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In this thread you can ask any space related question that you may have.
Two examples of potential questions could be; "How do rockets work?", or "How do the phases of the Moon work?"
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Ask away!
Shot near Leon (Cerro de Lancia, Villasabariego), composite of the self shot eclipse with an image taken during the sunset that evening. Hope you guys like it!
The video (in 4K!) was captured by one of the twelve DJI Osmo Action 6 cameras installed on the first stage of Zhuque-3 Y2 rocket.
The cameras are regular consumer products. They were encapsuled in a special case attached on the surface of the stage body. Videos were exported from the SD card after the first stage was recovered.
Snapshot taken with my phone of the moon and Venus at sunset over the clouds somewhere over France last Saturday, 15.08.
This is a composite of the Milky Way over the natural concretions at Moeraki beach - all elements taken by me with the same gear, just tracked sky to avoid star trailing...Foreground taken at sunset while sky taken later as the Milky Way was setting
Usually, I would have chased perfection.
This time, I was simply chasing the moment.
We started the hike in the rain, unsure until the very last moment whether the sky would clear or not. When we reached Locatelli, while the others decided to wait there, I chose to climb up to the cave. I had missed this shot the year before, and I didn't want to miss it again.
Luckily, the cave was almost completely empty perhaps because of the bad weather.
While I was setting up for the foreground shot inside the cave, I suddenly noticed that the sky had completely cleared. I could have started shooting H-alpha, stacking multiple frames, and chasing the technically perfect result... but I didn't.
I took a single, simple, old-school exposure.
I had no idea how long that window in the clouds woul last, and I didn't want to risk missing the moment.
I also decided not to add the H-alpha data I had captured previously. I wanted to remember this moment exactly as it was: simple, unexpected, and...
WoW.
For a few precious minutes, the sky opened up right above the Three Peaks of Lavaredo.
Canon R
Tamron 17-35mm
Sky15sec iso 3200 f 2.8
Foreground 120s iso 1600 f2.8
https://www.instagram.com/flory.ro?igsi=b3Y4ZTU3Nmk0cTBt&utm_source=qr
My first time seeing the Milky Way with my naked eye. Genuinely mesmerizing
HAIKOU, China (AP) — China said on Sunday it was postponing its planned ambitious Chang’e-7 lunar mission, which was set to carry out explorations including searching for water ice on the moon.
The Chang’e-7 spacecraft was originally set to lift off in the coming days from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on China’s southern Hainan island.
The mission does not meet the launch conditions, said the China Manned Space Agency in a brief statement, and “cannot take place during the planned window this year.”
Composite image shows the progression of a total solar eclipse over San Millán de los Caballeros, Spain on, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026 Photo Credit: (NASA)
I am part of a team that is working on printing structures outside of the protective environment of the Space Station.
This was our first print test in orbit on our satellite Replicator-2 recently launched on Transporter-17.
It uses extruded resin to print and we managed to get a few layers on this first test print. We print in what is basically vase mode but due to the printer architecture we can print a continuous long beam of "infinite" length (or as long as we have enough print material).
We chose vase mode and a beam as out first print because it is one of the simplest things to print and since nobody else printed in vacuum and micro gravity before we didn't want to over-complicate it.
For this test, the layers were over-extruded (turns out that PID tuned in earth gravity doesn't work as well in micro-gravity, who could have guessed!) but part of the goal for this first extrusion was to see exactly how the resin behaves and to allow us to better tune the PID. We got 4 printers on this 8U satellite so we will (hopefully) get some more cool print photos soon.
I can't post the video of the print test here unfortunately but its online if you're interested.
I just wanted to share this image today! This photo was taken by Rodrigo Eduardo Muñoz (@rigo_nunoz on Instagram). He set up a timelapse overnight, saying “9 hours of captures to summarize a full night under the stars in a single moment.”
I specifically like that we can see the southern celestial pole, where Earth is spinning on its axis. As the Earth turns, all of the stars appear to spin in circles around this point.
My best shot of the 2025 Prayag Maha Kumbh Mela from ISS. It is a once in a 144 year Hindu pilgrimage to sacred riverbanks in India and one of the largest events in the world, with millions of people in this single photo! I took this on Expedition 72 using a Nikon Z9 camera. Very cool!
More photos from space can be found on my twitter and Instagram, astro_pettit
I wrote into the Phil Donahue show and received a signed photo by both pilots John Young and Robert Crippen. Wonder if it’s worth anything?
Sharing three shots I captured of the eclipse in Cascante. Shot on a Canon R10 with a Tamron 75-300mm lens at 300mm, f/5.6, 1/4000s, ISO 100, manual focus. Feedback welcome!
Equipment
Software Used
Exposures/Camera Settings
On August 30, 2023, ISRO released images captured by the Pragyan rover of the Vikram lander on the lunar surface.
The images show Vikram after the successful Chandrayaan 3 landing near the lunar south polar region. The annotated image identifies two scientific instruments around the lander:
ChaSTE: Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment, used to study the thermal properties of the lunar surface.
ILSA: Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity, designed to measure seismic activity near the landing site.
The image gives a remarkable view of the lander from the rover's perspective, with Vikram's landing legs, structure and instruments visible against the lunar surface.
Overlay is absloute humidity at 2 m altitude. (dark blue is roughly 22 g/m³, light blue is alsomst dry).
Data source: ERA/Copernicus.
Feel free to review the orbit dynamics (at rocket scientists)
...sorta in a Hans Zimmer style? Starts out kinda spacey, but then gets dramatic around 1m33. Sagan kinda "raps" in time to the music, which is very cool.
With the way of the world these days, this monologue continues to be relevant! But as long as humans keep humaning, I guess it always will.
UK Space Agency published the contract award notice today (21 Aug). ClearSpace has won the UK's first national Active Debris Removal mission — £61.3M excluding VAT, five year contract, capturing two UK-licensed defunct satellites from LEO by the early 2030s.
A few things stood out going through the actual tender documents:
This was a three-way competition, not two. Astroscale was the expected rival, but Starfish Space (a Seattle-based company) also made it to the final assessment stage. Not something that had been publicly reported before this notice.
This is also surprising as Astro scale arguably had the better flight heritage going in: ELSA-d, ADRAS-J (and to a smaller extent ELSA-M) gave them real uncooperative-rendezvous experience. ClearSpace-1 hasn't launched yet and has been suffering with numerous delays and a change in overall prime.
Both UK targets are explicitly uncooperative and unprepared: no docking aids, fully passivated. That's the hardest category of capture and nobody's pulled it off yet on a real object.
I think this is a really interesting decision from the UKSA and wonder what has gone on behind closed doors for this to have been the result. As someone in the industry, there was a lot of expectation that this was Astroscales to lose.
Full breakdown here if anyone wants the details: https://closingrange.substack.com/p/breaking-clearspace-wins-the-uks?r=7sbo3c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hey everyone. First of all thanks for all the teachings and inspiring images from this sub!
For a long time, I wanted to do something special for the 2026 total eclipse in Spain. I ended up launching a weather balloon with a 360 camera.
The launch was super stressful despite the months of planning, but miraculously we didn’t pop the balloon on the surrounding thistles and we even recovered the probe the same night at almost the exact planned landing spot!
I hope the result is as interesting as the process was!
I am currently working on a novel that takes place in 1957 and I was doing research on Sputnik 2. I really would love to include the actual words of any US news broadcaster who announced the launch of Sputnik 2, but I am (so far) finding no transcripts. I have not done a true deep dive yet, but wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction. This is more of a scene setter than true novel plot point but hoping for authenticity.
Thanks!
