The Observer view on space exploration and the perils facing Earth

There is nowhere we can appreciate our planet more than from out there

We begin a new decade swamped by visions of our planet in peril. Australia is in flames; Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves are crumbling; thousands of species face extinction, and millions of humans are at risk of losing their homes as sea levels rise and deserts spread.

At the same time, amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the cause of the global heating that threatens to ravage our world - continue to increase unabated. Our future is being threatened in a manner that would have seemed unthinkable only a couple of decades ago.