Solar System: 10 Things To Know This Week

April 12th 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space

On this day in 1961, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into outer space. Gagarin, a fighter pilot, was the successful candidate for the mission, being selected by Russian space programme director Sergei Korolev. Russia already had a lead in the Space Race, having launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, which was the first satellite in space. On April 12th 1961, Gagarin left Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, famously declaring ‘Poyekhali!’ (which means ‘Let’s go!’ in Russian). He spent 108 minutes completing an orbit of the planet. Upon re-entering the atmosphere, Gagarin executed a successful ejection and landed by parachute in rural Russia, to the consternation of locals. Yuri Gagarin became famous worldwide and a Russian hero, being awarded the nation’s highest honour - Hero of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the training plane he was piloting crashed; his ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.

“Don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!” - Gagarin to some stunned farmers when he landed

Amédée Guillemin, Les comètes (1875)

Cometary Globules

This view of Jupiter shows the giant planet’s cloud tops taken by the Pioneer 10 spacecraft as it flew past Jupiter. This view was taken from 2,695,000 kilometers (1,842,451 miles) away. It shows the 25,000 mile long Great Red Spot, which is large enough to swallow up several Earths. Individual cloud formations are visible in some detail. The bright zones appear to become split up into the detailed flow patterns of Jupiter’s atmosphere and clouds. The area surrounding the Spot in the bright South Tropical Zone, suggests a flow pattern about the Spot which is bulged toward the north by the Spot. The Spot may be a gigantic “permanent hurricane.” The gigantic cloud swirls are thousands or more miles across. Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter in December 1974 and flew past the orbit of Pluto in 1987. A sister spacecraft, Pioneer 11 reached Jupiter in December 1975. The Pioneer Project was managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calafornia. The spacecraft was built by TRW Systems.

China’s giant alien-hunting telescope is ready

Our alien-hunting game just got a lot stronger with the completion of a huge radio telescope in the Guizhou province of China. It’s called the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), and it’s designed to listen for signs of alien life out in the cosmos. The telescope is finished, but the construction was not without human rights controversy.

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The second closest planet to the sun, Venus. Venus is about the same size as Earth, having a 12,104 km diameter. Venus has phases, like our moon, that can be seen as a crescent to a full circle. When visible at dusk and dawn, Venus is the brightest shining object in the sky (besides the sun & moon of course), brighter than mercury and mars. It is the hottest planet, and it’s surface temperature can reach up to 470 degrees Celsius. This is because Venus traps the sun’s heat, unlike mercury which doesn’t. A day on Venus lasts longer than its year, lasting for 19 days over. Venus is definitely a planet we could explore more, we just need to find a way to combat the blistering heat! ☀️

I'm curious about the physics of bottle rockets. In the novel I'm writing, my characters use bottle rockets as weapons. They tape sharpened sticks to the rockets and use them as projectile spears. What would be the velocity of a bottle rocket with a stick taped to it? What kind of damage would it inflict? Love your blog! Thank you!

The final velocity depends on a lot of variables, like the trajectory, weight, fuel being used, burn rate of the fuel, size of the bottle, etc. However, you can be assured that they can be harmful and with the right pointy sticks, they can be deadly.

Here’s one example:

Good luck with your novel!

New day, new series of photos. I’m going to try to blog about the planets of the Solar System; First up is Mercury, which is the smallest and innermost planet. With a diameter ~4878km, it is smaller than some of the moons in the Solar System. The small planet in a 3:2 resonance with the sun, giving it a unique position where a single day takes 2 Mercurian years. It has the smallest tilt of any planet in the Solar System at just 1/30 of a degree.

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