Earth & Space

The Red Planet has been the object of science fiction, paranoia, and fakery. And with numerous spacecraft now beaming back publicly-available images from our neighboring planet, Martian fantasizing is a growth industry. This film is one of the most convincing, and it isn't even from Mars. Video after the jump.

Narwhals don't go to graduate school, and they're not much use as grant-writers. But they're able to do a few things oceanographers find challenging�such as dive to depths of nearly six thousand feet beneath the ice of Baffin Bay in winter. So scientists have enlisted them in gathering climate-change data in the Greenland Current.

The Tokyo-based Shimizu Corporation is one of the world's leading construction and engineering contractors. It's also a prolific producer of corporate science fiction: fanciful, high-concept design projects that offer glimpses of astonishing futures. Its "Luna Ring" envisions such a future for the moon�and for Shimizu.

Oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico? Mysterious astronomical phenomenon? Tattoo run amok? Answer after the jump.

The Space Shuttle Program, which employs five thousand people and comprises more than a quarter of NASA infrastructure, is set to end in early 2011. How to commemorate the program that has defined manned spaceflight for more than thirty years? How about with an astronaut-helmet tea cozy!

It's getting pretty plush up there. Yesterday, NASA released this image of Expedition 25 commander Doug Wheelock in the "cupola," a bay window installed on the Earth-facing side of the International Space Station in February 2010.

It's sumptuous and elegant. But what is it�a puzzle or game? A clockwork cribbage player? A static electricity generator? Answer after the jump.

Pluto's loss of planetary status seemed to have been sealed by the 2006 discovery of a batch of similarly-sized planet-like objects in the same orbital neighborhood�one of which, later named Eris, was thought to be larger than erstwhile ninth planet. According to new findings, however, Pluto's diameter is larger than that of its more massive neigbhor. For now, Pluto gains in status as the largest of these so-called dwarf planets. Whether this will be enough to secure a record contract remains to be seen.

An explanation for the spectacular missile contrail that appeared in the Los Angeles sky last night continues to prove elusive. Amidst the speculation, a benign possibility suggests itself: could it be that someone got carried away while trying to earn Scouting's space exploration merit badge?

It's a lunar crater�in this case, a rather striking one found in the Bay of Rainbow's in the moon's northern hemisphere. But as the blazon of Chinese characters indicates, there's something different about this image. The probe Chang'e 2�named for the Chinese goddess who lives on the moon with her companion, the herbalist Jade Rabbit�is scouting sites for a planned Chinese robotic moon landing in 2013. The budget for Chang'e 2 is reportedly a mere $134 million.