Orbit Daily

On Friday the 13th, an asteroid will fly closer to Earth than our satellites. ☄️ 13 Apr 2029: Apophis (~340 m) passes ~32,000 km up, visible to the naked eye from Africa & Europe. Will it hit us? No. Safe for 100+ years. Images: NASA/JPL. AI voiceover. #Apophis #OrbitDaily

The odds of this asteroid hitting Earth kept climbing. 📈 2024 YR4 hit 3.1% in Feb 2025, the highest NASA had ever recorded for its size. A week later: 0.004%. Then the Moon was at ~4%, until Webb ruled it out. Images: NASA/JPL. AI voiceover. #2024YR4 #OrbitDaily

NASA hit this asteroid on purpose. Now Europe is back to inspect the damage. 🛰️ ESA's Hera has reached Didymos and Dimorphos. DART's 2022 crash cut Dimorphos's orbit by 33 min. Detailed images: 25 Nov. Images: ESA, NASA/JHUAPL. AI voiceover. #Hera #OrbitDaily

The Sun is 400× wider than the Moon, yet the Moon can just cover it. 🌑 It's also ~400× farther away. That won't last: the Moon drifts ~4 cm a year. Last total eclipse: ~600M years out. Next: 2 Aug 2027. Images: NASA. AI voiceover. #Eclipse #OrbitDaily

This is the farthest landing ever made. 🟠 Jan 2005: Huygens fell 2h27m through Titan's haze, saw channels carved by liquid methane, landed among pebbles at -180°C and sent data for 72 min. Images: ESA/NASA/JPL/UArizona. AI voiceover. #Titan #OrbitDaily

In 11 days, Mercury captures a spacecraft. ☿️ BepiColombo has braked for 8 years (ion thrusters + 9 flybys): orbiting Mercury takes more energy than reaching Pluto. Orbit insertion: 21 Nov. Images: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM. AI voiceover. #BepiColombo #OrbitDaily

This tiny icy moon is spraying its hidden ocean into space. 💧 Enceladus, ~500 km across. Cassini flew through its south-polar jets and found a global ocean, hydrothermal chemistry, hydrogen and organics. Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. AI voiceover. #Enceladus #OrbitDaily

Could a planet float? Saturn would. 🪐 Density: 687 kg/m³ vs water 1,000. The only planet less dense than water — yet ~95 times Earth's mass. No true surface to stand on. Images: NASA/JPL/SSI. AI voiceover. #Saturn #OrbitDaily

Tonight the Moon goes dark. 🌑☄️ New Moon = November's darkest skies. Leftover pieces of comet Encke are burning up as Taurids (peaks ~5 & 12 Nov). Only ~5/hour, but occasional fireballs. Video: NASA/JPL-Caltech. AI voiceover. #Taurids #OrbitDaily

430,000 mph. 3.8 million miles from the Sun. NASA's Parker Solar Probe is the fastest human-made object — next close pass Dec 2, 2026.

What if the Sun went dark right now? You wouldn't notice for about 8 minutes 20 seconds — that's how long sunlight takes to reach Earth.

If aliens found one record from Earth, what would you put on it? 📀 In 1977 NASA sent one on both Voyagers: 115 images, whales, thunder, 55 languages, Bach and Chuck Berry. What would you add? 👇 Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech. AI voiceover. #GoldenRecord #Voyager1 #OrbitDaily

1.3 million Earths fit inside the Sun. Betelgeuse is ~700 times wider than the Sun. Put it where the Sun is and it reaches past Jupiter's orbit. 🔴 One day it goes supernova (likely ~100,000 years away). Images: ESO, NASA, ESA. AI voiceover. #Betelgeuse #Space #OrbitDaily

71 km per second. ☄️ The Leonids, some of the fastest meteors there are, peak on the night of 17 Nov. South Africa: Moon sets before 1 a.m. Look north-east from ~2 a.m. to dawn. Jupiter + Mars rise nearby. Images: NASA. AI voiceover. #Leonids #MeteorShower #OrbitDaily

There are mirrors on the Moon. And they're telling us it's leaving. 🪞🌙 Apollo 11 left 100 of them in 1969. Fire a laser, time the echo: the Moon drifts 3.8 cm farther away every year. Footage: NASA. AI voiceover. #Moon #Apollo11 #NASA #OrbitDaily

What if the Moon vanished tonight? 🌑 1. Darker nights 2. Smaller tides 3. No more total solar eclipses 4. A wobblier Earth, and a less stable climate Footage: NASA. AI voiceover. #Moon #WhatIf #Space #OrbitDaily

Two dates for your calendar: Nov 24 and Dec 24. 🌕 Both full Moons are supermoons, up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the year's faintest. In South Africa, look east at sunset on Nov 24. Footage: NASA. AI voiceover. #Supermoon #Moon #OrbitDaily

Seven minutes to land on Mars. And nobody on Earth could help. 🔴 Perseverance's entry, descent and landing in 60 seconds. Footage: NASA/JPL-Caltech. AI voiceover. #Mars #Perseverance #NASA #OrbitDaily

16 sunrises. Every single day. 🌅 The ISS circles Earth every 90 minutes at 17,500 mph - and people have lived aboard non-stop for 25+ years. Footage: NASA. AI voiceover. #ISS #NASA #Space #OrbitDaily

Hold a grain of sand at arm's length. Behind it? Thousands of galaxies. 🌌 This is Webb's First Deep Field: a 12.5-hour exposure of one tiny patch of sky, where a cluster's gravity bends and magnifies galaxies from the early universe. How small does that make you feel? Images: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. AI voiceover. Orbit Daily is an independent channel and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA. #Webb #JWST #NASA #Space #Galaxies #DeepField #SpaceTok #OrbitDaily