Oct 11
Even though it might not look like much when it’s so far away, the Moon is pretty huge. In fact, if it was a little closer—as close as the ISS for example—it would monopolize the entire sky.
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Oct 11
What took humans millions of years to achieve, Germany’s robotic ape has done in moments, with a research project into artificial spines showing how a quadrupedal ‘bot can evolve into a bipedal one. Three months ago, DFKI’s iStruct robo-ape was wandering around on all-fours as engineers experimented with human-inspired skeletal systems for potential space exploration. […]
Oct 11
OK, by this point we all know Gravity was beautiful and terrifying and, mercifully, complete fiction
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Oct 11
This bedding from Garnet Hill is pretty cool – especially if your kid(or you) are afraid of the dark. Night lights are cool, but when they burn out, you are left in total darkness and we all know that is when the boogeyman gets you. Well, with this bedding, its lights are on every night as you fall asleep.
Now instead of worrying about monsters under the bed, your kid can dream about an outer space adventure as they drift off to slumber. It’s perfect for kids and geeks who are single. Sorry married geeks, chances are slim that your wife will allow you to sleep with these covering your bed.
You can get bedding sets, pillow cases and comforter covers with the design over at Garnet Hill. This bedding looks amazing – it practically looks radioactive.
[via Drool’d via Geekologie]
Oct 11
If you’ve ever wondered how much of the Earths surface actually sits directly beneath the Sun at any given moment, then you probably also gave up on the math pretty quickly. Luckily, Randall Munroe didn’t.
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Oct 11
These images show the incredibly striking, scarred surface of Mars. Formed by huge tectonic forces, its canyons are an enduring reminder of stress and strain the red planet has undergone.
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Oct 10
Astronomers have discovered a very unusual planet roaming freely through the galaxy. The planet is about 80 light years from Earth and is believed to be about six times more massive than Jupiter. The interesting thing about this planet is that it’s floating freely in space with no parent star.
This isn’t the first time an orphan planet with no sun has been discovered, but this is the first time that astronomers and scientists are absolutely sure it’s a planet. In the past, the astronomers were unable to determine if these free-floating objects were failed stars known as “brown dwarfs” or “orphan planets.”
“We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this,” team leader Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa said. “It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone. I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do.”
The planet is known as PSO J318.5-22 and was discovered using its heat signature by the Pan-STARRS 1 wide-field survey telescope in Hawaii. Astronomers say most of the energy from the planet is emitted infrared wavelengths. The astronomers say that the planet has properties similar to those of gas-giant planets found orbiting young stars. The astronomers believe that the so-called “Ronin planet” is probably associated with the collection of young stars called the Beta Pictoris group and was somehow kicked out of its orbit.
[via NBC News]
Oct 10
A team of astrophysicists have made an exciting however complex discovery a mere 170 light years away. In their own words, it’s "the first evidence of a water-rich rocky planetary body" outside of our own solar system to have evidence of water. It’s the "rocky" bit that makes it Earth-like.
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Oct 09
Back in August of 2011, NASA launched a spacecraft called Juno on a mission to study Jupiter. With the vast distance between the Earth and Jupiter, NASA scientists had to devise a way to get the spacecraft up to an incredible rate of speed. To achieve the high velocity required scientists used the gravity of […]
Oct 08
Scientists François Englert and Peter W. Higgs have jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 for predicting the Higgs Boson, the particle – and its connected mechanism – which underlines the way all mass works in the universe. The pair took the award “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our […]
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