Hasta La Gadget!

Focusing on the extraterrestrial all day can probably make it pretty easy to forget about all that’s going on here on Earth. NASA has shifted its focus a bit for its new iPad app, taking a look at the goings-on of the world around us. The app features videos, stories, and images explaining things like climate change and plant life from the vantage point of the organization’s satellites. Like the self-titled NASA iPad app before it, the Visualization Explorer is available now as a free download from iTunes.

NASA iPad app helps you discover life on Earth originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is that an intergalactic wave pool, or just a hungry, hungry quasar? Turns out it’s a bit of both — well, not the wave pool bit, but it’s watery. A NASA-funded peep into the farthest reaches of the cosmos has uncovered this “feeding black hole” 12 billion light years away. APM 08279+5255, as this compacted mass of inescapable doom is affectionately known, has been gorging on water vapor and spewing out energy. How much H2O exactly? It’s only the “largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe,” and it weighs in at 140 trillion times the amount in our oceans. Located via the cooperation of two teams of astronomers and their star-gazing equipment — the Z-Space instrument at California Institute of Technology’s Submillimeter Observatory in Hawaii and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps — this aqueous discovery proves the wet stuff is more universally omnipresent than we once thought. Also, surfing aliens, right?

Giant body of water found in space, black hole claims it was just hydrating originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Space Shuttle Program’s 30 years brought great success—but also terrible failures and sadness. Today, as the program ends, we wanted to remember the heroes who fell along the way, and celebrate their lives. More »

So we won’t be zipping around with wife and kids in a flying car anytime soon, but NASA brought us ever closer to a Jetsonian future, yesterday, with the installation of its Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment. Fifteen minutes into their spacewalk, Mike Fossum and Ron Garan successfully installed the appropriate hardware on the International Space Station for pumping fuel to satellites in space. Using the Canadian-born Dextre (aka Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator) as a gas station attendant, the RRM will eventually be used to refuel and perform minor repairs to satellites in orbit, potentially extending the time they can stay aloft. Now that that’s underway, how ’bout y’all get to work on making Rosie a reality?

NASA robotic gas station successfully installed — our Jetsonian dreams (almost) fulfilled originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some folks can fall asleep to the calming pitter patter of gentle rain. Yeah, we’re not those people. But we could be swayed into a somnolent stupor if those sounds came from epic storms — on Saturn. Captured by NASA’s Cassini probe last March, this 11-second clip of AM radio-like electrostatic is actually the agency’s first glimpse into storm activity on the planet’s Northern Hemisphere. Alright, so we admit the recording’s more of a weak ‘snap, crackle and fizzy pop’ than outright terror-inducing awe, but still these are the noises of another world. Would it help if we told you this storm’s been raging since December 2010 and hasn’t shown any signs of stopping? Shocking, we know. It’s not all doom and gloom, though as the folks behind Cassini think this is simply a sign of impending summer. So basically, it’s spring break at the saturnine Señor Frogs. Check the source for a sample of otherworldly rumbles.

NASA’s Cassini can hear it when lightning crashes on Saturn originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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