This week in space from Fraser Cain | | This is AMAZING!
Okay, take a second, click this link and check the stuffin.space website. It's an incredibly browser-based simulation of all the satellites (alive and dead) as well as other space junk tracked by the Joint Force Space Component Command. You can click on each object and see its orbit, current position, apogee/perigee, etc. And if you just leave the screen open, you can watch all the little dots buzzing around the Earth.
I'm not kidding, I've spend hours playing around with this site, and I think it's going to blow your mind.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
As always, if you have comments or questions, or suggestions on how I can improve this newsletter, please don't hesitate to reply this email or send me an email at frasercain@gmail.com. | | 
Everyone's focused on searching for life on Mars or the icy moons in the Solar System. But could there be life on Venus? Researchers have proposed that there could be microbial life floating in the cloudtops of Venus, and suggests ways we could go looking for it.
The Moon and Mars will probably be the first places in the Solar System that humanity will try to live after leaving the safety and security of Earth. But those worlds are still incredibly harsh environments, with no protection from radiation, little to no atmosphere, and extreme temperatures.
Living on those worlds is going to be hard, it's going to be dangerous. Fortunately, there are a few pockets on those worlds that'll make it a tiny little bit easier to get a foothold in the Solar System: lava tubes.
Elon Musk shared a photograph of the new main body tool for the Big Falcon Rocket this week, and man, is that tool F'ing big! You can see it with a Tesla Model 3 parked beside it. What is this thing going to be used for?
Got a 4K monitor? Good news, you'll finally have a video worthy of this impressive resolution. NASA released a new 4K video based on data of the Moon gathered by their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You'll see the Moon from new perspectives and in new wavelengths. This is a MUST SEE.
On March 30th, SpaceX successfully launched 10 Iridium satellites into orbit on a reused Falcon 9 booster. People watching the livestream were surprised when SpaceX announced that they had to cut off the live feed. Apparently they were about to violate a NOAA license requirement. Here's what happened.
One of the big problems with supersonic aircraft is the enormous racket they make in the sky from their sonic boom. NASA has begun construction of a new, quieter supersonic aircraft with Lockheed Martin that should be capable of flying faster that the speed of sound without all that racket.
When humans do finally make it to Mars to live, they're going to need to eat. Researchers in Antarctica just proved that you can grow a bumper crop of veggies in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. They used special LED growing lights to get lettuce, cucumbers and other fresh veggies. Next stop, Mars.
Light pollution suuuuucks. People in big cities never get a chance to see the Milky Way or any of the fainter objects up there in the sky. Two astrophotographers have fixed that for you, merging together timelapses taken from dark skies in the US and putting them into the New York City skyline.
Check out this cool timelapse from NASA of the SpaceX Dragon capsule arriving at the International Space Station with a fresh batch of supplies for the astronauts. The whole operation took about 90 minutes, but the timelapse compresses it down to about a minute.
The closest planet found outside our Solar System is orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. In the last couple of years, though, Proxima Centauri released a flare that was so powerful you could have seen it with your own eyes. It would have had a devastating impact on any planets orbiting Proxima Centauri, which means it's probably not a great place to look for life.
Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanic place in the Solar System. This newly captured image of Io from NASA's Juno spacecraft shows regions of the moon awash with active volcanoes.
What's dark matter? Nobody knows. According to new research, some of it could be caused by neutrinos, extremely light particles streaming out of the Sun and other stars. Not all of it, though, just 3-5%, so the rest of dark matter remains a mystery.
A new startup called Leo Aerospace is working on a plan to launch small payloads on rockets carried to high altitude on balloons. By carrying them to a high altitude, they avoid most of the Earth's atmosphere, needing less fuel to get to space.
When white dwarf stars consume material from a partner star, they can explode as a Type 1a supernova. This is thought to completely destroy the star, but astronomers have found an example of a white dwarf star moving so quickly through space that it might have survived the explosion and given it a hypervelocity kick instead.
The Juno InfraRed Auroral Mapper gathered data about Jupiter's bizarre northern pole, and scientists have stitched it together into this amazing 3D video of the region. So bizarre. Now I want to eat some pizza.
The latest Falcon 9 rocket to resupply the International Space Station has already been flown, so it's seen action. This amazing zoomable photograph taken by Brady Kenniston shows all that character in great detail. Check it out.
Other Interesting Space Stuff
Amazing Astrophotography
I really liked this photograph of the Earth shared by Tom de Waart - @globetravelphotography. Tom's a pilot based in Hong Kong, and gets a unique view of the night sky from the cockpit of his plane. Check out his gallery for more photos.
We feature a different astrophotographer every day on our Instagram page. Want to do a takeover? Use the hashtag #universetoday and I'll check out your photos. | | | |
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