TAG RESULTS FOR: outer space

Meet our two new national heroes. You might even have a pair of heroes living under your own roof. Luke Geissbuhler and his son (not the heroes) took an iPhone and an HD video camera (there they are!), enclosed in a Styrofoam block attached to a specially-designed weather balloon, and launched the devices 19 miles into the sky. As the balloon lurched beyond the Earth’s atmosphere the iPhone kept a GPS record of the balloon’s trail, the HD camcorder captured... Continue reading

Okay, so I’m guilty of sensationalism, so shoot me… in the face… with a plasma gun! The ESO’s (European Southern Observatory) Paranal Observatory, which acts as home for the VLT (Very Large Telescope). This photo captures the VLT’s Laser Guide Star facility in action. The laser beam is part of the VLT’s adaptive optics system, which corrects for distortions caused by Earth’s atmosphere so the land-based optics system can get clear shots of the cosmos. In this case, the color... Continue reading

Gearfuse has some of the smartest readers on the face of the planet. Andrew’s Fake Facts Weekly recently came out with a study that placed Gearfuse at the top of the list for the number of physicists per 1000 readers. You have to admit, that’s a pretty impressive piece of made-up trivia. The infographic after the jump is chock full of interesting facts and figures about the comfy confines of outer space, including the effects space has on the human... Continue reading

As Carl Sagan once said of the now iconic Pale Blue Dot photograph, “all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home.” On March 8, 2004, on a chilly Mars dawn, one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day of its mission, also known as sol, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit snapped this distant shot of the Earth, the first ever photograph taken of our planet from the surface of another planet beyond... Continue reading

Best0fScience produced this amazing video tour of the entire piss-drinking International Space Station, detailing all of the nooks and nodes of the most diplomatic spacecraft in the known universe. This thing is huge, much bigger and windier than I had ever anticipated. Be warned that the multi-dimensional construction of the ISS leads to some serious nausea-inducing moments, complete with handheld action and floating twists. If you can get past the vertigo, this tour is one of the most intriguing looks... Continue reading

Earth is pretty gorgeous in its own right, without the addition of fancy-pantsy rings. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Uranus. And by Uranus, I mean your butt hole. Did I say that out loud? Planets. I love planets. The video after the jump, featuring the handy work of animator Roy Prol, portrays what Earth might look like if the rings of Saturn were really the rings of Earth.

While World of Warcraft still reigns supreme as king of the MMOs, Blizzard has an unusual competitor entering the market: NASA. The government space agency is developing an MMO that takes place around 2035 and focuses on “being in a habitat on a planetary surface and doing things like mining Helium-3 for fuel, operating a hydroponics facility to grow plants and create oxygen and operating robots and vehicles.” Sounds pretty entertaining if you’re interested in outer space. The working title... Continue reading