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Hey everyone,
Yesterday kicked off 2018's World Space Week! Space Week is an international celebration of science and technology with a focus on space exploitation.
"Since its United Nations declaration in 1999, World Space Week has grown into the largest public space event on Earth. More than 3,700 events in 80 countries celebrated the benefits of space and excitement about space exploration in 2017. The 2018 theme is “Space Unites The World”
There will be thousands of event's happening across the globe over the next few days and you can find details over on the World Space Week webside.
There also have been some fantastic Astronomy announcements recently that tie in nicely with Space Week.
Firstly, astronomers think they have discovered the first ever exomoon, which is a moon that orbits a planet outside our Solar System!
The moon is huge compared to anything we've seen before, it's the size of Neptune and orbits a planet similar in size to Jupiter but 5 times as massive. The moon was first detected by Nasa's Kepler spacecraft then further observed by the Hubble telescope. Further study is needed to confirm the initial results but if proven correct this is a massive discovery!
Next up and a lot closer to home where Japan's Hayabusa 2 rovers have sent images of the Ryugu asteroid. The rovers arrived mid September following a 3 year trip and have begun to return images and test the asteroids surface temperature. The rovers don't have wheels and instead hop around the moon by spinning a weight contained inside the probe which then generates movement. The images returned so far are amazing as shown below!
Is anyone aware of any space Week events happening in your area and of so are you planning to attend?
What do you think of the exomoon discovery or the first images from the Ryugu asteroid? Let us know!
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@pgn It seems a bit of a waste if everyone is asleep for the trip but I've not seen the movie so I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for the size!
It seems massive ships are a bit more realistic for interstellar journeys.
@Anonymous I did. Amazing achievement and looked great too!
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@Anonymous I saw some of the pictures of the pretty lightshows in the heavens, but did not watch the actual launch for Musk's latest.
@Martin-O2 The reason for sleep in Passengers is the journey time as the ship accelerated to near-light speed was 120years... 5000 people in a ship about 0.6miles long.
Interesting comparisons between some of SF's famous spaceships here - seems Nostromo was much smaller!
Here's the opening intro to Passengers, to get you in the mood: 
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Ahh yes I think it was the mining/refinery section of the Nostromo was longer. The crew area was much smaller.
Intro looks good @pgn I'll definitely have to add this to my watch list.
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Saw this on the news....scary!!
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Wow they were really lucky! Fantastic to see the safety systems kick in and do their job.
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@jonsie wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45831110
Ah yes I saw it on the news. Was a bit shocked when I saw all that juddering start inside the capsule.
Thank god it ended well.
