The Stellar Survey for February 10 - February 16

• Here are some of the biggest questions about the universe’s beginnings. | Let’s start at the very beginning—a very good place to start.

• Life on Mars could have thrived near volcanoes and an ancient lake. | 4 billion years ago, on a planet far away…

• The Perseverance rover on Mars caught one of Mars’ moons in a solar eclipse! | Here’s lookin’ at you, kid!

That’s Mars’ moon Phobos passing in front of the sun. And we now have a photo of it here. Isn’t technology wild? What a time to be alive. Photo originally appeared on Space.com. Photo credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech

• For the first time, dark matter has been detected dangling from the cosmic web. | I have no idea what any of this means but it feels very thrilling.

• Like revertigo, but heading forward…into the future? | Listen to the first single from Pearl Jam(!)’s new album Dark matter!

• Watch this trailer for “The Space Race” from National Geographic! | And then watch the film in its entirety on Disney Plus today!

• Solar maximum is coming but we won’t know until 7 months after it’s over. | The Sun, doing awesome Sun things while we go about our measly, wondrous lives.

• A lunar lander, Odysseus, which was created by Intuitive Machines and strapped to a Space X rocket, has been launched to the moon. | It expects to land on February 22, after a day in lunar orbit.

• Neil De Grasse Tyson (who, for the record, I have conflicting feelings about) has launched a new space channel. | Space still remains cool, even if he is questionable.

• This might not feel like space news, but since it concerns something in our sky and atmosphere—and, like all space news, gets me thinking about our place in and impact on the universe—it felt necessary to share. | Microplastics have now been found in clouds.

• On this note—the amount of satellites currently orbiting our planet might be changing earth’s very atmosphere itself. | Everything is fine, nothing to see here, no big deal at all.

• NASA telescopes find new clues about mysterious deep space signals! | Spoiler alert: probably not aliens, sigh.

• Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko has broken the record for the most time spent in space—2.5 years! | Pozdravlyayu tovarishch!

• Finally, a bit of sad (but not totally lost!) news: Voyager 1 isn’t doing so well, apparently. | Poor interstellar space voyager, out there all alone.

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