On 12 August 1883 at 8:00 a.m., Mexico’s Zacatecas Observatory’s boss Jose A. Bonilla was preparing to study the Sun’s corona when he observed an amazing phenomenon. He saw several distant objects that were close together and crossing the solar disc. In the space of two hours, while the sky was clear and he was […]
On February 15 at 3:20:26 UTC, a supersonic flying space rock, roughly the size of a van or a small truck, entered Earth’s atmosphere, exploded at 24,140 meters over Russia’s Chelyabinsk, and produced a total destructive blast power of 500 kilotons. This means the destructive power yield was 30 times the blast yield of the […]
Since the launch of Sputnik I in 1957, more than 6,000 spacecraft have been successfully sent into Earth orbit. Each launch – whether successful or not – contributes to the release of human-made debris in Earth orbit. This “space junk” consists of expired spacecraft, spent rocket bodies, mission related objects, and fragmentation debris. A majority […]