Cafe Space

This video is about why it's harder to successfully land spacecraft and landers and rovers on Mars than on Earth, or Venus, or the Moon, or Titan, or asteroids. It all comes down to atmospheric density! When there's no atmosphere, you can do a powered descent in a flimsy tinfoil spacecraft like the Lunar Module, and when there's plenty of atmosphere you can do an unpowered descent via heat shield and parachutes like the space shuttle, Apollo command module, Soyuz, Huygens, etc. But on Mars with its thin air, you have to do both powered & unpowered descent, getting the worst of both worlds.

The philosophy of Kurzgesagt.

Amazing images of the far reaches of the universe are everywhere, but are they accurate? What does space really look like?

In 2018, NASA will launch a solar probe that will travel closer to the sun than any spacecraft before. But why? What are they looking for?

Incredible before-and-after satellite images of our dynamic planet.

How did everything get started? Has the universe a beginning or was it here since forever? Well, evidence suggests that there was indeed a starting point to this universe we are part of right now. But how can this be? How can something come from nothing? And what about time? We don't have all the answers yet so let's talk about what we know.

Are you alone? To answer this question we have to take a look what "you" are first. What are you made of and where you stand in this universe. Are you your body? Your atoms? And how are your parts connected to the big picture?

Large chemical rockets are needed to launch payloads into space from the ground, but could rockoons, rocket balloons, be a more efficient alternative?

Scientists think studying 'extremophiles' in toxic hydrothermal vents could teach us about potential extraterrestrial life.

*BREAKING NEWS* NASA has just discovered 7 Earth-like planets!

Amazing before and after satellite images taken from the International Space Station show how quickly our dynamic, but fragile planet can change.

We are trapped on earth. Controlled by an ancient debt to the universe...

What exactly makes a journey to Mars so perilous? Is it okay to touch Martian dirt with your bare hands?

In space, metals can weld together without heat or melting.

Prolonged space travel plays a severe toll on the human body: microgravity impairs muscle and bone growth, and high doses of radiation cause irreversible mutations.

How can time be slower and faster at the same time?

On July 20, 2015, NASA released to the world the first image of the sunlit side of Earth captured by the space agency's EPIC camera on NOAA's DSCOVR satellite. The camera has now recorded a full year of life on Earth from its orbit at Lagrange point 1, approximately 1 million miles from Earth, where it is balanced between the gravity of our home planet and the sun.