Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are sending spacecrafts – and their billionaire founders – into suborbital flight. But what differentiates a suborbital flight from a trip around Earth?
Articles on Earth orbit
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Astronomers know a lot about what’s in outer space – and think it’s possible it never ends.
In the early morning of May 26, 2021, there will be a super blood-red lunar eclipse. The show will be spectacular and can all be explained by the orbits of the Earth and Moon.
Chances are small that space junk will destroy property or harm a person, and existing space law could deal with such an event. But current law doesn’t address the bigger problem of space pollution.
The Tiangong space station is set to become a second long-term habitat for humans in orbit around Earth.
The distance between the ISS and Earth is the same as about 3,850 football fields. To bring the station down, rockets will lower it a bit, and then gravity will send it crashing the rest of the way.
Leap years were devised in Julius Caesar’s time, to fix the pesky problem that Earth’s year isn’t exactly 365 days. But 15 centuries later, our calendars were still slightly askew.
Satellites monitor climate change, guide people with GPS and keep us connected through texts and social media, but they’re under threat.
Layers of rock provide a historical record of variations in the Earth’s orbit, revealing information about the planet’s climate billions of years ago.
A bright comet visible in December provides an excellent viewing opportunity for night sky lovers – even potentially with the naked eye.
The tilt of Earth’s axis as it orbits the Sun results in the seasonal changes.
China’s Tiangong-1 space station is hurtling around Earth out of control and about to come crashing down. It’s just one of thousands of pieces of space junk left orbiting our planet.
The famous cosmologist was closely identified with black holes due to his revolutionary theoretical work explaining some of their mysterious properties.
The launch of Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket is undoubtedly a spectacular feat of engineering - but the release of a sports car into orbit also says something about our values as human beings.
When and where you see the Moon in the daytime depends on what phase it is in.
A bunch of uncommon things all happening at the same time mean this full moon will have some special attributes.
A solar day is a measure of how long it takes the Earth to rotate from one noon to the next, and today’s summer solstice also happens to be the longest solar day of the year.
We’ve all seen videos of satellites being blasted off into space - but once they’re locked in orbit around the earth, how do we bring them back down?
As technology advances, tiny satellites no bigger than a loaf of bread have advanced from just proving they work to being big contributors in answering science questions.
Letters from would-be girl astronauts in the 1960s tell part of the complicated story of sexism – in both NASA and the US at large – at the dawn of the space age.
Top contributors
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Director of the Abrams Planetarium, Michigan State University
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Professor, Swinburne University of Technology
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Associate Dean of Innovation and Engagement, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland
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Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
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Clinical Professor of Space Leadership, Policy and Business, Arizona State University
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Professeur , Sciences de la Terre et de l'atmosphère, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
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Professor of Astronomy, UMass Amherst
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Assistant Professor in Foundation Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Nottingham
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Professor, School of Engineering and Technology, CQUniversity Australia
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Professor of Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi
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Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria Research Institute; The University of Melbourne
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Emeritus professor, Physics, Carleton University
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Associate Professor, RMIT University
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Postdoctoral Fellow in Aeromechanics, The University of Texas at Austin