Tag archive: space

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

It was probably a rather small step for Lego but it was certainly one giant leap for a Lego man when he was launched into space by a couple of Canadian teens recently. The mission was the result of the hard work and ingenuity of friends Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, who worked on their project during free time on weekends. It took them four months to complete and cost just $400. The space-bound contraption the two 17-year-olds came up with… Read More

Let's face it: Smartphone and tablet cases are, for the most part, pretty boring. So we can't really blame case-makers for coming up with creative ways to show the effectiveness of their product. In today's installment of creative case marketing, G-Form decided to send up an iPad, wrapped in its Extreme Edge case and tied to a giant balloon, into outerspace, then let it free fall 100,000 feet back to Earth. Surprisingly (or… Read More

The threat of Internet censorship has spurred some to seek refuge in space. Hackers at the Chaos Computer Club's Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin this year proposed an initiative called the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG), which aims to create and freely make available satellite based communication as a fallback or to bypass stuffy legislation. The bunch of “hobbyist hackers, tinkerers and part time scientists” are predominantly based… 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

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

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

As Hurricane Irene is hot on a possible track for Florida, an Expedition 28 crew member on the International Space Station captured video of the storm yesterday at 3:33 p.m. EDT.  The storm was building momentum and intensity as it passed north of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which is shared by both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The view from 225 miles above is a serene look at something with such a high potential for destruction… Read More

If you’ve ever dreamed of going into space but couldn’t make head nor tail of that build-your-own-space-rocket manual, all is not lost. A competition in the US is offering a prize that is quite literally out of this world – a chance to climb into a rocket and be blasted high above our planet. It could be you. The offer is being made by the Space Needle, a famous Seattle landmark, to celebrate its upcoming 50th anniversary and to highlight… Read More

One-hundred-sixty-five years ago, Neptune, the eighth planet in our solar system, was discovered. Yesterday, Neptune returned to the spot it was discovered for the first time since. That's 165 years to complete one single orbit around the Sun, and was certainly an occasion worthy of celebration. Thankfully, NASA had the Hubble Space Telescope pointed right at the blue orb to commemorate the anniversary. Neptune is 2.8 billion miles from… Read More

It might be NASA's final shuttle mission, but next month will be the first trip to space for Apple's iPhone. Two iPhone 4s will blast off onboard the space shuttle Atlantis on July 8 en route to the International Space Station. The iPhones are being welcomed aboard the mission after passing a grueling two-year evaluation that determined that the devies were safe enough to be carried aboard spacecraft, meaning they won't… Read More

Space missions are serious events; they cost billions of dollars and allow astronauts to explore the universe in mankind's ongoing quest to unlock the secrets of the cosmos. Each mission is a brave attempt to discover more about who we are, where we came from, and where we might be heading. Growing cucumbers was never part of the deal – up until now. Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa will be heading skywards on Wednesday to begin a… Read More

If you'd like to see what 10 years of hard work looks like, we've got it right here. For a decade, a group of astronomers has worked to complete what you see here, a screenshot of the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS), which attempts to map out our entire known galaxy in 3D space. Extending to a distance of 380 million light-years, this new study uses infrared technology and 'redshifts' to determine the distance of more than… Read More

If there are aliens out there, it looks like we're going to have to wait for them to come to us before we find them. The California-based SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, a not-for-profit organization that exists “to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe,” has had to call a halt to its search for extra-terrestrial life because it has run out of money. The search,… Read More