For a global society highly dependent on complex technical, economic, and political systems, we manage to carry on our daily routines largely unaware of the hard and soft infrastructure—from pipes to policies—on which these systems rest. That is, until unexpected events, so-called black swans, illuminate the previously hidden pieces and surprise or unsettle us by their presence and function.
With the traditional music industry floundering, some acts have embraced the rapidly changing musical landscape more than others. While the Wu-Tang Clan is hawking just a single copy
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Today, we’re hearing yet another report about a satellite that has spotted "potential objects," which might be floating wreckage from the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Today, those images come from France. Yesterday, the images came from China
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Throughout the 1950s, broadcast television was limited to domestic transmissions simply because we didn’t have a means to relay signals far enough to span the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. It wasn’t until NASA shot Telstar, an unproven, newfangled "active" communications satellite into orbit in 1963, that mass media truly become an international phenomenon.
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The unfolding drama between Russia and the Ukraine along the Crimean peninsula is developing, rapidly and unpredictably—certainly not in-sync with the orbits of our overhead surveillance assets. But if we could somehow get a few purpose-built (and presumably rapidly-prototyped) cube sats up there, the US Air Force could place extra eyes in the sky on-demand, and keep a closer watch on what’s happening on the ground. And that’s where Northrop Grumman’s new Modular Space Bus comes in.
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Ever wanted to watch the world—in real-time HD—from space? Well prepare to experience what it’d be life if the world was your very own video game and check out a few planes landing at the Bejiing airport. It’ll be the coolest planespotting you’ve ever done.
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Whale watching: you’re out there on the water with salt spray in your face and wind in your hair, waiting for a gigantic sea mammal to surface and do something splashy. It seems like a touristy thing to do, but scientists actually track whale populations from that very same vantage point. Sea level’s cool and all, but wouldn’t it be awesome to monitor whales—FROM SPACE?? You’re damn right it would, and now it’s actually happening.
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Being shot into space puts spacecraft under extreme stress—but did you know that the sound of the rocket launch can damage a craft? Inside the Large European Acoustic Facility, engineers recreate the incredible noise of a launch to make sure satellites can survive it. According to the ESA, "no human could survive" the sound.
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The European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite has been on a quest to study the Earth’s interior, from space. Now the results are in, and a pioneering effort to map the Earth’s gravitational field in high detail, has just been published in the journal Nature Geoscience. It’s giving researchers an unprecedented look at our planet’s mantle.
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EMA’s droney, esoteric music doesn’t fit easily in boxes, but her latest fuzzed out abstraction, "Satellites," lends itself quite well to the batshit video she made for it. It’s totally DIY, and features some queasy eyeball closeups. Also, is that an Oculus Rift? Yes it is.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
