When spacecraft leave the Earth they are destined to either land somehere, orbit something or fly by a planetary object. And one of the very first things NASA does when a spacecraft lands on another planet is to have it take a selfie: “Let me see your wheels in the dirt so I know you…
Tag: Space
You Can See the Coronavirus From Space
Can you see the novel coronavirus from space? You can, as it happens—if you know where to look. Since January, the Colorado-based space technology company Maxar has been taking low Earth orbit satellite photographs of Covid-19 hotspots in places like China, Italy, and America. The company’s four imaging satellites take the highest-resolution commercially available photographs,…
Space Photos of the Week: Triton and Io, Here We Come
Last week NASA announced four finalists for its budget-friendly series of Discovery class missions. The first is called VERITAS (stand for Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy), which would orbit Venus and map the surface of this hot world. Another possible Venus mission called DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmospheric Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry,…