Deep Field

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96 places

Where the work happens

The telescopes, the pads, the concrete a booster comes back to, and the holes in the ground something left behind. Each has a page with what it is, where it is, and whatever has been written about it lately. They are all on the map as well, if you would rather browse geographically.

Spaceports

The places rockets leave from.

Kennedy Space Center — LC-39A Merritt Island, Florida Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Florida, United States Vandenberg Space Force Base California, United States Starbase Boca Chica, Texas Wallops Flight Facility Virginia, United States Guiana Space Centre Kourou, French Guiana Baikonur Cosmodrome Kazakhstan Plesetsk Cosmodrome Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia Vostochny Cosmodrome Amur Oblast, Russia Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center Inner Mongolia, China Wenchang Space Launch Site Hainan, China Xichang Satellite Launch Center Sichuan, China Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center Shanxi, China Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota, India Tanegashima Space Center Kagoshima, Japan Uchinoura Space Center Kagoshima, Japan Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand SaxaVord Spaceport Unst, Shetland Islands Andøya Spaceport Nordland, Norway Esrange Space Center Kiruna, Sweden Alcântara Launch Center Maranhão, Brazil Palmachim Airbase Israel Woomera Range Complex South Australia

Landing sites

Where boosters, capsules and crews come back.

Landing Zones 1 & 2 Cape Canaveral, Florida Landing Zone 4 Vandenberg SFB, California Port Canaveral droneship berth Florida, United States Launch Site One landing pad West Texas, United States Soyuz recovery area Steppe near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan Dongfeng landing site Inner Mongolia, China Utah Test and Training Range Utah, United States

Observatories

Optical, radio and gravitational-wave instruments.

Mauna Kea Observatories Hawai‘i, United States Paranal Observatory — the VLT Atacama Desert, Chile Extremely Large Telescope Cerro Armazones, Chile Vera C. Rubin Observatory Cerro Pachón, Chile Gemini South Cerro Pachón, Chile ALMA Chajnantor Plateau, Chile La Silla Observatory Atacama Desert, Chile Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Coquimbo, Chile Las Campanas Observatory Atacama Region, Chile Roque de los Muchachos La Palma, Canary Islands Teide Observatory Tenerife, Canary Islands Palomar Observatory California, United States Kitt Peak National Observatory Arizona, United States Apache Point Observatory New Mexico, United States Mount Wilson Observatory California, United States Haleakalā Observatory Maui, Hawai‘i Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array New Mexico, United States Green Bank Telescope West Virginia, United States Arecibo Observatory (collapsed) Puerto Rico FAST — the Five-hundred-metre dish Guizhou, China Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Jodrell Bank — the Lovell Telescope Cheshire, United Kingdom MeerKAT Northern Cape, South Africa SKA-Low Wajarri Country, Western Australia Murriyang — the Parkes dish New South Wales, Australia Siding Spring Observatory New South Wales, Australia Southern African Large Telescope Sutherland, South Africa LIGO Hanford Washington, United States LIGO Livingston Louisiana, United States Virgo Cascina, Italy KAGRA Kamioka, Japan South Pole Telescope & IceCube Amundsen–Scott Station, Antarctica H.E.S.S. Khomas Highland, Namibia Pierre Auger Observatory Mendoza Province, Argentina BTA-6 Zelenchukskaya, Russia

Ground stations

Deep-space antennas and the rooms that fly the missions.

Goldstone Deep Space Complex Mojave Desert, California Madrid Deep Space Complex Robledo de Chavela, Spain Canberra Deep Space Complex Tidbinbilla, Australia New Norcia ground station Western Australia ESOC — European Space Operations Centre Darmstadt, Germany Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, California Johnson Space Center — Mission Control Houston, Texas Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, Maryland

Impact sites

Craters and airbursts, some of them very old.

Chicxulub crater Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico Vredefort Dome Free State, South Africa Sudbury Basin Ontario, Canada Popigai crater Siberia, Russia Manicouagan crater Quebec, Canada Nördlinger Ries Bavaria, Germany Barringer (Meteor) Crater Arizona, United States Wolfe Creek Crater Kimberley, Western Australia Tunguska event Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia Chelyabinsk airburst Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia Sikhote-Alin fall Primorsky Krai, Russia Hoba meteorite Grootfontein, Namibia Campo del Cielo Chaco, Argentina

Dark-sky places

Certified reserves and parks where the night is still dark enough to see the galaxy.

Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve Canterbury, New Zealand NamibRand Nature Reserve Namib Desert, Namibia Bannau Brycheiniog Dark Sky Reserve Wales, United Kingdom Exmoor National Park England, United Kingdom Pic du Midi Dark Sky Reserve Hautes-Pyrénées, France Mont-Mégantic Quebec, Canada Big Bend National Park Texas, United States Cherry Springs State Park Pennsylvania, United States Elqui Valley Coquimbo, Chile Warrumbungle National Park New South Wales, Australia