Making your own spaceplane from scratch is obviously not an easy task, which is why we’re not all going to the moon on weekends. Reaction Engines is taking it seriously, though, and their Skylon spaceplane concept has just passed a technical review by the European Space Agency, moving it one step closer to reality. Continue reading
The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is getting ready to go supernova, and when it does Earth will have a front-row seat. The explosion will be so bright that Earth will briefly seem to have two suns in the sky. The star is located in the Orion constellation, about 640 light-years away from Earth. Continue reading
This picture of cloudy Venus wast taken by the Galileo spacecraft. Venus is very similar to Earth in size and mass, so it is sometimes referred to as Earth’s sister or twin planet, but the resemblance ends there. Venus is … Continue reading
Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. It is the innermost of Jupiter’s four major moons also known as the Galilean moons, named after their discoverer. Io’s surface is constantly under construction. The volcanic eruptions quickly … Continue reading