SOLAR SYSTEM SPACE MISSIONS by Dataviz Cowboy The twentieth century was the beginning of the space exploration era after centuries of simple observations. Significant developments in rocket propulsion and measurement instruments lead to the surveillance, study and analysis of the objets orbiting the Sun and beyond. In addition to the traditional space exploration industries that started in the US and the USSR, other countries have joined the space career recently, with important missions targeting the Solar System. Every single planet in the Solar System has been studied and has been targeted to dedicated missions, although some missions have covered several of these planets such as the iconic Voyager mission. Other objects of interest in the space are comets and asteroids. And of course the sun remains one of the most studied object, being the most important source of energy and radiation in the vicinity of our planet.
The Sun The Sun is our star, a massive object of hidrogen in permanent nuclear fusion. emitting wavelengths that span 250nm to 25000nm, including mostly infrarred radiation, i.e., the heat we receive to warm our planet, visible and ultraviolet radiation on the lower end. The analysis of the Sun includes measuring all these wavelengths as well as the behaviour of the surface of the Sun, and what is eventually leading to solar storms or perturbations in the magnetic field that can impact the Earth. Instruments orbiting the Sun detect its luminosity, temperature or magnetic field strength. Missions targeting the Sun include: - Ulysses (ESA/NASA) - SOHO (ESA/NASA) - Trace (NASA) - Hinode (JAXA/NASA/ESA) - Stereo (NASA) - SDO (NASA) - Parker Solar Probe (NASA) - Solar Orbiter (ESA/NASA) - ...
Comets, Asteroids and the Moon Comets orbit around the sun in far bigger orbits than the planets. Most have elliptical trajectories that span lifetimes to complete, but they provide valuable information about the formation of the Solar System due to the presence of ice, organic molecules and gases. Asteroids provide geological information also about the formation of the Solar System and their planets. They contain materials that were present in the early stages of the Solar System, and allow us to understand the chemical diversity of planetary materials. The Moon is, together with the Sun, the most visited object by space missions and probes. The proximity and interest on planet formation, geological properties, Earth-Moon interactions and test for human colonies has attracted these missions. And still does nowadays. Missions to these celestial bodies include: Comets - Stardust (NASA) - Deep Impact (NASA) - Rosetta (ESA) - ... Asteroids - Hayabusa (JAXA) - OSIRIS-REx (NASA) - Psyche (NASA) - Dart (NASA) - ... The Moon - Apollo Program (NASA) - Kaguya (JAXA) - Chandrayaan Program (India) - ...
Planets Seven planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in addition to Pluto, have received the visit from at least one mission from the Earth to identify the presence of water, the geological formation, the atmospheric composition not only in the planet itself but also on their moons. The similarity and proximity of Mars has attracted particular attention compared to the inner planets, far too hot to be colonised, and the outer planets, unattainable in composition and temperature. Missions to these objects include spectrometres: Comets - Messenger (NASA) - Mariner Program (NASA) - Akatsuki (JAXA) - Pioneer (NASA) - Viking Project (NASA) - Perseverance Rover (NASA) - Galileo (NASA) - Juno (NASA) - Cassini-Huygens (NASA) - Voyager (NASA) - ...
Space Missions According to NASA's solar system space mission records, a total of nearly 200 probes have been sent to the space to study these objects. The Sun and the Moon have been targeted around 50 times each, being the two bodies that have gathered the most attention in the space career. Mars (30 missions) remain the most visited planet compared to the other planets: Mercury(4), Venus (10), Jupiter (8), Saturn (4), Uranus (1) and Neptune (1). Comets (6) and Asteroids (13) have received a similar attention compared to many of the planets. Challenges such as smaller size and speed compared to planets have pushed forward the probe technology and abilities to study objects of all kinds in the space. Data has been gathered from the NASA All Science Missions inventory. The data visualization has been developed using the D3.js library developed by Mike Bostock. The scrollytelling effect follows Jim Vallandingham's tutorial on how to create this framework. More dataviz at Dataviz Cowboy.