Hasta La Gadget!

This is the planet Jupiter and it’s also an awesome work of art. It looks like one of those Styrofoam models that kids make for their Science class projects, except it’s loads better. That’s because this Jupiter isn’t made from Styro; it’s actually a cake!

Baked by the talented Rhiannon from Cake Crumbs, the cake for the largest planet in our Solar System took eight hours to complete. Rhiannon painstakingly painted the Great Red Spot and the other finer details found in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Rhiannon explained her love for Jupiter, which pushed her to bake an amazing layered cake of the planet: “In the end I settled on Jupiter predominantly for one reason: its Great Red Spot. The giant anticyclonic storm has always been one of my favourite things and continues to be a subject of great fascination for me. At thrice the size of the Earth it’s bewildering to comprehend the actual magnitude of it.”

The most awesome part of the cake is its insides. The center core is made up of mud cake. It’s surrounded by a layer of almond butter cake, followed by a layer of tinted vanilla Madeira sponge cake. And just below the fondant, the sphere is covered with a crumb coat of vanilla buttercream. Yum!

If you’d like to try and make your own planetary cake, Rhiannon has posted a tutorial, or you can watch the video here:

[via Foodbeast]

It’s hard to believe August 5th marks Curiosity’s first year on Mars — it seems like only yesterday that we were on tenterhooks during the rover’s precarious landing on the red planet. Within that time, it hasn’t only fulfilled its initial mission of finding evidence of extraterrestrial water, but it has also discovered traces of carbon-based materials and captured an astounding number of Mars close-ups. To celebrate everything Curiosity’s done thus far, NASA JPL will broadcast its first anniversary event via Ustream on August 6th, 10:45AM EDT.

The program kicks off with a series of pre-recorded interviews with the mission’s team, but a live stream with NASA officials and the crew aboard the ISS will follow. Folks itching to pick their brains can ask them questions in advance via Curiosity’s Twitter or Google+ accounts, or during the event by using the #askNASA hashtag. Even if you’re not a fan of the rover, you might still want to tune in — NASA will also be chatting about its preparations for the first human mission to Mars and to an asteroid.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: NASA (Twitter), (Ustream), Space

Kirobo is a 13-inch talking robot that will keep Japanese astronaut Kochi Wakata company on the International Space Station. He is now on his way to the ISS after being launched on an H-2B rocket from Japan.

Kirobo is the first talking robot to be sent into space. He’s a pretty adorable robot too. He was launched on board an unmanned spacecraft that’s scheduled to arrive at the ISS on August 9th. Along with the robot, the craft is also carrying drinking water, food, and other supplies.

Wakata will arrive at the ISS in November to take over as Commander. Kirobo will talk to Wakata and even keep a record of their conversations during the mission. Captain Kirk just has a captain’s log. Kirobo is so much neater.

Here’s some footage of the little guy being weighed, packed and shipped like so much space baggage:

If many more robots get into space, we will need to be careful they don’t build a death ray up there and kill us all.

[Kibo-Robo via Geekosystem]

This moon looks even more like it’s made from green cheese than ours does, but it’s not. Lame. Io, the innermost moon of Jupiter, is the most volcanically active body in our solar system because of gravitational "tides" exerted by Jupiter and its other moons. And the constantly flowing lava gives Io’s surface frequent makeovers.

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Armadillo Aerospace was once at the forefront of efforts to foster private spaceflight, but it has been quiet ever since its STIG-B rocket crashed in January. We’re now learning why: founder John Carmack has revealed that the company is now in “hibernation.” The transition from contract work to vehicle building just didn’t pan out, he says. Having more full-time staff backfired, as workers were bogged down in planning and reviews; the team also repeated many of NASA’s mistakes in material choices, limiting its production capacity. As Carmack isn’t prepared to invest more of his personal funds to keep Armadillo going, the firm will likely remain on ice until there’s a new investor who’s ready to pay to keep up with Branson and Musk in the space race.

[Image credit: Official GDC, Flickr]

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: The Verge

Source: NewSpace Journal