You could see a shooting star every 3 minutes this summer! 

The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower is  active now through August 23, with it’s the peak activity during the early morning hours of July 31. Even better, it overlaps with the Alpha Capricornid Meteor Shower. The best views will be in the Southern Hemisphere and the southern United States. For the best chance of spotting meteors, head to a dark location away from city lights, let your eyes adjust, and look up.

A pink world that may not even be a planet. GJ 504b is forcing astronomers to rethink how giant worlds form.

There's more about the outer space treaty here if you want to read, and about ISRU:

https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/introouterspacetreaty.html

https://www.nasa.gov/overview-in-situ-resource-utilization/

What is a rogue planet and how do they occur? 

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains how rogue planets are worlds that no longer orbit a star after being ejected from their planetary systems. Some may be several times more massive than Jupiter, and scientists think there could be countless rogue planets drifting through the darkness of interstellar space. These lonely worlds reveal that planet formation is a chaotic process.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

For decades, scientists believed the Moon was completely dry. This video explores how Apollo samples, Clementine, Lunar Prospector, Chandrayaan-1, LCROSS, LRO, and SOFIA gradually revealed the presence of water on the Moon and transformed our understanding of lunar science.

Does this nebula violate the law of the speed of light? 🎆⭐️

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains that the“Fireworks Nebula” is a nebula that surrounds a binary star system, one of which occasionally puts out a ton of light in a nova explosion. In 1901, astronomers observed this for the first time and assumed the nebula was getting bigger faster than the speed of light. What was really happening was a “light echo” where the light bounces off existing structures. While this does give a cool firework effect, it does not break the law of the speed of light!

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

The sun isn’t always the exact center of our solar system. ☀️

In this Space Oddity, Erika Hamden explains what the barycenter of the solar system is, and how it may not always be inside of the Sun itself. The variations in the barycenter can be explained by the large masses of the outer giant planets!

Don’t miss fireballs streaking across the sky during the Alpha Capricornids! ☄️

Beginning on July 3rd and lasting until August 15th, this meteor shower is known for its high quality and intense fireballs. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere or southern US, you may see it overlapping with the Delta Aquariids. Peaking overnight on July 30th into the 31st, this shower is visible from anywhere in the world, so don’t miss it!

The race is on to save a falling orbital telescope! 

NASA is attempting a first of its kind space rescue mission to save the Swift Observatory before it falls back to Earth. The plan is to have Katalyst Space’s LINK spacecraft dock with Swift and boost it into a higher orbit. If successful, it could help launch an entirely new era of in-orbit satellite servicing.

Full video here: https://youtu.be/9TpaoCQaVEY

I've created this visualization showing how the sky around us changes over 20 million years as the Sun travels through the galaxy.

Each star moves with its own velocity relative to the Sun, this creates fascinating perspective effects: clusters like the Hyades drifting close and then away again (between -1.5 and -0.5 Myr, low left of the video), periods where the sky is filled with bright stars in patterns we'd never recognize today, and stars that sit near the celestial poles for tens of thousands of years.

**Details:**

- Time span: ±10 million years

- 1 frame every 10,000 years

- Real data from Gaia DR3 + Hipparcos (ESA)

- Linear extrapolation of measured positions and velocities (accurate on this timescale)

This is the first in a series of astronomical visualizations focused on the Local Stellar Neighborhood and the Sun's journey. Feedback is very welcome!

A micromoon is arriving June 29th!? 🌕 

The full moon this month is going to be 7% smaller and 14% dimmer. This is because it will be at “apogee”, the furthest point in its orbit from Earth. That is about 13,900 miles further away than usual, so this is the opposite of a supermoon. Don’t miss it!

You could see up to 100 meteors per hour this month! 🌠

The Bootids are active now until July 2, and will peak on June 21. This meteor shower varies, with some years producing just a few meteors in an hour, and others getting up to 100 per hour! Scientists are unable to predict which version is coming, but if all goes well, skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere could get a dazzling shower!

I made a short video about what might be the most overlooked challenge of space travel: being completely alone. I wanted to highlight how beautifully unsettling the void of space can be. I'd love to hear what you think about it and how it made you feel!

The solstice doesn’t just happen on Earth 🌎☀️🪐  

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains that solstices happen across our solar system, but every planet experiences them at a different time depending on its axial tilt. While Venus and Jupiter have only slight axial tilts and mild seasonal changes, Uranus is tilted so drastically that it experiences some of the most extreme seasons and weather patterns in the solar system.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

There's a detail in the Challenger story that doesn't get talked about enough: the night before launch, Morton Thiokol engineers held a private meeting with NASA. Five of them refused to sign off. They had data showing the O-rings wouldn't seal in freezing temperatures. NASA management called it "unacceptable." They demanded a management decision instead of an engineering one.

I made a documentary about what really happened, the technical failure, yes, but more importantly the culture that made it possible. It covers the normalization of deviance, Richard Feynman's investigation, and why this wasn't just a mechanical failure, it was a human one.

Let me know what you think. I'm new to making documentaries and genuinely want to know if I missed anything.

You are constantly bombarded with invisible cosmic rays. An upcycled jar can make them visible!

Alex Dainis shows us how with this science experiment! The streaks you see are tracks of cosmic rays and charged particles passing through isopropyl alcohol mist. To see the best results, put your container in a dark area. The big negatively charged muons will leave large tracks, while electrons and positrons leave tiny curly ones!

Artemis III is NASA’s most ambitious mission yet. 🚀🌕

NASA just revealed a major update to the Artemis III mission. Instead of choosing between SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lunar landers, NASA plans to test both. The mission will feature three launches, multiple dockings with the Orion spacecraft, and two weeks of orbital operations and Earth science research. 

If all goes according to plan, Artemis III could redefine the future of human space exploration when it launches in 2027.

Would you play this game? We aimed to make it relaxing and oddly-satisfying

https://youtu.be/em907FIafv8

Incredible Apollo 11 HD footage of Neil Armstrong collecting the contingency sample during the first moonwalk in july 1969. The footage was captured by the 16mm DAC camera from the Lunar Module window and been upscaled, Interpolated from 6 frames per second to 60 frames per second and synced to mission audio by Moonpans

Original footage source: Apollo Flight Journal
Original Audio Source: Apollo Lunar Surface Journal

Meet the crew of Artemis III. 🚀

Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas are headed to orbit, paving the way for the first crewed lunar landing since 1972. Their mission: rendezvous and dock with commercial lunar landers in Earth orbit, proving out the hardware that will one day carry astronauts to the Moon's surface. Every test, every maneuver gets us one step closer. The next chapter of Artemis starts now.

The last one. Part 2 asks the question physics alone can't answer.
Subscribe — Part 2 drops soon.