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Astronomy and exploration magazine

Beyond our world.

Explore what we are discovering.

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Visual exploration

Interactive visualizers

Explore our atlases, maps and comparisons to discover the universe at different scales.

Knowledge base

What do you want to discover?

Explore: Mars Black holes Launches

Agenda · UTC

Upcoming launches and events

Verified dates, subject to operational or weather changes.

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Now

Recent news and discoveries

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Mission archive

Featured missions

Objectives, instruments, timelines and results explained in context.

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Planned

Mission archive

Artemis III

Planned

Mission archive

Artemis III

Cosmic neighbourhood

Explore the Solar System

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Reference illustrations; sizes and distances are not shown to scale.

Illustration of Sun Sun Star Illustration of Mercury Mercury Planet Illustration of Venus Venus Planet Illustration of Earth Earth Planet Illustration of Mars Mars Planet Illustration of Jupiter Jupiter Planet Illustration of Saturn Saturn Planet Illustration of Uranus Uranus Planet Illustration of Neptune Neptune Planet

Deep atlas

Objects in the universe

From the stellar neighbourhood to the largest structures.

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Aerospace engineering

Rockets and spacecraft

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ArianeGroup

Ariane 6

Status
Active
Height
62 m
Payload to LEO
21.600 kg

EADS Launch Vehicles (EADS LV)

Ariane 5

Status
retired
Height
53 m
Payload to LEO
10.000 kg

SpaceX

Falcon 9

Status
Active
Height
70 m
Payload to LEO
—

Rockwell International (orbiter)

Space Shuttle

Status
retired
Height
56,08 m
Payload to LEO
—

How we observe

Observatories and telescopes

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Red Spider Nebula, NGC 6537 (annotated)
Telescope Active

James Webb Space Telescope

NASA-led infrared space observatory with ESA and CSA partners, operating near the Sun–Earth second Lagrange point to study the early universe, co...

Understand the cosmos

Science explainers

Complex ideas explained without sacrificing precision.

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Historical archive

History of space exploration

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  1. From Sputnik to Apollo: How the Space Rivalry Led the US to Set a Moon Goal

    On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite. At the height of the Cold...

  2. Researching people in space history: what archives can tell us

    A guide to researching people connected with space history through NASA’s documentary resources and one ESA archive...

  3. Robotic exploration: reconstructing its history through archives

    The history of robotic exploration is not preserved in a single account. NASA’s historical resources offer several...

  4. The first rockets: what the archives can tell us

    Historical records can help reconstruct the beginnings of rocketry, provided we distinguish what the documents say...

  5. Ancient astronomy: how mapping the sky began

    Ancient astronomy cannot be reduced to a list of dates or discoveries. One thread running through its history is th...

Verified licence

Images, video, audio and sonifications with clearly identified provenance.

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Essential reading

Editor’s picks

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What the community is reading

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Traceability

Latest updates

We track changes to dates, mission status and scientific results.

A connected universe

The platform in numbers

Counts updated from our knowledge base.

6
Documented missions
158
Celestial objects
88
Launches and events
224
Published articles