Rawane's Mission Log

Weekly field notes from our astronaut mascot. The story is made up; the facts are real.

Who Is Rawane?

Rawane (say Rah-wahn) is Saving Planets' original mascot: an astronaut who keeps an eye on the solutions this site tracks. Each week she files a short log entry from her post above Earth.

Rawane and her voice are made up. The facts in her log are not: each one links to its source in the Fact Check box.

Her home base: Project Rawane

Log 002 ·

Bleached Is Not Dead

From up here the Florida Keys look like spilled turquoise paint. Up close, some of that reef has turned ghost white. It looks like the end. It isn't, not yet.

NOAA says a bleached coral is not a dead coral. If the stress eases, coral can recover. If it lasts too long, it dies, and that is where people come in.

The Coral Restoration Foundation grows coral in nurseries and plants it back on the reef. By the end of 2024 they had returned 253,833 corals to Florida's reefs. That is their own count, and I like it.

Rawane out. Next week: whatever the planet tells me.

Fact Check

On Saving Planets:

Log 001 ·

Waiting for Hera

First log. I'm watching a small spacecraft close in on a crash scene.

In 2022, NASA's DART spacecraft flew into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on purpose. Its orbit got 33 minutes and 15 seconds shorter. The first time people ever moved a space rock.

Now ESA's Hera spacecraft is on its way to see exactly what that hit did. It launched in October 2024 and is on track to arrive at Didymos in November 2026, a month earlier than planned.

One test turns into a tool once you measure it. That's how you save a planet: try, check, learn. Rawane out.

Fact Check

  • DART shortened Dimorphos's orbit by 33 minutes and 15 seconds. NASA
  • Hera is on track to arrive at Didymos in November 2026, a month earlier than planned. ESA

On Saving Planets: