in a cubic section of the universe. The blue fiber-like structures represent matter, while the empty regions show the cosmic voids (from Outer space)
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Image 71Bow shock formed by the magnetosphere of the young star LL Orionis (center) as it collides with the Orion Nebula flow
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Image 72Perseverance's backshell sitting upright on the surface of Jezero Crater (from Space debris)
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Image 73A dusty trail from the early Solar System to carbonaceous dust today. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 74Debris 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 rather than space debris. (from Space debris)
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Image 75Buzz Aldrin taking a core sample of the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission (from Space exploration)
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Image 77Gabbard 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)
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Image 80Conventional anti-satellite weapons such as the SM-3 missile remain legal under the law of armed conflict, even though they create hazardous space debris (from Outer space)
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Image 81Structure of galactic space of the Milky Way, as viewed from the Solar System, with dark nebulas (white text) and star clouds (black text) labeled (from Outer space)
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Image 82Map 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)
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Image 83Cosmic dust of the Horsehead Nebula as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 84Concept art for a NASA Vision mission (from Space exploration)
Did you know (auto-generated)

- ... that, for the Space 220 Restaurant, Disney reached out to NASA engineers to understand what a space elevator might look like?
- ... that some severe environmental impacts of the invasion of Ukraine can be seen from space?
- ... that the space industry of India has supported the launch of more than 100 domestic satellites and more than 300 foreign satellites?
- ... that Nature's Fynd, producer of microbe-based meat substitutes, is working with NASA to develop a bioreactor for use in space travel?
- ... that Louis W. Roberts was among the highest ranking African-American space program staff at NASA while the Apollo program was underway?
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