Aerospace
May 2026
Every article published in May 2026. 666 articles · Back to full archive
Aerospace
The James Webb Space Telescope is parked a million miles from Earth at a gravitational sweet spot called L2, and the only way to refuel or service it is to send another spacecraft on a one-way mission that hasn't been designed yet, which means every photograph it takes for the rest of its life is being captured by an instrument we've already accepted we can't save
Aerospace
The Voyager Golden Record was pressed in 1977 with greetings in 55 languages and a sample of human music ranging from Beethoven to Chuck Berry — and the engineers who chose what to include had six weeks to decide what humanity wanted to say to whoever might eventually find it
Culture
What astronauts actually eat for six months in space — and why almost none of it would survive a single meal in your kitchen without engineering, weight calculations, and a tortilla
Aerospace
The four astronauts who flew farther from Earth than any humans in history have just come back. The advice they're giving the rest of us has almost nothing to do with space.
Constellations
Voyager 1's signal now takes more than 23 hours to reach Earth, and by the time NASA receives the next status check the spacecraft will already be 1.5 million kilometres further into interstellar space
Constellations
The Pioneer 10 and 11 probes carry gold plaques designed by Carl Sagan in three weeks, and the diagram of the naked woman is missing a single anatomical line that earlier sketches included, quietly erased by Sagan himself because he was sure NASA would reject anything more explicit
Constellations
The Galileo spacecraft was deliberately crashed into Jupiter in 2003 because mission planners feared a drifting probe could contaminate Europa's hidden ocean, forcing engineers to destroy the machine that revealed why Europa had to be protected
Internet Space
Antarctic ice cores suggest Earth is still being dusted by an ancient supernova, and the trail points to the cloud the solar system is moving through
Constellations
The Soviet Venera probes are still sitting on the surface of Venus, slowly being crushed and corroded by 900-degree sulfuric acid clouds, and the photographs they sent back in 1975 remain the only images humans have ever taken from the surface of another planet other than Mars.
Science
Bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California have been alive for more than 4,800 years — meaning the oldest ones were already centuries old when the pyramids were being built, and almost none of them grow more than thirty feet tall
Human Behaviour
A single human exhale contains roughly 25 sextillion molecules, and the air on Earth is mixed thoroughly enough that statistically, every breath you take contains at least one molecule that was exhaled by Julius Caesar, by Cleopatra, and by every human who has ever lived
Earth News
Stephen Hawking spent the final years of his life convinced humanity had to become a multi-planet species before this century was out — and almost every risk he warned about has accelerated since he died
Constellations
The average wedding ring contains gold that is older than the Earth itself — every gold atom on the planet was forged in a neutron star collision before the solar system existed, and there is no other way to make it
Internet Space
Bubble wrap was originally invented in 1957 as textured wallpaper, failed completely, was relaunched as greenhouse insulation, failed again, and only became a packaging material when IBM needed to ship a new computer three years later
Constellations