Space News & Blog Articles

Planet Profile: Jupiter

Basic Facts:

• Type: Gas Giant
• Diameter: 86,881 miles (139,822 km)
• Mass: 318 times Earth's mass
• Orbit Period: 11.86 Earth years
• Day Length: 9 hours 56 minutes (the shortest day of any planet in the Solar System)
• Distance from the Sun: Approximately 484 million miles (778 million km)

Composition:

• Atmosphere: Primarily composed of hydrogen (about 90%) and helium (about 10%), with traces of methane, ammonia, and other gases. Jupiter has a thick atmosphere and a very strong magnetic field.
• Core: Jupiter's core is thought to be rocky and made up of metals and silicates, surrounded by a deep layer of liquid hydrogen and helium.

Key Features:

1. Great Red Spot:

Amateur astronomers who have purchased telescopes from leading suppliers in the U.S. may be entitled to a payment from a class action settlement.

A capacity increase by almost 80%! In late July 2024, the Malargüe deep-space communication station completed an important upgrade of its antenna feed that will allow missions to send much more data back to Earth.

Week in images: 13-17 January 2025

Image: Seed-sized space chip

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image captures the borders between North and South Dakota and Minnesota blanketed with snow and ice.

A still image taken from video of what is reportedly the remnants of SpaceX’s Starship upper stage as seen from the vantage point of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Image: Alex Davenport

SpaceX’s seventh flight of its Starship rocket was a combination of great success and catastrophic loss, with a catch of its Super Heavy booster at the launch tower and the failure of the Starship upper stage as it climbed to space.

SpaceX’s fully integrated Starship rocket stands at Launch Tower 1 at the Starbased facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, ahead of the launch of the Flight 7 mission. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

SpaceX is preparing to kick off the new year of suborbital flights around the world with a launch of its nearly 40-story-tall Starship rocket from southern Texas Thursday afternoon.

The largest photomosaic of the Andromeda galaxy, assembled from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations, unveils hundreds of millions of stars. It took more than 10 years to collect data for this colorful portrait of our neighbouring galaxy and was created from more than 600 snapshots. This stunning, colourful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars, and is spread across roughly 2.5 billion pixels.

With ESA’s EarthCARE satellite and four measuring instruments all working extremely well and fully commissioned, the mission’s ‘first level’ data stream is now freely available.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket lifts off the pad for the first time at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Pete Carstens/MaxQ Productions for Spaceflight Now

Blue Origin entered into the history books in the predawn hours of Thursday. The company, founded by Jeff Bezos, became the first to successfully reach orbit on their first launch with a new orbital-class rocket in the new era of commercial spaceflight that dawned in the last two decades.

lanet Profile: Saturn

Overview

• Type: Gas giant
• Position: 6th planet from the Sun
• Distance from Sun: ~1.4 billion km (~886 million miles)
• Diameter: ~120,536 km (74,900 miles)
• Moons: 145 confirmed (as of 2025), including Titan and Enceladus
• Rings: Most extensive and visually striking ring system in the Solar System

Atmosphere and Composition

• Primary Gases: Hydrogen (~96%), Helium (~3%), with traces of methane, ammonia, and other gases.
• Cloud Layers: Ammonia crystals, ammonium hydrosulfide, and water ice/clouds at deeper levels.
• Winds: Up to 1,800 km/h (1,100 mph) near the equator, some of the fastest in the Solar System.

Rings

• Composition: Ice, rock, and dust particles, ranging in size from microscopic grains to objects several meters across.
• Structure: Divided into several rings (A, B, C, etc.) with gaps like the Cassini Division.
• Origin: Likely remnants of shattered moons, comets, or asteroids.

Magnetosphere

• Magnetic Field: Strong, but less intense than Jupiter’s.
• Auroras: Stunning displays occur near Saturn's poles due to interactions with solar wind.

Moons

• Titan: Saturn’s largest moon, with a thick atmosphere and liquid hydrocarbon lakes.
• Enceladus: Known for its icy surface, water plumes, and potential subsurface ocean, making it a prime candidate for extraterrestrial life.
• Other notable moons: Mimas, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, and Iapetus.

Orbital and Rotational Characteristics

• Orbit Period: ~29.5 Earth years
• Rotation Period: ~10 hours and 42 minutes (a day on Saturn)
• Axial Tilt: 26.7°, giving it seasons similar to Earth’s but much longer due to its long orbit.

Exploration

• Pioneer 11: First spacecraft to fly by Saturn (1979).
• Voyager 1 & 2: Provided detailed images and data in the early 1980s.
• Cassini-Huygens Mission: Orbited Saturn from 2004–2017, studying its system extensively and landing a probe on Titan.

Fun Facts

• Density: Saturn is the least dense planet, less dense than water—it would float in a large enough body of water.
• Storms: Features massive storms, including a persistent hexagonal-shaped storm at its north pole.
• Visibility: Easily visible from Earth with the naked eye, often appearing golden in color.

Saturn continues to be a source of wonder and scientific discovery, especially with its iconic rings and the potential for life on moons like Titan and Enceladus.

The James Webb Space Telescope's ancient "little red dot" galaxies have been seen as a sign of "broken cosmology." Feeding supermassive black holes may have come to the rescue.

Director Fede Alvarez spoke to Empire about fixing the controversial CGI of Rook in Alien: Romulus.

Goodnight Gaia. The European Space Agency star-tracking satellite ceased operations on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, after 12 years of mapping the Milky Way.

A composition photo of images taken during the lunar occultation on Jan. 4 captures the progression of the moon moving in front of Saturn, briefly hiding it from viewers on Earth.

From magnification to light-gathering, here’s how to make the decision between buying a telescope or a monocular for stargazing and astronomy.

In its final episode, Skeleton Crew sticks the landing with lots of action and some genuinely tense moments, but its answers are limited.