The Milky Way Domain

The acclaimed work by Nick Risinger, Photopic Sky Survey, can be admired here as a marvelous 360-degree photomosaic of the Universe joined together in 2011, and it portrays a boundless continuum of stars and galaxies, each one regularly visible to the naked eye on a really clear night. Begin the simulated arena looking towards the galactic center of the Milky Way, and every direction you go expands the background into a gorgeous panorama with rich interstellar details that appear to make the screen look replete with starry objects. It is honestly quite entertaining just to move around some particular region and then gain a better perspective back from planet Earth, the vantage point looking free through the atmosphere, set aside from the Sun and the Moon. A few major identifiable celestial objects include the Pleiades (M45), Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and the Orion Nebula (M42), and they can easily be spotted in this 37,440-exposure, 5000-megapixel shot. The image provides an alluring insight into the breathtaking cosmic matter radiating light from the galactic realm of the Milky Way and space within the Virgo supercluster of the observable universe.


Andromeda (M31) is shown here as it is Milky Way's closest spiral galaxy neighbor (Image: NASA).

The Scale of the Universe

If you need a guide for the Universe and everything in between, please go to this site and appreciate the beautiful dynamic art and imagery within "The Scale of the Universe 2" by the Huang brothers. Along with the process of viewing each object, which is really quite fascinating and attractive as it transitions from light to dark, find out that humans are actually closer in size to the whole of Earth than to an atom of Hydrogen. Marvel about interesting ideas like when the Dodo bird became extinct, or why beach balls are a classic pastime. Know that everything remains in proportion as you take an in-depth look into each object's relative size within a scaled environment. Please enjoy the link provided!

Venusian Surface Features

Reprocessed perspectives of Venus taken by the Venera 13 probe in 1982 (Images: CCCP).

Venus is the second planet from our Sun and it is sometimes referred to as our "sister planet" due to its similar mass and size. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, and it shows its elegant charm in many ways. Besides not having a naturally orbiting satellite, Venus has the most circular revolution of any planet, a retrograde (clockwise) rotation, and a day that lasts longer than its own year. Its two main continents: the northern Ishtar Terra and southern Aphrodite Terra, are also both named after the Babylonian and Greek goddesses of love, respectively.

The images above are the first to truly capture a stunning view from on the planet's surface. Venus' geography and climate are radically different from that of Earth. Its exterior is believed to be shrouded in condensed sulfuric acid due to ongoing volcanic activity throughout its windy and craterless plains. Its atmosphere is almost entirely made up of carbon dioxide kept under a pressure that is 92 times greater than ours, with an average surface temperature of 735 K. Despite the harsh weather conditions, a Russian space probe was successfully able to gather this data before its electronics stopped working about two hours after touching the ground.

Robotic Vehicles on Mars

Interest in exploring the Red Planet started with the first robots designed to investigate it in the 1960s, and continues today with the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, where recent efforts have shown to be what looks like evidence of an ancient riverbed and organic compounds on the Martian surface. Organic compounds are those with molecules containing carbon and are potential indicators of life.


Mars and Earth riverbeds in comparison (Image: NASA).


A landscape of Mars captured by Pathfinder in 1997 (Image: NASA).

Mars is the fourth planet from our Sun and is believed to be about 10.7% the mass of Earth and approximately half of its size. It is currently thought that sustainable life on Mars may be possible and might have existed there a long time ago, if Earth and Mars share similar planetary histories. We know that they both have polar ice caps, an atmosphere, and exceptional terrain features. With several vehicles set to test for habitability on Mars in the future, humans will be able to properly assess whether a manned mission to Mars prevails as a safe and advantageous exploration plan.

Innumerable Galaxies

From September 2003 to January 2004, the NASA Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at a region of space with a low brightness and only a few stars in the near field. The region was about the size of a grain of sand at a distance of one meter away from the human eye. With all of the data accumulated during that time, the telescope captured an image that exemplifies just how immense the universe really is.


"Humankind's deepest portrait of the visible universe ever" as referred to by NASA (Image: NASA).

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image is considered to be one of the most humbling and profound images of all time. The countless number of individual galaxies revealed is not only surprising but also very informative. An image like this makes the universe look like it is truly abundant with other galaxies and stars. It is also interesting to note that the light from the farthest galaxies in this picture has been traveling towards us since early after the Big Bang and represents what those galaxies looked like about 13 billion years ago. This information has enabled a base measurement of early galaxies' distribution and their evolution.

Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to be up and running in 2018.