Earth Orbit Shape

If you've ever been taught about how Earth orbits around the Sun, you might well think our planet travels along an oval-shaped path. You'd have a good reason to think that, too: it's how most textbooks show things.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has delivered a phenomenal picture of the Jupiter surface. The shot features fascinating vortices or hurricane-like spiral wind patterns forming near Jupiter's north pole. The Juno mission flew past close to Jupiter on July 5 this year. It clicked the striking photo using its JunoCam instrument.

It's a deal that is almost unheard of in the space industry. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been able to sell a dedicated commercial launch of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) to an American company months before the rocket is any shape to lift off.

Tiangong 1, China's first space laboratory, will come to a fiery end in late 2017. The average decommissioned satellite either burns up over a specific ocean region, or is ejected to a far-off orbital graveyard. But Tiangong 1's demise is shaping up to be something different.

If you've ever been taught about how Earth orbits around the Sun, you might well think our planet travels along an oval-shaped path. You'd have a good reason to think that, too: it's how most textbooks show things.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has delivered a phenomenal picture of the Jupiter surface. The shot features fascinating vortices or hurricane-like spiral wind patterns forming near Jupiter's north pole. The Juno mission flew past close to Jupiter on July 5 this year. It clicked the striking photo using its JunoCam instrument.

It's a deal that is almost unheard of in the space industry. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been able to sell a dedicated commercial launch of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) to an American company months before the rocket is any shape to lift off.

Tiangong 1, China's first space laboratory, will come to a fiery end in late 2017. The average decommissioned satellite either burns up over a specific ocean region, or is ejected to a far-off orbital graveyard. But Tiangong 1's demise is shaping up to be something different.