Portal:Outer space

The Outer Space Portal

Introduction

Because of the hazards of a vacuum, astronauts must wear a pressurized space suit while off-Earth and outside their spacecraft.

Outer space (or simply space) is the expanse that exists beyond Earth's atmosphere and between celestial bodies. It contains ultra-low levels of particle densities, constituting a near-perfect vacuum of predominantly hydrogen and helium plasma, permeated by electromagnetic radiation, cosmic rays, neutrinos, magnetic fields and dust. The baseline temperature of outer space, as set by the background radiation from the Big Bang, is 2.7 kelvins (−270 °C; −455 °F).

The plasma between galaxies is thought to account for about half of the baryonic (ordinary) matter in the universe, having a number density of less than one hydrogen atom per cubic metre and a kinetic temperature of millions of kelvins. Local concentrations of matter have condensed into stars and galaxies. Intergalactic space takes up most of the volume of the universe, but even galaxies and star systems consist almost entirely of empty space. Most of the remaining mass-energy in the observable universe is made up of an unknown form, dubbed dark matter and dark energy.

Outer space does not begin at a definite altitude above Earth's surface. The Kármán line, an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) above sea level, is conventionally used as the start of outer space in space treaties and for aerospace records keeping. Certain portions of the upper stratosphere and the mesosphere are sometimes referred to as "near space". The framework for international space law was established by the Outer Space Treaty, which entered into force on 10 October 1967. This treaty precludes any claims of national sovereignty and permits all states to freely explore outer space. Despite the drafting of UN resolutions for the peaceful uses of outer space, anti-satellite weapons have been tested in Earth orbit.

The concept that the space between the Earth and the Moon must be a vacuum was first proposed in the 17th century after scientists discovered that air pressure decreased with altitude. The immense scale of outer space was grasped in the 20th century when the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy was first measured. Humans began the physical exploration of space later in the same century with the advent of high-altitude balloon flights. This was followed by crewed rocket flights and, then, crewed Earth orbit, first achieved by Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union in 1961. The economic cost of putting objects, including humans, into space is very high, limiting human spaceflight to low Earth orbit and the Moon. On the other hand, uncrewed spacecraft have reached all of the known planets in the Solar System. Outer space represents a challenging environment for human exploration because of the hazards of vacuum and radiation. Microgravity has a negative effect on human physiology that causes both muscle atrophy and bone loss. (Full article...)

Selected article

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found. Discovered on 25 March 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, Titan is the sixth ellipsoidal moon from Saturn. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, it is the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and it is larger by volume than the smallest planet, Mercury. Titan itself is primarily composed of water ice and rocky material. Its dense, opaque atmosphere meant that little was known of the surface features or conditions until the Cassini–Huygens mission in 2004. Although mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes have been discovered, its surface is relatively smooth and few impact craters have been found. Owing to the existence of stable bodies of surface liquids and its thick nitrogen-based atmosphere, Titan has been cited as a possible host for microbial extraterrestrial life or, at least, as a prebiotic environment rich in complex organic chemistry.

Selected picture

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  NGC 4449

  Photograph: NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA), and The Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

  An image of NGC 4449, highlighting its qualities as a starburst galaxy. NGC 4449, an irregular galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici located about 12 million light years from Earth, has a rate of star formation twice that of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Interactions with nearby galaxies are thought to have influenced this star formation.
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  Tvashtar Paterae

  Photo credit: New Horizons probe

  An animation of an eruption by the Tvashtar Paterae volcanic region on the innermost of Jupiter's Galilean moons, Io. The ejecta plume is 330 km (205 mi) high, though only its uppermost half is visible in this image, as its source lies over the moon's limb on its far side. This animation consists of a sequence of five images taken by NASA's New Horizons probe on March 1, 2007, over the course of eight minutes from 23:50 UTC.
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  Helix Nebula

  Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

  The Helix Nebula is a large planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, probably before 1824, it is one of the closest to Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae, about 215 parsecs (700 light-years) away. It is similar in appearance to the Cat's Eye Nebula and the Ring Nebula.
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  Lunar phase

  Image: Tom Ruen

  An animation of the phases of the Moon. As the Moon revolves around the Earth, the Sun lights the Moon from a different side, creating the different phases. In the image, the Moon appears to get bigger as well as "wobble" slightly. Tidal locking synchronizes the Moon's rotation period on its axis to match its orbital period around the earth. These two periods nearly cancel each other out, except that the Moon's orbit is elliptical. This causes its orbital motion to speed up when closer to the Earth, and slow down when farther away, causing the Moon's apparent diameter to change, as well as the wobbling motion observed.
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  Solar flare

  Photo: Goddard Space Flight Center

  A solar flare, a sudden flash of brightness observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb which is interpreted as a large energy release, recorded on August 31, 2012. Such flares are often, but not always, followed by a colossal coronal mass ejection; in this instance, the ejection traveled at over 900 miles (1,400 km) per second.
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  Astronaut Steve Robinson on a spacewalk, August 2005

  Extra-vehicular activity

  Credit: NASA

  Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth and outside of his or her spacecraft. EVAs may be made outside a craft orbiting Earth (a spacewalk) or on the surface of the Moon (a moonwalk). Shown here is Steve Robinson on the first EVA to perform an in-flight repair of the Space Shuttle (August 3 2005).
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  Jupiter

  Diagram: Kelvin Song

  A diagram of Jupiter showing a model of the planet's interior, with a rocky core overlaid by a deep layer of liquid metallic hydrogen and an outer layer predominantly of molecular hydrogen. Jupiter's true interior composition is uncertain. For instance, the core may have shrunk as convection currents of hot liquid metallic hydrogen mixed with the molten core and carried its contents to higher levels in the planetary interior. Furthermore, there is no clear physical boundary between the hydrogen layers—with increasing depth the gas increases smoothly in temperature and density, ultimately becoming liquid.
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  Husband Hill

  Photo credit: Spirit rover

  A 360° panorama taken during the descent from the summit of Husband Hill, one of the Columbia Hills in Gusev crater, Mars. This stitched image is composed of 405 individual images taken with five different filters on the panoramic camera over the course of five Martian days.
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  433 Eros asteroid

  433 Eros

  Credit: NASA

  The asteroid 433 Eros was named after the Greek god of love Eros. This S-type asteroid is the second-largest near-Earth asteroid. This image shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end.
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  Geology of Venus

  Image credit: NASA

  A radar image of the surface of Venus, centered at 180 degrees east longitude. This composite image was created from mapping by the Magellan probe, supplemented by data gathered by the Pioneer orbiter, with simulated hues based on color images recorded by Venera 13 and 14. No probe has been able to survive more than a few hours on Venus's surface, which is completely obscured by clouds, because the atmospheric pressure is some 90 times that of the Earth's, and its surface temperature is around 450 °C (842 °F).
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  Ignace-Gaston Pardies

  Map credit: Ignace-Gaston Pardies

  Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) was a French Catholic priest and scientist. His celestial atlas, entitled Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio, comprised six charts of the night sky and was first published in 1674. The atlas uses a gnomonic projection so that the plates make up a cube of the celestial sphere. The constellation figures are drawn from Uranometria, but were carefully reworked and adapted to a broader view of the sky. This is the second plate from a 1693 edition of Pardies's atlas, featuring constellations including Pegasus and Andromeda, visible in the northern sky.
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  Lunar rover

  Photo credit: Harrison Schmitt

  Astronaut Eugene Cernan makes a short test drive of the lunar rover (officially, Lunar Roving Vehicle or LRV) during the early part of the first Apollo 17 extravehicular activity. The LRV was only used in the last three Apollo missions, but it performed without any major problems and allowed the astronauts to cover far more ground than in previous missions. All three LRVs were abandoned on the Moon.
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  Color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey

  Pleiades (star cluster)

  Credit: NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar Observatory

  The Pleiades (also known as M45 or the Seven Sisters) is an open cluster in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest to the Earth of all open clusters, probably the best known and certainly the most striking to the naked eye.

  
  
  
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  James Webb Space Telescope

  Photo: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham/Emmett Given

  Six beryllium mirror segments of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) undergoing a series of cryogenic tests at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The JWST is a planned space telescope that is a joint collaboration of 20 countries. It will orbit the Sun approximately 1,500,000 km (930,000 mi) beyond the Earth, around the L₂ Lagrange point. It is expected to launch in December 2021.
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  Retrograde and direct motion

  Image credit: Seav

  An animated image showing the apparent retrograde motion of Mars in 2003 as seen from Earth. All the true planets appear to periodically switch direction as they cross the sky. Because Earth completes its orbit in a shorter period of time than the planets outside its orbit, we periodically overtake them, like a faster car on a multi-lane highway. When this occurs, the planet will first appear to stop its eastward drift, and then drift back toward the west. Then, as Earth swings past the planet in its orbit, it appears to resume its normal motion west to east.
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  STS-116

  Photo credit: NASA

  NASA astronaut Robert Curbeam (left) and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang participate in STS-116's first of three planned sessions of extra-vehicular activity (EVA) as construction resumes on the International Space Station. The landmasses depicted in the background are the South Island (left) and North Island (right) of New Zealand.
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  Sombrero Galaxy

  Sombrero Galaxy M104

  Credit: NASA / STScI

  The Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation. It was discovered in the late 1700s. It is about 28 million light years away and is just faint enough to be invisible to the naked eye but easily visible with small telescopes. In our sky, it is about one-fifth the diameter of the full moon. M104 is moving away from Earth at about 1,000 kilometers per second.

  
  
  
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  Andromeda Galaxy

  Photo: Adam Evans

  The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years away. The image, created using a hydrogen-alpha filter, also shows Messier objects 32 and 110, as well as NGC 206 and the star Nu Andromedae. On December 15, 1612, German astronomer Simon Marius became the first person to describe the galaxy using a telescope.
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  Planet Mars

  Mars (planet)

  Credit: NASA

  Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood red color. Mars has two small, oddly-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. At some point in the future Phobos will be broken up by gravitational forces. The atmosphere on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide. In 2003 methane was also discovered in the atmosphere. Since methane is an unstable gas, this indicates that there must be (or have been within the last few hundred years) a source of the gas on the planet.
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  Orion Nebula

  Orion Nebula

  Credit: Hubble Space Telescope

  A composite photo of the Orion Nebula, the closest region of star formation to Earth. It is composed of 520 separate images and NASA calls it "one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced". The nebula is located below Orion's Belt and is visible to the naked eye at night. It is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely-studied celestial features.
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  NGC 4414

  Photograph: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)

  NGC 4414 is an unbarred spiral galaxy about 62 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It is a flocculent spiral galaxy, with short segments of spiral structure but without the dramatic well-defined spiral arms of a grand design spiral. NGC 4414 is a very isolated galaxy, with no signs of past interactions with other galaxies.
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  Astronaut Bruce McCandless using a Manned Maneuvering Unit

  Manned Maneuvering Unit

  Credit: NASA

  A Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is a jet pack (propulsion backpack that snaps onto the back of the space suit) which has been used on untethered spacewalks from NASA's Space Shuttle, allowing an astronaut to move independently from the shuttle. The MMU was used on three Shuttle missions in 1984. It was first tested on February 7 during mission STS-41-B by astronauts Bruce McCandless II (seen here) and Robert L. Stewart.

  
  
  

Space-related portals

General images

The following are images from various outer space-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Concept art for a NASA Vision mission (from Space exploration)
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  Tupan Patera on Jupiter's moon Io (from Space exploration)
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  Porous chondrite dust particle (from Cosmic dust)
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  Herbig–Haro object HH 110 ejects gas through interstellar space. (from Interstellar medium)
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  Objects in Earth orbit including fragmentation debris, November 2020, NASA: ODPO (from Space debris)
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  Bow shock formed by the magnetosphere of the young star LL Orionis (center) as it collides with the Orion Nebula flow
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  V-2 Rocket in the Peenemünde Museum (from Space exploration)
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  Near-Earth space showing the low-Earth (blue), medium Earth (green), and high Earth (red) orbits. The last extends beyond the radius of geosynchronous orbits (from Outer space)
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  First television image of Earth from space, taken by TIROS-1 (1960) (from Space exploration)
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  The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) is an important source of information on small-particle space debris. (from Space debris)
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  A computer-generated animation by the European Space Agency representing space debris in low earth orbit at the current rate of growth compared to mitigation measures being taken. (from Space debris)
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  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin had a personal Communion service when he first arrived on the surface of the Moon. (from Space exploration)
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  Crew quarters on Zvezda, the base ISS crew module (from Space exploration)
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  A proposed timeline of the origin of space, from physical cosmology (from Outline of space science)
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  Large-scale matter distribution in a cubic section of the universe. The blue fiber-like structures represent the matter, and the empty regions in between represent the cosmic voids of the intergalactic medium (from Outer space)
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  Major elements of 200 stratospheric interplanetary dust particles. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Cosmic dust of the Horsehead Nebula as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Perseverance's backshell sitting upright on the surface of Jezero Crater (from Space debris)
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  Cosmic dust of the Andromeda Galaxy as revealed in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Spatial density of space debris by altitude according to ESA MASTER-2001, without debris from the Chinese ASAT and 2009 collision events (from Space debris)
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  A micrometeoroid left this crater on the surface of Space Shuttle Challenger's front window on STS-7. (from Space debris)
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  Debris density in low Earth orbit (from Space debris)
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  NASA computer-generated image of debris objects in Earth orbit, c. 2005. (from Space debris)
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  Space Shuttle Endeavour had a major impact on its radiator during STS-118. The entry hole is about 5.5 mm (0.22 in), and the exit hole is twice as large. (from Space debris)
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  Voyager 1 is the first artificial object to reach the interstellar medium. (from Interstellar medium)
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  A dusty trail from the early Solar System to carbonaceous dust today. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Because of the hazards of a vacuum, astronauts must wear a pressurized space suit while outside their spacecraft.
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  Comet 103P/Hartley (2010) (from Space exploration)
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  Apollo 16 LEM Orion, the Lunar Roving Vehicle and astronaut John Young (1972) (from Space exploration)
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  A drifting thermal blanket photographed in 1998 during STS-88 (from Space debris)
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  Conventional anti-satellite weapons such as the SM-3 missile remain legal under the law of armed conflict, even though they create hazardous space debris (from Outer space)
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  A computer-generated map of objects orbiting Earth, as of 2005. About 95% are debris, not working artificial satellites (from Outer space)
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  Space debris identified as WT1190F, burning up in a fireball over Sri Lanka. (from Space debris)
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  Known orbit planes of Fengyun-1C debris one month after the weather satellite's disintegration by the Chinese ASAT (from Space debris)
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  Spatial density of LEO space debris by altitude, according to 2011 a NASA report to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (from Space debris)
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  Astronaut Piers Sellers during the third spacewalk of STS-121, a demonstration of orbiter heat shield repair techniques (from Outline of space science)
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  The original Magdeburg hemispheres (left) used to demonstrate Otto von Guericke's vacuum pump (right)
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  Saudi officials inspect a crashed PAM-D module in January 2001. (from Space debris)
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  Zodiacal light caused by cosmic dust. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Asteroid 4 Vesta, imaged by the Dawn spacecraft (2011) (from Space exploration)
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  The distribution of ionized hydrogen (known by astronomers as H II from old spectroscopic terminology) in the parts of the Galactic interstellar medium visible from the Earth's northern hemisphere as observed with the Wisconsin Hα Mapper (Haffner et al. 2003). (from Interstellar medium)
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  Atmospheric attenuation in dB/km as a function of frequency over the EHF band. Peaks in absorption at specific frequencies are a problem, due to atmosphere constituents such as water vapor (H₂O) and carbon dioxide (CO₂). (from Interstellar medium)
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  After reentry, Delta 2 second stage pieces were found in South Africa. (from Space debris)
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  A wide field view of outer space as seen from Earth's surface at night. The interplanetary dust cloud is visible as the horizontal band of zodiacal light, including the false dawn (edges) and gegenschein (center), which is visually crossed by the Milky Way (from Outer space)
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  Gabbard diagram of almost 300 pieces of debris from the disintegration of the five-month-old third stage of the Chinese Long March 4 booster on 11 March 2000 (from Space debris)
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  A laser-guided observation of the Milky Way Galaxy at the Paranal Observatory in Chile in 2010 (from Outline of space science)
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  Self-portrait of Curiosity rover on Mars's surface (from Space exploration)
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  Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked. (from Space climate)
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  Vanguard 1 is expected to remain in orbit for 240 years. (from Space debris)
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  Earth and the Moon as seen from cislunar space on the 2022 Artemis 1 mission (from Outer space)
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  Interstellar medium and astrosphere meeting (from Interstellar medium)
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  Concept for a space-based solar power system to beam energy down to Earth (from Outer space)
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  Timeline of the expansion of the universe, where visible space is represented by the circular sections. At left, a dramatic expansion occurs in the inflationary epoch, and at the center, the expansion accelerates. Neither time nor size are to scale. (from Outer space)
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  Buzz Aldrin taking a core sample of the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission (from Space exploration)
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  Artist's impression of dust formation around a supernova explosion. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Growth of tracked objects in orbit and related events; efforts to manage outer space global commons have so far not reduced the debris or the growth of objects in orbit (from Space debris)
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  Three-dimensional structure in Pillars of Creation. (from Interstellar medium)
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  Baker-Nunn cameras were widely used to study space debris. (from Space debris)
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  Illustration of a satellite breaking up into multiple pieces at higher altitudes. (from Space debris)
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  Map showing the Sun located near the edge of the Local Interstellar Cloud and Alpha Centauri about 4 light-years away in the neighboring G-Cloud complex (from Interstellar medium)
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  South is up in the first image of Earth taken by a person, probably by Bill Anders (during the 1968 Apollo 8 mission) (from Outer space)
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  Infographic showing the space debris situation in different kinds of orbits around Earth (from Space debris)
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  Debris impacts on Mir's solar panels degraded their performance. The damage is most noticeable on the panel on the right, which is facing the camera with a high degree of contrast. Extensive damage to the smaller panel below is due to impact with a Progress spacecraft. (from Space debris)
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  The diversity found in the different types and scales of astronomical objects make the field of study increasingly specialized. (from Outline of space science)
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  Apollo Command Service Module in lunar orbit (from Space exploration)
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  Artistic image of a rocket lifting from a Saturn moon (from Space exploration)
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  For the first time, the NASA / ESA / Canadian Space Agency / James Webb Space Telescope has observed the chemical signature of carbon-rich dust grains at redshift z ≈ 7, which is roughly equivalent to one billion years after the birth of the Universe, this observation suggests exciting avenues of investigation into both the production of cosmic dust and the earliest stellar populations in our Universe. (from Cosmic dust)
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  The sparse plasma (blue) and dust (white) in the tail of comet Hale–Bopp are being shaped by pressure from solar radiation and the solar wind, respectively.
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  View of an orbital debris hole made in the panel of the Solar Max satellite. (from Space debris)
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  Spent upper stage of a Delta II rocket, photographed by the XSS 10 satellite (from Space debris)
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  The International Space Station is an orbiting laboratory for space applications and habitability. Visible in the background is yellow-green airglow of Earth's ionosphere and the interstellar field of the Milky Way. (from Outer space)
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  Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of the Solar System in infrared light. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Smooth chondrite interplanetary dust particle. (from Cosmic dust)
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  Model of Vostok spacecraft (from Space exploration)
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  This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar. (from Interstellar medium)
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  Surface of Mars by the Spirit rover (2004) (from Space exploration)
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  A MESSENGER image from 18,000 km showing a region about 500 km across (2008) (from Space exploration)
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  Delta-v's in km/s for various orbital maneuvers (from Space exploration)
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  Illustration of Earth's atmosphere gradual transition into outer space (from Outer space)

Did you know (auto-generated)

• ... that, for the Space 220 Restaurant, Disney reached out to NASA engineers to understand what a space elevator might look like?
• ... that some severe environmental impacts of the invasion of Ukraine can be seen from space?
• ... that the space industry of India has supported the launch of more than 100 domestic satellites and more than 300 foreign satellites?
• ... that Nature's Fynd, producer of microbe-based meat substitutes, is working with NASA to develop a bioreactor for use in space travel?
• ... that Louis W. Roberts was among the highest ranking African-American space program staff at NASA while the Apollo program was underway?

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