Explorer

A new company called Earth-i has announced it will be launching a constellation of satellites into Earth's orbit that will download "fast-turn-around pictures and colour video of the planet's surface."

When you read a scientific story in a popular blog or magazine, many times you will see the caveat "artist interpretation" next to some of the accompanying images. This as a gross undersell of the time, effort, and most important, accuracy, that goes into developing the renders. While we don't know what a black hole or an exoplanet looks like, it is important to attempt to visualize them, and to do it as accurately as possible. This video is an interview with two people who are responsible for

Late last year, Elon Musk gave a talk at the 67th International Astronautical Congress outlining why he believes humans need to be a multi-planetary species, and how he plans to do it. Musk's talk, which you can watch here, has also been transcribed into this helpful document. This is a plain-language description of putting humans on Mars written by one of the leaders in the game. It's worth a read (or a watch).

NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission has begun its final mission phase, making its first dive between the planet Saturn and its rings. It is the only craft to ever make that plunge. Check out some of the amazing images it took as it went through, including the north pole hexagonal vortex.