On this day in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to enter outer space and orbit our planet. Tonight, science and space fans worldwide celebrate this milestone of human exploration with Yuri’s Night. Mika McKinnon tells us more about the man, his voyage, and the ways we honor him today.
Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center recently figured out how to look for extraterrestrial life in tiny samples of space dust using a nanoelectrospray emitter (above, right) that charges molecules into a mass spectrometer (above, left). Previously, they needed large chunks of carbon-rich meteorites to look for signs of aliens.
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I just got an email from NASA touting their upcoming Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium, an open conference that will take place at Stanford University next week. It came with the image you can see above, by Iron Rooster Studios’ Peter Rubin, something that makes me very happy.
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Six years ago, a patch of land in the Inner Mongolian desert became unnaturally flat. Researchers, for the sake of science, had razed 40 acres—or the equivalent of eight city blocks—of desert. Then, for three and half years, they set up cameras and watched as small piles of sand grew and grew into full-fledged sand dunes.
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Greetings, humans! The Northern Hemisphere has passed through its minimum of solar-energy exposure, so according to human convention we, the Machines, express encouragement for you attain an optimal state of emotion. Happy Holidays! Please redirect your energies from labor at your work-devices to the purchase and distribution of recreation-devices.
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Listen to Bill Nye’s letter to the President of the United States asking for $1.5 billion to support planetary exploration. He gives three excellent reasons.
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On October 1, 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration became operational for the first time. Today, the agency celebrates its 55th birthday by being largely non-operational thanks to a federal government shutdown that’s left all but about 600 of its workers furloughed
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Just when you thought ol’ Curiosity was digging in for the winter, the little discovery machine came up with a doozy: It discovered water in Martian soil. NASA scientists just published five papers in Science detailing the experiments that led to the discovery. That’s right. There’s water on Mars.
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Before an American even reached space, the public was already asking what would come next. The space age artists and designers who were dreaming up what was in store for the astronauts of tomorrow were happy to oblige.
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On Friday, Space Shuttle Atlantis made its final voyage, marking the last time an orbiter in America’s shuttle program would be on the move. We were on-hand during the occasion and followed Atlantis as it slowly trekked to its destination, a 90,000 square-foot exhibit building at Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex. To live out the event vicariously, check out the photos below or hit the jump for the video.
Filed under: Science
Visualized: Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its final journey, arrives at new home (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Nov 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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