Hasta La Gadget!

Remember those videos of a purported UFO hovering above Jerusalem that had the Web all a twitter last week? It’s probably not a shocker to suggest that they were completely fabricated. But what if I told you that they were actually posted in order to promote an upcoming movie? Irritating, right?

That’s the latest theory. The videos, which created a sensation after being posted to YouTube (one is currently at 1.7 million views), may actually be promotional material for the upcoming film, Battle: Los Angeles. For starters, they appear to be manipulated, digitally. They’ve also been used in material to promote the film.

News.com.au also points out the fact that the company charged with promoting the film launched a Website for the fake Worldwide Assessment of Threats Concerning Humankind over the summer in order to promote the movie.

Video/movie promotion after the jump.

Scientists have taken the first-ever 360 degree shots of that big fireball in the sky, thanks to the two STEREO (that’s Solare Terrestrial Relations Observatory) probes that were launced back in 2006. The probes were lined up on opposite sides of the star, allowing scientists to stitch together a 360 degree of the sun.

The probes weren’t exactly 180 degrees apart, which is why there’s that thick black line going down the center of the image. NASA, however, promises that the two probes, “will completely close over the next several days”.

The probes traveled a combined 290 million miles to take the shots. Astronmer Phil Plait describes the process thusly,

The Moon spins once for every time it goes around the Earth, so it appears like the same face is always toward us. But the Sun rotates once about every 24.5 days. During that time, the Earth has moved 1/15th of the way around its orbit, so the Sun has to spin a little more to “catch up” with the Earth — another 1.7 days. So over the course of about a month we see the entire surface of the Sun.

According to new report, NASA astronaut Mark Kelly is set to announce today plans to return to space later this year on the final Endeavour mission. Kelly’s return to space has been in question since his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head last month, during an assassination attempt at a public appearance in Tuscon.

Kelly’s decision will be announced today during a press conference. Politico has confirmed that he will, in fact, announce his return, according to “a source familiar with the decision.”

Kelly is a veteran of space travel. The two-week Endeavour mission set for April 19th, will be his fourth.

A number of Utah residents reported seeing a UFO above the town of American Fork around 7:15 last night. The UFO appeared in the form of three red lights, which hovered in formation and apparently dropped flares.

Resident Lynette Chidester told the local news, “I don’t believe in extra-terrestrials,” but added that the lights didn’t belong to a helicopter or airplane, “I noticed over the roof of the garage a red light and white light and the red light isn’t flashing like a plane light and that’s what draws my attention to it.”

The local Provo and Salt Lake City airports didn’t report any unusual activity. Mike Galbraith issued a similar report from miles away, “They looked like they were flying in formation perfectly together and then whatever was dropping looked like it was burning real bright.”

Neither the Provo nor Salt Lake City airports reported any unusual activity for the night.

First, the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation tested a Nexus One’s ability to deal with the stress of a rocket launch. Then, Google floated seven Nexi to the edge of space to see if the phones could cope with the void. Now, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) is looking to launch a satellite into orbit and use a ‘droid — much smaller than the Astromech variety — to control said satellite. SSTL, who is helping build Galileo (and is acutely aware of its cost, no doubt), views smartphones as a way to democratize access to space because they are far less expensive than purpose-built control systems. The company hasn’t said which handset will be used in the satellite, but they chose Android because it allows engineers to easily modify the phone to do their bidding — from controlling pulse plasma thrusters to handling the advanced guidance and navigation systems of the foot long satellite. Additionally, the open source OS means that they “could get people to develop apps” for the satellite. We’ve seen plenty of Android apps, but we’re really hoping this venture is successful so we get to see apps… in space.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

SSTL using Android handsets to control satellites, conquer the final frontier originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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