Constellations
June 2026
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Constellations
When the Apollo 11 crew prepared to leave the Moon, they found the circuit breaker that armed their ascent engine had snapped off after a bulky backpack knocked it, and Buzz Aldrin pushed it back into place with a felt-tip pen rather than risk putting metal into a live electrical circuit.
Science
Nearly four kilometres beneath the Antarctic ice sheet lies Lake Vostok, a hidden lake the size of a small sea. It has been cut off from sunlight and the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of years — making it one of Earth’s closest rehearsals for the buried oceans of Europa and Enceladus, where any life would also have to survive in darkness beneath a frozen shell.
Constellations
The Sun is not standing still. It is carrying the entire Solar System around the centre of the Milky Way, and one lap takes roughly 230 million years. The last time we were this far around the galaxy, Earth was in the Triassic Period and the very first dinosaurs were only just beginning to walk.
Science