Space, outer space, and deep space — which is further out, and which is the real final frontier?
Space is famously considered the"final frontier" — but what part of space are we even talking about? Space, outer space and deep space are used somewhat interchangeably in many contexts, but astronomers have come up with clear distinctions between them. So, what's the difference between them?
The term outer space refers to anything beyond Earth, even things very close to home in low-Earth orbit, which begins as low as 100 miles above the planet. Deep space, on the other hand, starts a bit further out: It's often considered to be anything further away from Earth than our moon and can refer to things beyond our solar system entirely. Turns out, the actual final frontier is deep space.
Naturally, outer space exploration came before deep space exploration, as humans had to take baby steps beyond our protective atmosphere to start. In the late 1950s, scientists drew an invisible line, known as the Kármán line, where they determined that Earth ends and outer space begins, around 50 to 60 miles above the planet's surface.
There's no clear change that magically happens at this altitude. Instead, the line comes from a calculation by engineer Theodore von Kármán that indicates the altitude where an aircraft must fly so fast to travel through the atmosphere that it technically enters orbit. Since a milestone rocket launch in 1949, humanity has been sending things past the Kármán line to outer space and into orbit around Earth.
Why do these terms matter? For one, it helps keep track of things. NASA has an entire communications setup to check in with all our deep space missions, appropriately named the Deep Space Network . Three large radio antennas spread across the globe send and receive signals to all the probes and satellites beyond the moon. Recently, the DSN had to determine if one mission counted as"deep space" and therefore fell under its jurisdiction: the James Webb Space Telescope .
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