Why Is NASA Sending Its New Telescope a Million Miles Away?
Our solar system is brimming with stunning phenomena: the stormy atmosphere of Jupiter, its clouds coiling like cream poured into hot coffee. The delicate rings of Saturn, the countless pieces of ice and rock arrayed like grooves on vinyl. The aurora borealis on Earth, the collision of solar particles and atmospheric molecules painting the night sky with a ghostly green.
But some of the most mesmerizing marvels in our cosmic neighborhood are, actually, completely invisible.
There are points in space where a quirk of physics borders on sorcery, where Earth and the sun have conspired to produce a special kind of equilibrium. Put something there—an asteroid, a spacecraft, even a cloud of dust—and it will more or less stay there, suspended by the unseen forces of
