Portal:Outer space
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Introduction

Outer space, or simply space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth's atmosphere and between celestial bodies. It contains ultra-low levels of particle densities, constituting a near-perfect vacuum of predominantly hydrogen and helium plasma, permeated by electromagnetic radiation, cosmic rays, neutrinos, magnetic fields and dust. The baseline temperature of outer space, as set by the background radiation from the Big Bang, is 2.7 kelvins (−270 °C; −455 °F).
The plasma between galaxies is thought to account for about half of the baryonic (ordinary) matter in the universe, having a number density of less than one hydrogen atom per cubic metre and a kinetic temperature of millions of kelvins. Local concentrations of matter have condensed into stars and galaxies. Intergalactic space takes up most of the volume of the universe, but even galaxies and star systems consist almost entirely of empty space. Most of the remaining mass-energy in the observable universe is made up of an unknown form, dubbed dark matter and dark energy.
Outer space does not begin at a definite altitude above Earth's surface. The Kármán line, an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) above sea level, is conventionally used as the start of outer space in space treaties and for aerospace records keeping. Certain portions of the upper stratosphere and the mesosphere are sometimes referred to as "near space". The framework for international space law was established by the Outer Space Treaty, which entered into force on 10 October 1967. This treaty precludes any claims of national sovereignty and permits all states to freely explore outer space. Despite the drafting of UN resolutions for the peaceful uses of outer space, anti-satellite weapons have been tested in Earth orbit.
The concept that the space between the Earth and the Moon must be a vacuum was first proposed in the 17th century after scientists discovered that air pressure decreased with altitude. The immense scale of outer space was grasped in the 20th century when the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy was first measured. Humans began the physical exploration of space later in the same century with the advent of high-altitude balloon flights. This was followed by crewed rocket flights and, then, crewed Earth orbit, first achieved by Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union in 1961. The economic cost of putting objects, including humans, into space is very high, limiting human spaceflight to low Earth orbit and the Moon. On the other hand, uncrewed spacecraft have reached all of the known planets in the Solar System. Outer space represents a challenging environment for human exploration because of the hazards of vacuum and radiation. Microgravity has a negative effect on human physiology that causes both muscle atrophy and bone loss. (Full article...)
Selected article
The Oort cloud (artist's rendering pictured) is a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets that may lie nearly a light-year from the Sun. It is thought to comprise two separate regions: a spherical outer Oort cloud and a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud, or Hills cloud; the outer extent of the cloud defines the boundary of the Solar System. Objects in the Oort cloud are largely composed of ices, such as water, ammonia, and methane and are thought to have formed close to the Sun, later being scattered into space by the gravitational effects of the giant planets early in the Solar System's evolution. Although no confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud have been made, astronomers believe that it is the source of all long-period and Halley-type comets entering the inner Solar System, as well as many of the Centaurs and Jupiter-family comets.
Selected picture
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Image 1
Color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey Credit: NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar ObservatoryThe Pleiades (also known as M45 or the Seven Sisters) is an open cluster in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest to the Earth of all open clusters, probably the best known and certainly the most striking to the naked eye. -
Image 2Photo: Adam EvansThe Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years away. The image, created using a hydrogen-alpha filter, also shows Messier objects 32 and 110, as well as NGC 206 and the star Nu Andromedae. On December 15, 1612, German astronomer Simon Marius became the first person to describe the galaxy using a telescope.
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Image 3Photograph credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science InstituteThe Cassini–Huygens space-research project involved a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and its natural satellites.
This natural-color mosaic image, combining thirty photographs, was taken by the Cassini orbiter over the course of approximately two hours on 23 July 2008 as it panned its wide-angle camera across Saturn and its ring system as the planet approached equinox. Six moons are pictured in the panorama, with the largest, Titan, visible at the bottom left. -
Image 4Pale Blue Dot is the name given to this 1990 photo of Earth taken from Voyager 1 when its vantage point reached the edge of the Solar System, a distance of roughly 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometres). Earth can be seen as a blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right. The light band over Earth is an artifact of sunlight scattering in the camera's lens, resulting from the small angle between Earth and the Sun. Carl Sagan came up with the idea of turning the spacecraft around to take a composite image of the Solar System. Six years later, he reflected, "All of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home."
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Image 5Photo credit: NASAThe Eagle Nebula (also known as Messier Object 16, M16 or NGC 6611) is a young open cluster of stars. The nebula is an active region of star formation. Light from the bright, hot, young stars near the centre of the cluster illuminate the clouds of hydrogen gas and dust still collapsing to form new stars.
As projected on the sky, the Eagle Nebula lies in the constellation of Serpens Cauda. In three dimensions, it is relatively close to the Solar System being some 7,000 light years away on the edge of the Sagittarius Arm, the next nearest spiral arm towards the centre of the Milky Way.
In fact, when the picture is not coloured, is only red colored, the "Eagle" can be seen as a dark spot in the center of the nebula. -
Image 6The Pioneer plaque, which was included on both Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 unmanned spacecraft, the first man-made objects to leave the Solar System. Made from gold-anodised aluminium, the plaque shows the figures of a man and a woman along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. However, the mean time for the spacecraft to come within 30 astronomical units of a star is longer than the current age of our galaxy.
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Image 7Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of ArizonaThe Helix Nebula is a large planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. Discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, probably before 1824, it is one of the closest to Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae, about 215 parsecs (700 light-years) away. It is similar in appearance to the Cat's Eye Nebula and the Ring Nebula.
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Image 8
Earthrise, as seen by Apollo 8 Credit: William Anders"Earthrise," the first occasion in which humans saw the Earth seemingly rising above the surface of the Moon, taken during the Apollo 8 mission on December 24, 1968. This view was seen by the crew at the beginning of its fourth orbit around the Moon, although the very first photograph taken was in black-and-white. Note that the Earth is in shadow here. A photo of a fully lit Earth would not be taken until the Apollo 17 mission. -
Image 9An animated view of Voyager I's approach to Jupiter. One frame of this image was taken each Jupiter day (approximately 10 hours) between January 6 and February 9, 1979, as the space probe flew from 58 million to 31 million kilometers from Jupiter during that time. The small, round, dark spots appearing in some frames are the shadows cast by the moons passing between Jupiter and the Sun, while the small, white flashes around the planet, are the moons themselves.
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Image 10Image credit: NASAA radar image of the surface of Venus, centered at 180 degrees east longitude. This composite image was created from mapping by the Magellan probe, supplemented by data gathered by the Pioneer orbiter, with simulated hues based on color images recorded by Venera 13 and 14. No probe has been able to survive more than a few hours on Venus's surface, which is completely obscured by clouds, because the atmospheric pressure is some 90 times that of the Earth's, and its surface temperature is around 450 °C (842 °F).
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Image 11Photo credit: Spirit roverA 360° panorama taken during the descent from the summit of Husband Hill, one of the Columbia Hills in Gusev crater, Mars. This stitched image is composed of 405 individual images taken with five different filters on the panoramic camera over the course of five Martian days.
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Image 12Photo: Yuri Beletsky, ESOA laser shoots towards the centre of the Milky Way from the Very Large Telescope facility in Chile, to provide a laser guide star, a reference point in the sky for the telescope's adaptive optics (AO) system. AO technology improves the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of atmospheric distortion. AO was first envisioned by Horace W. Babcock in 1953, but did not come into common usage until advances in computer technology during the 1990s made the technique practical.
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Image 13The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-98, February 7 2001, at sunset. The sun is behind the camera, and the shape of the plume is cast across the vault of the sky, intersecting the rising full moon. The top portion of the plume is bright because it is illuminated directly by the sun; the lower portions are in the Earth's shadow. After launch, the shuttle must engage in a pitch and roll program so that the vehicle is below the external tank and SRBs, as evidenced in the plume trail. The vehicle climbs in a progressively flattening arc, because achieving low orbit requires much more horizontal than vertical acceleration.
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Image 14A timed exposure of the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1. The shuttle Columbia stands on launch pad A at Kennedy Space Center, the night before launch. The objectives of the maiden flight were to check out the overall Shuttle system, accomplish a safe ascent into orbit and to return to Earth for a safe landing.
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Image 15Photo credit: Spitzer Space TelescopeThis infrared image shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy. In visible-light pictures, this region cannot be seen at all because cosmic dust lying between Earth and the galactic center blocks our view.
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Image 16"The Blue Marble" is a famous photograph of Earth. NASA officially credits the image to the entire Apollo 17 crew — Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Jack Schmitt — all of whom took photographic images during the mission. Apollo 17 passed over Africa during daylight hours and Antarctica is also illuminated. The photograph was taken approximately five hours after the spacecraft's launch, while en route to the Moon. Apollo 17, notably, was the last manned lunar mission; no humans since have been at a range where taking a "whole-Earth" photograph such as "The Blue Marble" would be possible.
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Image 17Image: Tom RuenAn animation of the phases of the Moon. As the Moon revolves around the Earth, the Sun lights the Moon from a different side, creating the different phases. In the image, the Moon appears to get bigger as well as "wobble" slightly. Tidal locking synchronizes the Moon's rotation period on its axis to match its orbital period around the earth. These two periods nearly cancel each other out, except that the Moon's orbit is elliptical. This causes its orbital motion to speed up when closer to the Earth, and slow down when farther away, causing the Moon's apparent diameter to change, as well as the wobbling motion observed.
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Image 18NASA astronaut Robert Curbeam (left) and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang participate in STS-116's first of three planned sessions of extra-vehicular activity (EVA) as construction resumes on the International Space Station. The landmasses depicted in the background are the South Island (left) and North Island (right) of New Zealand.
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Image 19A composite photo of the Orion Nebula, the closest region of star formation to Earth. It is composed of 520 separate images and NASA calls it "one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced". The nebula is located below Orion's Belt and is visible to the naked eye at night. It is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely-studied celestial features.
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Image 20The asteroid 433 Eros was named after the Greek god of love Eros. This S-type asteroid is the second-largest near-Earth asteroid. This image shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end.
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Image 21Photo: NASA/Crew of Expedition 22Space Shuttle Endeavour in a photograph taken from the International Space Station, in which the shuttle appears to straddle the stratosphere and mesosphere. During this mission, STS-130, the shuttle's primary payloads were the Tranquility module and the Cupola, a robotic control station which provides a 360-degree view around the station.
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Image 22NGC 6357 is a diffuse nebula in the constellation Scorpius. This composite image of the nebula contains X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ROSAT telescope (purple), infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (orange), and optical data from the SuperCosmos Sky Survey (blue). Radiation from hot, young stars is energizing the cooler gas in the clouds that surround them. Often known as the Lobster Nebula, the astronomical object has also been termed the Madokami Nebula by fans of the anime Madoka Magica due to its supposed resemblance to the main character. Scientists at the Midcourse Space Experiment prefer the name War and Peace Nebula, because the bright, western part resembles a dove, while the eastern part looks like a skull in infrared images.
Space-related portals
General images
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Image 1A laser-guided observation of the Milky Way Galaxy at the Paranal Observatory in Chile in 2010 (from Outline of space science)
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Image 2Map showing the Sun located near the edge of the Local Interstellar Cloud and Alpha Centauri about 4 light-years away in the neighboring G-Cloud complex (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 3After reentry, Delta 2 second stage pieces were found in South Africa. (from Space debris)
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Image 4For the first time, the NASA / ESA / Canadian Space Agency / James Webb Space Telescope has observed the chemical signature of carbon-rich dust grains at redshift z ≈ 7, which is roughly equivalent to one billion years after the birth of the Universe, this observation suggests exciting avenues of investigation into both the production of cosmic dust and the earliest stellar populations in our Universe. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 5Artist's impression of dust formation around a supernova explosion. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 7Space debris identified as WT1190F, burning up in a fireball over Sri Lanka (from Space debris)
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Image 8Illustration of Earth's atmosphere gradual transition into outer space (from Outer space)
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Image 9Spatial density of LEO space debris by altitude, according to 2011 a NASA report to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (from Space debris)
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Image 10Concept art for a NASA Vision mission (from Space exploration)
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Image 11Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked. (from Space climate)
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Image 12Smooth chondrite interplanetary dust particle. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 13Voyager 1 is the first artificial object to reach the interstellar medium. (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 14Debris density in low Earth orbit (from Space debris)
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Image 15Atmospheric attenuation in dB/km as a function of frequency over the EHF band. Peaks in absorption at specific frequencies are a problem, due to atmosphere constituents such as water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 16Spatial density of space debris by altitude according to ESA MASTER-2001, without debris from the Chinese ASAT and 2009 collision events (from Space debris)
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Image 17A wide field view of outer space as seen from Earth's surface at night. The interplanetary dust cloud is visible as the horizontal band of zodiacal light, including the false dawn (edges) and gegenschein (center), which is visually crossed by the Milky Way (from Outer space)
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Image 18Apollo Command Service Module in lunar orbit (from Space exploration)
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Image 20Debris impacts on Mir's solar panels degraded their performance. The damage is most noticeable on the panel on the right, which is facing the camera with a high degree of contrast. Extensive damage to the smaller panel below is due to impact with a Progress spacecraft. (from Space debris)
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Image 22Astronaut Piers Sellers during the third spacewalk of STS-121, a demonstration of orbiter heat shield repair techniques (from Outline of space science)
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Image 24View of an orbital debris hole made in the panel of the Solar Max satellite (from Space debris)
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Image 26Conventional anti-satellite weapons such as the SM-3 missile remain legal under the law of armed conflict, even though they create hazardous space debris (from Outer space)
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Image 27Buzz Aldrin taking a core sample of the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission (from Space exploration)
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Image 28The original Magdeburg hemispheres (left) used to demonstrate Otto von Guericke's vacuum pump (right)
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Image 29Illustration of a satellite breaking up into multiple pieces at higher altitudes (from Space debris)
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Image 31Astronaut Buzz Aldrin had a personal Communion service when he first arrived on the surface of the Moon. (from Space exploration)
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Image 32Known orbit planes of Fengyun-1C debris one month after the weather satellite's disintegration by the Chinese ASAT (from Space debris)
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Image 33Newton's cannonball, an illustration of how objects can "fall" in a curve around the planet (from Outer space)
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Image 34Concept for a space-based solar power system to beam energy down to Earth (from Outer space)
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Image 36Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of the Solar System in infrared light. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 38Growth of tracked objects in orbit and related events; efforts to manage outer space global commons have so far not reduced the debris or the growth of objects in orbit (from Space debris)
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Image 40A dusty trail from the early Solar System to carbonaceous dust today. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 41Space Shuttle Endeavour had a major impact on its radiator during STS-118. The entry hole is about 5.5 mm (0.22 in), and the exit hole is twice as large. (from Space debris)
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Image 42A micrometeoroid left this crater on the surface of Space Shuttle Challenger's front window on STS-7. (from Space debris)
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Image 43Cosmic dust of the Andromeda Galaxy as revealed in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 45Artistic image of a rocket lifting from a Saturn moon (from Space exploration)
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Image 46Major elements of 200 stratospheric interplanetary dust particles. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 47The sparse plasma (blue) and dust (white) in the tail of comet Hale–Bopp are being shaped by pressure from solar radiation and the solar wind, respectively.
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Image 48Gabbard diagram of almost 300 pieces of debris from the disintegration of the five-month-old third stage of the Chinese Long March 4 booster on 11 March 2000 (from Space debris)
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Image 49Spent upper stage of a Delta II rocket, photographed by the XSS 10 satellite (from Space debris)
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Image 50Objects in Earth orbit including fragmentation debris, November 2020, NASA: ODPO (from Space debris)
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Image 51Perseverance's backshell sitting upright on the surface of Jezero Crater (from Space debris)
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Image 53NASA computer-generated image of debris objects in Earth orbit, c. 2005 (from Space debris)
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Image 57This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar. (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 58A proposed timeline of the origin of space, from physical cosmology (from Outline of space science)
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Image 59First television image of Earth from space, taken by TIROS-1 (1960) (from Space exploration)
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Image 60The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) is an important source of information on small-particle space debris. (from Space debris)
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Image 61The diversity found in the different types and scales of astronomical objects make the field of study increasingly specialized. (from Outline of space science)
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Image 62The distribution of ionized hydrogen (known by astronomers as H II from old spectroscopic terminology) in the parts of the Galactic interstellar medium visible from the Earth's northern hemisphere as observed with the Wisconsin Hα Mapper (Haffner et al. 2003) harv error: no target: CITEREFHaffnerReynoldsTufteMadsen2003 (help). (from Interstellar medium)
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Image 63Distribution of Matter in a cubic section of the universe. The blue fiber-like structures represent matter, while the empty regions show the cosmic voids (from Outer space)
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Image 64A computer-generated map of objects orbiting Earth, as of 2005. About 95% are debris, not working artificial satellites (from Outer space)
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Image 65Timeline of the expansion of the universe, where visible space is represented by the circular sections. At left, a dramatic expansion occurs in the inflationary epoch, and at the center, the expansion accelerates. Neither time nor size are to scale. (from Outer space)
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Image 66Model of Vostok spacecraft (from Space exploration)
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Image 67View from International Space Station, showing the yellow-green airglow of Earth's ionosphere with the Milky Way in the background. (from Outer space)
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Image 68Infographic showing the space debris situation in different kinds of orbits around Earth (from Space debris)
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Image 69A MESSENGER image from 18,000 km showing a region about 500 km across (2008) (from Space exploration)
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Image 70Cosmic dust of the Horsehead Nebula as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope. (from Cosmic dust)
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Image 71Apollo 16 LEM Orion, the Lunar Roving Vehicle and astronaut John Young (1972) (from Space exploration)
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Image 73Earth and the Moon as seen from cislunar space on the 2022 Artemis 1 mission (from Outer space)
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Image 74Near-Earth space showing the low-Earth (blue), medium Earth (green), and high Earth (red) orbits. The last extends beyond the radius of geosynchronous orbits (from Outer space)
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Image 75Bow shock formed by the magnetosphere of the young star LL Orionis (center) as it collides with the Orion Nebula flow
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Image 77Because of the hazards of a vacuum, astronauts must wear a pressurized space suit while outside their spacecraft.
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Image 79South is up in the first image of Earth taken by a person, probably by Bill Anders (during the 1968 Apollo 8 mission) (from Outer space)
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Image 80A computer-generated animation by the European Space Agency representing space debris in low earth orbit at the current rate of growth compared to mitigation measures being taken (from Space debris)
Did you know (auto-generated)

- ... that, for the Space 220 Restaurant, Disney reached out to NASA engineers to understand what a space elevator might look like?
- ... that some severe environmental impacts of the invasion of Ukraine can be seen from space?
- ... that the space industry of India has supported the launch of more than 100 domestic satellites and more than 300 foreign satellites?
- ... that Nature's Fynd, producer of microbe-based meat substitutes, is working with NASA to develop a bioreactor for use in space travel?
- ... that Louis W. Roberts was among the highest ranking African-American space program staff at NASA while the Apollo program was underway?
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