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How Long Does It Take to Reach Each Planet from Earth? 🤔 Buckle up for a trip across the Solar System! Mercury — 3 to 7 months (e.g., Mariner 10 took ~5 months) Venus — 3 to 5 months (e.g., Magellan took ~15 months due to its trajectory) Mars — 6 to 9 months (e.g., Perseverance took ~7 months) Jupiter — 13 months to 6 years (e.g., Galileo took 6 years, Juno took 5) Saturn — 3 to 7 years (e.g., Cassini took ~7 years) Uranus — 8 to 9 years (e.g., Voyager 2 took ~8.5 years) Neptune — 12 years (e.g., Voyager 2 took ~12 years) 🛸 Deep Space

Stunning Image: The Birth of a Young Star Surrounded by a Protoplanetary Disk 😳 This is how our Sun once formed, setting off a chain of events that — 4.6 billion years later — led to us. This image is a window into the past. It shows the protoplanetary disk HH-30, located about 477 light-years from Earth. Thanks to this photo taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists are gaining valuable insights into the processes of star formation — and possibly into the distant origins of our own story. 🛸 Deep Space

Intuitive Machines Chooses Falcon 9 for Fourth Lunar Mission — IM-4 🌑 The mission will launch two lunar relay satellites to support NASA’s Near Space Network Services contract. “We plan to deploy the first of five lunar relay satellites on our third mission (IM-3, scheduled for early 2026). Two more satellites will launch on our fourth mission to expand the system, followed by two more to complete the constellation and support both NASA and commercial lunar operations,” the company stated. NASA awarded Intuitive Machines a $116.9 million contract to deploy a data relay and communications system in support of the Artemis program. The IM-4 mission, scheduled for 2027, will carry six NASA payloads, including drilling equipment to search for water beneath the Moon’s south pole. You’ve got to hand it to Intuitive Machines — they're persistent, even if their landers aren't quite stable yet. Hopefully, they'll make it to the fourth mission. 🛸 Deep Space

Number of Satellites in Orbit from 1957 to 2015 🛰 There are currently around 35,000 objects in orbit — and that number continues to grow. 🛸 Deep Space

NASA Engineers Spin-Tested a Telescope on a Centrifuge 🔭 This test simulated the stress on the telescope’s shell during launch. To do this, engineers spun the structure at 17.4 revolutions per minute, generating a force of 3.9g. The telescope will have a field of view 100 times greater than Hubble’s. It is designed to work in tandem with other space observatories to directly observe exoplanets and planet-forming disks — objects currently only seen indirectly. The telescope will undergo further testing to ensure it can survive launch. The mission is currently scheduled for May 2027. 🛸 Deep Space

🤯 Europa’s surface in detail This video was created using images taken by the Galileo spacecraft during its close flyby of Jupiter’s moon Europa in 1998. You can see that Europa’s icy surface is crisscrossed with numerous cracks and ridges, caused by gravitational interactions with the gas giant. Interestingly, there are very few impact craters visible — suggesting that Europa’s outer ice shell is continuously renewing itself as water from beneath the surface is released. 🛸 Deep Space

Just a reminder: the Andromeda Galaxy spans six times the angular size of the full Moon in the night sky! This shot was taken in Slovenia using a 200mm lens ✨ 🛸 Deep Space

👁 Eye of the Sahara (Guelb er Richat) is a unique geological formation located in the Western Sahara, near the town of Ouadane in Mauritania. Its origin puzzled geologists for a long time: it was first thought to be the result of a meteorite impact, then an unusual volcanic crater. However, it turns out to be neither. Today, it's believed that the Eye of the Sahara was formed through a combination of two processes: the uplifting of the Earth's crust and subsequent erosion. The soils in the Guelb er Richat area have a layered structure. As the ground rose in a dome due to tectonic uplift, erosion then "shaved off" the top, revealing a horizontal, stratified pattern. 🛸 Deep Space

Planetary nebula Kohoutek 4-55 in Hubble’s “Image of the Week” 💫 It’s located 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. 🛸 Deep Space

Colliding galaxies Arp 299 🌌 The collision of the Arp 299 galaxies has led to intense star formation. Composite images in optical and X-ray wavelengths reveal regions of massive star birth, with these stars dying in just a few million years, leaving behind neutron stars or black holes. These objects then consume matter from their companion stars, creating bright X-ray sources. The images show X-ray emissions as violet clouds and knots, revealing such interactions. In optical light, you can see the colliding galaxy structures filled with gas clouds and stellar material. 🛸 Deep Space