1. First woman to enter deep space, Christina Koch, went as a mission specialist to help test the preventative measures against the radiation that causes cancer in the ships, and primarily affects women. It affects men too but less so. Christina's literally so inspiring to me.

2. This mission and further Artemis missions are testing safety concerns to help push the boundary of what we've been able to explore up to this point. Safety is the primary purpose of the trip. This is the first step to exploring Mars and further planets! Including Europa (my beloved.)

3. Before this, only 24 humans have ever entered deep space. Of that 24, 5 are alive today and they're all in their 90s. We very much needed a newer trip to help confirm or change whatever information we had from years and years ago. Having 4 living testaments of space exploration is a very important part of keeping said exploration alive.

4. Even though it wasn't the primary purpose of the trip, we've gotten so many rare pictures! Including my favorite "Hello, World" taken by commander Reid Wiseman:

it’s not at all surprising obviously, but it is just so fucking depressing

EDIT: they took the ai english dub down! although the spanish dub may still be up (I’m not entirely sure, I can’t access it personally but that might just be bc i don’t live in north or south america)

Every time I see some random mobile game ad or disposable cgi stock image that depicts a black hole and it has the correct sort of warped halo effect I owe Mr. Nolan my life. It makes so much more sense than the totally flat black billiard ball planets I kept seeing in documentaries and textbooks as a kid. Like it's a really smoggy gas giant, or like the light just stops on a threshold and is otherwise unaffected.

Comet 3I/ATLAS: A Visitor from Beyond the Solar System

The NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations to the Minor Planet Center of comet 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025. Since the first report, observations made before the discovery were gathered from the archives of three different ATLAS telescopes around the world and Caltech’s Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. These “pre-discovery” observations extend back to June 14.

Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third known object from outside our solar system to be discovered. Astronomers have categorized this object as interstellar because of the hyperbolic shape of its orbital path. (It does not follow a closed orbital path about the Sun.) When the orbit of 3I/ATLAS is traced into the past, the comet clearly originates from outside our solar system.

Comet 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and will remain far away. The closest it will approach our planet is about 1.8 astronomical units (about 170 million miles, or 270 million kilometers). 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest point to the Sun around Oct. 30, 2025, at a distance of about 1.4 au — just inside the orbit of Mars.

Comets are generally named for their discoverer(s), in this case the ATLAS survey team. The letter “I” is for “interstellar,” indicating that this object came from outside our solar system. It’s the third known interstellar object, hence the “3” in the name.

3I/ATLAS formed in another star system and was somehow ejected into interstellar space, which is the space between the stars. For millions or even billions of years, it has drifted until it recently arrived at our solar system. It has been approaching from the general direction of the constellation Sagittarius, which is where the central region of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is located. When discovered, 3I/ATLAS was about 410 million miles away from the Sun, within the orbit of Jupiter.

3I/ATLAS appeared to be travelling at 245,000 kilometres per hour, making it the fastest object ever detected in our Solar System.

It was also huge. Early estimates suggest the object could be up to 20 km in size. Finally, scientists believe it may even be older than our Sun.