-
Send Your Name to Mars
The Mars Science Laboratory rover going to Mars this year is allowing members of the public to have their names sent along on a microchip and thus “immortalized” on Mars. Today is the last day for submissions. The form is here. The site also provides the opportunity to print out a participation certificate. There are…
-
Ghosts of Saturn
GIANT KILLER PANDAS threaded together images from the Cassini Mission. The result is lovely. (Note: I’ve seen comments that the flickering effect between some frames is hard on epileptics, so beware.) (via Whatever)
-
Help Keep SETI Operational
SETI recently aannounced that it would be shutting down one of its main scanning tools due to lack of funding. It’s dismaying to see the slow decay of space-related research, and if you want to help stave it off you can make a tax-deductible donation to SETI here.
-
In Space No One Can Hear You Complain About Your Job
“Art-technology-philosophy group” monochrom is creating a ten-part improv-reality sitcom about life on the International Space Station. The four actors playing the ISS crew must develop strategies on the fly in response to surprise situations, which are loosely based on actual ISS data uncovered by monochrom. Here’s the first episode. The others (there are currently three,…
-
A Moment of Silence
Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. I was in high school, and they announced the disaster over the PA system. The teacher stopped class and we watched a replay on the news. I specifically recall a voiceover by somebody in the control room who didn’t see the explosion but noticed that his…
-
Evidence Emerges That Laws of Physics Are Not Fine-Tuned For Life
via Technology Review The value of the cosmological constant suggests that the laws of nature could not have been fine-tuned for life by an omnipotent being, says a cosmologist KFC 01/18/2011 One of the more curious debates in science focuses on the laws of physics and why they seem fine-tuned for life. The problem is…
-
Astronomers Find First Evidence Of Other Universes
via Technology Review Our cosmos was “bruised” in collisions with other universes. Now astronomers have found the first evidence of these impacts in the cosmic microwave background There’s something exciting afoot in the world of cosmology. Last month, Roger Penrose at the University of Oxford and Vahe Gurzadyan at Yerevan State University in Armenia announced…
-
NASA – Year in Review, 2010
Part One Part Two Both episodes are available as audio or video streams. Let’s think “positive” for the year(s) ahead!
-
ERIS AND PLUTO FIND COMMON GROUND
Analysis by Ian O’Neill, DiscoveryNews They may have their differences, but it seems that dwarf planets Eris and Pluto have a lot more in common than just their planetary status. The larger Eris orbits the sun at a distance three-times that of Pluto, so it may not seem possible that we’ll ever get a glimpse…
-
Houston, We Have a Trash Problem
Sean Cooper Wired Magazine, issue 15.05 Outer space is becoming a garbage heap. Some 15,000 pieces of debris, ranging from fingernail-sized paint flecks to 10-ton rocket stages, are hurtling through Earth’s orbit at 5 miles per second — about 10 times as fast as a speeding bullet. And the junk is multiplying, Asteroids-like, as large…