It’s not quite Armageddon but NASA revealed a concept video animation detailing how NASA would find, capture, re-direct and study a near-Earth asteroid. In the animation by NASA, you can see a crew of astronauts taking off on the Orion spacecraft and using the Moon to swing onto the captured asteroid.
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For nearly three years, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite was one of our most potent tools in the search for asteroids, discovering 33,500 of them (more than a dozen of which are potential impact threats) before being placed into hibernation in 2011. But with a new-found interest in asteroid mining
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If this image makes you think of the Northern Lights, you shouldn’t be surprised. Because this is in fact a planeterrella: a large glass dome containing spheres and charged particles, which mimics the auroral glows present within our solar system.
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Give a national museum a 3D scanner and it’ll archive its entire collection. Give it an X-ray machine though, and it’ll show you the innards of a space suit. As part of its Suited for Space exhibit, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum ran a series of astronauts’ work-wear through a CT scanner. The results (above and below) are more than a little haunting, with all manner of hidden buckles, straps and sensors exposed against ghostly transparent fabrics. Why X-rays? Because according to Wired, the Smithsonian wanted to see how the suits were put together, but deconstructing them without damage wasn’t exactly feasible. Seeing the level of detail required to keep our spacewalkers safe on the job via online pictures is one thing, but scoping it out in person is likely much cooler. If you want an up-close look for yourself, you have until December 1st to make the trip to Washington, D.C.
Via: The Verge
Source: Wired, Smithsonian
About 1,400 light years from Earth in the constellation of Vela, a new star is being born in a burst of violent glory. Streams of carbon monoxide molecules are spewing from the star’s poles, as dust swirls around the entire event. Thank God somebody got the whole event on camera.
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Over a hundred years ago, archaeologists dug up these nine blackened, corroded lumps of stone from a pre-dynastic Egyptian cemetery. But it wasn’t until now that we realized just how old they are—and that they came from outer space.
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Bloomberg Businessweek has a neat little video about the moon photo digitization efforts over at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Oddly enough, this project is currently taking place in an abandoned McDonald’s. McMoon’s, if you will.
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Collisions happen on different scales. Particles collide. Squirrels accidentally run into each other. Rams butt heads. Tectonic plates shift against each other. There’s a lot going on. But in this photo a dwarf galaxy and spiral galaxy are smooshing into each other. And galaxies are kind of huge.
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Look there were a lot of options. NASA streamed
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So our dear friend Cmdr. Chris Hadfield shared a horrifying piece of trivia this morning: Soyuz astronauts get two enemas before launch. Which is a little uncomfortable, but necessary because, uh, Soyuz restroom looks like this.
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