Tag archive: NASA

If you've ever dreamed about what it would be like to travel through space, here is your chance: Today NASA released some of the most stunning high-definition images of nighttime earth ever captured, along with video from the International Space Station traveling over North America and witnessing the Aurora Borealis. The videos look as if James Cameron and Terrance Malick somehow melded minds, but like religion and politics, it’s better… Read More

Newt Gingrich has always been a polarizing figure in politics, and he’s embracing that reputation to a tee during his run for the Republican nomination. Yet amidst all of the crazy he has spewed thus far in his campaign, there is one gem to be found in the dangerous rough of Gingrich’s ideas – the moon. Now, this should not be considered an endorsement for Gingrich, nor should it even be thought of as an agreement with the specifics of his moon… Read More

Officials from Russia’s Space Agency, Roscosmos, are reportedly in talks with Europe’s ESA and NASA over possibly establishing a collective research base on–or above– the moon. According to Russian news site RIA Novosti, while the country intends on making the moon its focal point, Russia’s plans calls for more than merely putting boots on the lunar surface. According to Roscosmos chief, Vladimir Popovkin, that leaves only two… Read More

You might be familiar with population density maps. They’re generally color coded, where red represents the most densely populated areas, and are often centered on urban centers like New York City and Los Angeles. However, we’re guessing you’ve probably never really seen an accurate tree population density map before. Well, now you have. Created by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of Woods Hole Research Center, the data for this map was… Read More

NASA wants to shoot for the stars, or at the very least, comets will do. Scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland are currently developing a space harpoon in order to siphon samples off of wayward comets. The idea is that the harpoon will make collection safer and more efficient. Grabbing a sample off of a comet rotating at a 150,000 miles per hour is no cakewalk, especially when terrain is too rugged to land the spacecraft or… Read More

With government funded space flight taking a hit lately, Seattle billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has stepped in with a pioneering vision for commercial space travel. Allen, on Tuesday, unveiled designs for an efficient air-launch system that resembled a giant airplane split into two fuselages. The craft will take both government and commercial payloads into orbit, with human missions as an eventual goal. Though one might be… Read More

We don't usually get too in-depth with science coverage here at Digital Trends, but this breakthrough certainly deserves mention: NASA announced today that it has confirmed the discovery of the first known planet that could have liquid water on its surface, thus making it potentially habitable for alien life. The planet, dubbed Kepler-22b, is one of more than 1,000 new planet candidates discovered during the Kepler mission. The reason… Read More

First there was news of pilots taking iPads into the cockpit. Then came flight attendants who started using them in the cabin. After that, garbage collectors got in on the act. Doctors in Hong Kong are now in the process of replacing their clipboards with Apple’s tablet. And the latest news is that the iPad, or a pair of them to be precise, is heading into space. According to collectSPACE, two iPads will be placed on board an unmanned resupply… Read More

The Russian space agency has correctly identified the reasons behind the August crash of a Soyuz rocket headed for the International Space Station (pictured) and taken steps to protect the next launch, according to an independent NASA review of the incident. As we reported back on August 25, the unmanned Soyuz rocket made an unexpected return to Earth just five minutes after launch, and crashed into the Siberian desert with its payload of ISS… Read More

Space-obsessed teenagers will be interested in this one. YouTube is working with Chinese computer company Lenovo to give teenagers aged between 14 and 18 the opportunity to have their science experiments live streamed from the International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth. The competition, called YouTube Space Lab, has been launched by Google-owned YouTube and will be judged by NASA chiefs, astronauts and Professor Stephen Hawking. Six… Read More

As if the notion of flying around in your own plane wasn't cool enough, a recent contest has proven that travel by personal airplane can be an energy-efficient dream, too. It only took two hours and a half-gallon of gas per passenger for Team Pipistrel-USA's electric plane to complete the 200-mile course and win the CAFE Green Flight Challenge. The Pennsylvania-based team's achievement earned them a $1.35 million award from… Read More

In what is starting to look like the beginnings of a trend, casual gamers have helped scientists make significant discoveries through a specially designed game for the second time this month. Using a small portion of the massive amounts of data collected by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, people playing the browser-based game Planet Hunters have helped to identify two new planets in the Cygnus Constellation. Earlier this months a different type… Read More

The decommissioned UARS weather satellite has landed – albeit in a number of pieces. Speaking to BBC radio at 4am ET, NASA spokesman Steve Cole said the satellite had re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere “somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.” The precise location is not yet known. NASA posted a message on its Twitter feed at 3.30am ET saying: “We can now confirm that #UARS is down! Debris fell to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23,… Read More

NASA has been going through its audio archives and come up with a selection of what it’s calling “historic and interesting sounds” that can be used as ringtones or computer notification noises. Imagine that, every time your phone rings, you could have Neil Armstrong piping up with the immortal line: “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” “NASA has been making historic sounds for over 50 years,” NASA App project manager Jerry… Read More