Hasta La Gadget!

This beautiful, unreal portrait of the Sun was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory as it was moving into its eclipse season: More »

Holy sci-fi awesome space balls. European astronomers have discovered an alien planet in Alpha Centauri, the star system that’s pretty much our neighbor. The planet, which is Earth-sized, is only 4.3 light years away. More »

A group of scientists from Scotland have an insane idea to help reverse the effects of global warming here on Earth. The scientists think they can grab a near-Earth asteroid called 1036 Ganymed and use it to him to create a massive dust cloud to block some of the Sun’s energy from warming the Earth. The scientists say that they only need to reduce 1.7% of the solar radiation that hits the Earth to offset a global temperature increase of 3.6°F.

The plan is rather far-out, and even the scientists admit that it’s no replacement for curbing greenhouse gas emissions here on Earth. The scientists envision using some sort of “mass driver” that can be used to push the asteroid to Lagrange point L1. Lagrange point L1 is where gravity from the Sun and the Earth cancel each other out.

Once there, the mass driver could then be used to blow a massive cloud of dust and debris off the asteroid to block sunlight. The dust cloud would need a mass of about 11 million-billion pounds and span about 1600 miles wide. I wonder if a slight miscalculation in the size of the dust cloud might block more sun than they intend and plunge the Earth into an Ice Age.

[via Livescience]

Looking for a solar charger for your gadgets, but want something other than a black box with a solar panel glued to it? Then Check out XD Design’s latest creation – the Solar Sunflower, a gadget charger perfect for those with or without a green thumb.

Designed to look like a small, potted sunflower, you can place it in a window or bring it with you outside to charge up your mobile devices. It’s got a powerful 2500 mAh rechargeable battery built in, so it’ll hold onto some juice even when the sun goes down. It’s got a USB connector for charging your smartphones and other small gadgets (sorry, no tablets), and a mini-USB input, which I can only assume is for charging its internal battery up without sunlight.

The Solar Sunflower is available from Design3000 for €59.50 (~$77 USD), and for wholesale purchasers over on XD Design’s website now.

Holy Jesuspants. The image was already astonishing but this video made my head spin. Watching this magnificent violence from every angle is a good way to realize how lucky we are to be alive, precisely because of that titanic ball of fire in the sky. More »