Hasta La Gadget!

Lightning doesn’t always shoot downwards. Just occasionally, a thunderstorm will be accompanied by a red sprite: a huge, momentary electrical explosion that occurs around 50 miles high and fires thin tendrils many miles further up into the atmosphere. Sprites have been caught on camera before, but a fresh photo taken by arty astronauts on the ISS helps to show off their true scale. Captured accidentally during a timelapse recording, it reveals the bright lights of Myanmar and Malaysia down below, with a white flash of lightning inside a storm cloud and, directly above that, the six mile-wide crimson streak of the rare beast itself. Such a thing would never consent to being bottled up and examined, but somehow observers at the University of Alaska did manage to film one close-up at 1000 frames per second back in 1999 — for now, their handiwork embedded after the break is as intimate as we can get.

Continue reading NASA captures red sprite, puts it in a jar

Filed under: Science

NASA captures red sprite, puts it in a jar originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Dvice, National Geographic  |  NASA  | Email this | Comments

After a brief respite to recover from last week’s hot dog and homemade ice cream comas, our tablet mag is back in action. Getting our e-publication affairs back in order, Brian Heater sits down with Levar Burton to chat about Reading Rainbow, a new iPad app and Star Trek gadgetry. Hitting on another bit of childhood nostalgia for many of us at Engadget HQ, Alexis Santos drops by NASA’s Launch Control Center (LCC) for a tour after more than three decades of operation. On the review front, we roll up our sleeves and put both the Nexus Q and the Samsung Series 9 through the wringer while offering some in-depth impressions. “Eyes-On” takes a peek at the Google booty offered to I/O attendees, “Hands-On” our latest gadget outings and Gaikai’s founder admits his reliance on the PowerPoint gods in the Q&A. Don’t take our word for it. Snag your copy of the e-magazine with a few clicks on the download links that follow.

Distro Issue 48 PDF
Distro in the iTunes App Store
Distro in the Google Play Store
Distro APK (for sideloading)
Like Distro on Facebook
Follow Distro on Twitter

Filed under: Announcements

Distro Issue 48 arrives with the Nexus Q, Levar Burton and more originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  iTunes, Google Play  | Email this | Comments

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took a photo during a flyby of a massive vortex on Saturn’s moon Titan. The photograph was taken on June 27 this year and released this week. The massive milky cloud shown in the image is a South polar vortex on the surface of Titan. The vortex is a mass of swirling gas around the pole of the atmosphere on the moon.

NASA says that the high-altitude haze in the vortex at the South Pole signals that the seasons are changing on Saturn’s largest moon. The first sign of haze starting to concentrate over the moon’s south pole were noted in March. The image you see above is a true color image taken in visible light.

NASA says that the vortex is similar to open cellular convection often seen over the oceans here on earth. However, on earth these layers are just above the surface of the ocean and on Titan, the vortex is a very high-altitude, about 200 miles above the surface of moon’s South Pole. The scientists believe that the vortex could be a response of Titan’s stratosphere to seasonal cooling, but that is unconfirmed.

Cassini spacecraft spies massive vortex on Titan is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

NASA has announced the launch of the new application for iPhone and iPad users that is available on the iTunes App Store for free right now. The app is called Spacecraft 3D and is designed to show off various NASA spacecraft using 3-D animation. The point app is to show people interested in space how the spacecraft maneuvers and manipulates its external components.

Right now, the app features animations for two missions, including the Curiosity rover that will land on the surface of Mars next month, and both GRAIL spacecraft called Ebb and Flow. The app uses augmented reality to view the spacecraft using the iPhone or iPad camera. The app has users print an augmented reality target on a normal sheet of paper.

Once that augmented reality target is printed, and the camera is aimed at the paper, the spacecraft appears on the screen. It looks as if the spacecraft is meant to look like it’s in front of you, in your room. Other features include the ability to make a self-portrait with the spacecraft putting you or someone else in the picture. NASA says that the app is only available for Apple devices now, but other formats are coming in the future.

NASA launches Spacecraft 3D app for iPad and iPhone is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

An advanced telescope imaging system, called Project 1640, has been the first of its kind to detect planets orbiting around stars outside of our own solar system. After six years of development with NASA, the American Museum of Natural History and the California Institute of Technology, the telescope made of high-tech instruments and software has returned its first images.

Since planets orbiting around other stars are difficult to see due to the amount of light they produce, Project 1640 creates “dark holes” around the stars so the planets can be made visible. The images show a star that is about one and a half times larger than our sun.

“All indications point to a tremendous diversity of planetary systems, far beyond what was imagined just 10 years ago. We are on the verge of an incredibly rich new field,” said Gautam Vasisht of NASA Let Propulsion Laboratory. Once the exoplanets are made visible, researchers can determine the colors they produce, their atmospherical chemical compositions and and even physical characteristics of their surfaces.

The team plans on using the advanced telescope to study hundreds of stars outside of our solar system over the next three years.

[via Verge]

Advanced telescope can detect exoplanets is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.