in addition to all the great comments here about the solar latitude I'd add that it doesn't take that much technology and knowledge to count each day/night cycle and realise the seasons and the star constellations (especially the zodiac) come back and repeat after you counted roughly 365

even in an atmosphere, proper high explosions (as opposed to combustion) are too fast to consume atmospheric oxygen anyway, they are fueled mostly by their own payload oxidizer, so they can happen in vacuum just fine if proper ignition and oxidizer is provided (or if they are nuclear-based)

that looks like younger stephan kinsella