Outer Space & Universe
Outer Space & Universe
Space, also known as outer space, is the near-vacuum between celestial bodies. It is where everything (all of the planets, stars, galaxies and other objects) is found.
On Earth, space begins at the Kármán line (100 km above sea level). This is where Earth's atmosphere is said to stop and outer space begins. This is not a firm boundary but is a convention used by scientists and diplomats.
Items in space are free to move back and forth; up and down; and left and right. These three dimensions are what make 3D space. Items also move forward through time, which is sometimes called the fourth dimension.
The majority of space contains very little matter and so most of it is a vacuum. Scientists do not know how big space is but we do know that space is extremely big, and is always expanding.
According to the big bang theory, all matter and energy in the Universe was compressed into a very small space. Then it exploded and started expanding. Space is still growing in size today; this means the distance from one galaxy to distant galaxies is getting longer.
Gravity is the force that keeps the Moon in orbit around the Earth and the planets in orbit around the Sun. Gravity can stretch and bend space similar to how a heavy ball placed on a stretched sheet of rubber will cause the rubber to stretch. The scientist who discovered that space can bend is named Albert Einstein. How gravity bends space is part of his theory of general relativity.
Astronauts, Cosmonauts, Taikonauts and Spationauts
An astronaut is any person who is trained by NASA to travel and perform tasks in space. Although the space traveler may not necessarily be a United States citizen, each astronaut does go through a rigorous training regiment by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Other space travelers go by other names then astronaut depending on their country of origin.
In the United States, astronaut is derived from the Greek words ástron (star) and nautis (sailor). While, in Russia, a space traveler goes by the name космонавт (English: cosmonaut), which is derived from the Greek words kosmos (universe) and nautis (sailor). Westerners call a space traveler from China a taikonaut, based on the 1998 writings of Chiew Lee Yik and Chen Lan where the term tàikōng (great emptiness), Chinese for “space”. In China, the term yuháng yuán (universe navigator) is used for space traveler.
Only the United States of America (United States), Russia (earlier, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), and the People’s Republic of China (China) have sent manned spacecraft into space. Other countries have assisted these countries by sending their own space travelers on space missions. For instance, a French space traveler is called a spationaut (from the French word spationaute), which is derived from the Latin spatium (space) and Greek nautis (sailor). (plural in Greek nautes = sailors)
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Zoom-in on LHA 120-N150
Added 281 Views / 0 LikesThis video zooms in on the nebula LHA 120-N150. It begins with a view of the night sky focused on the Large Magellanic Cloud, as seen from the ground. It then zooms through observations from the Digitized Sky Survey 2, which show the whole Tarantula Nebul
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Zoom-in on NGC 3256
Added 366 Views / 0 LikesThis video zooms in on the spiral galaxy NGC 3256, about 100 million light-years away. It starts with a view of the night sky focused on the constellation of Vela (The Sails), as seen from the ground. It then zooms through observations from the Digitized
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Zoom-in on NGC 4485
Added 328 Views / 0 LikesThis video zooms in on the irregular galaxy NGC 4485, about 30 million light-years away. It starts with a view of the night sky focused on the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs), as seen from the ground. It then zooms through observations
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Zoom-in on the Ghost Nebula
Added 474 Views / 0 LikesThis video zooms in on the emission and reflection nebula IC 63 — nicknamed the Ghost Nebula — about 550 light-years away. It starts with a view of the night sky as seen from the ground. It then zooms through observations from the Digitized Sky Survey 2,
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Zoom: A Spiral Amongst Thousands
Added 93 Views / 0 LikesThis video takes the viewers on a journey into the field of stars and galaxies surrounding the spiral galaxy LEDA 2046648. Webb’s NIRCam instrument has picked out a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies and bright stars around this galaxy, demonstra
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Zoom: Galactic Seascape
Added 75 Views / 0 LikesA jellyfish galaxy with trailing tentacles of stars hangs in inky blackness in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As Jellyfish galaxies move through intergalactic space they are slowly stripped of gas, which trails behind the galaxy in t
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Zoom: Seeing Triple
Added 64 Views / 0 LikesThis video from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope takes the viewer on a journey through space to the location of the massive galaxy cluster RX J2129. Due to Gravitational lensing, this observation contains three different images of the same supe
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Zooming in on Arp-Madore 2026-424
Added 307 Views / 0 LikesThis video gives the viewer a closer look at the Arp-Madore 2026-424 (AM 2026-424) from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This image shows the collision of two galaxies of equal size and was taken on 19 June 2019 in visible light by the telescope’s Adv
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Zooming in on NGC 6752 and Bedin 1
Added 311 Views / 0 LikesThis video takes the viewer on a journey to the globular cluster NGC 6752. The final view, from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the bright stars of the cluster, as well as a collection of faint stars; these faint stars are actually part of a ba
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Zooming in on the exotic binary star AR Scorpii
Added 584 Views / 0 LikesZooming in on the exotic binary star AR Scorpii
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Zooming in on the Hubble Legacy Field
Added 369 Views / 0 LikesThis video takes the viewer on a journey into the Hubble Legacy Field, a mosaic of the distant Universe that documents 16 years of observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This image contains 200,000 galaxies that stretch back through 13.3 b
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Zooming in on the Southern Crab Nebula
Added 349 Views / 0 LikesThis video takes the viewer on a journey into the 29th anniversary image NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Southern Crab Nebula. This peculiar nebula, which exhibits nested hourglass-shaped structures, has been created by the interaction between a pair
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Zooming Into NGC 2525
Added 269 Views / 0 LikesThis video zooms into the beautiful galaxy NGC 2525, in which Hubble has captured a time-lapse of a supernova in exquisite detail in the lower left portion of the frame. It appears as a very bright star located on the outer edge of one of its beautiful sw
