Let the search for extraterrestrial life resume! More »
Witness a massive solar flare burst off the Sun [Video]
Earlier today, the Sun fired the biggest solar flare we’ve seen thus far in our current solar cycle. With an X-ray magnitude of X6.9, this flare was three times larger than the previous titleholder, a X2.2 from mid-February. More »
NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space (video)
So, this is kinda wild: scientists at NASA have uncovered new evidence that DNA components found in meteorites can originate in space, lending new credence to the theory that life on Earth may have arisen from a pre-existing “kit” of materials delivered via asteroid. The discovery is outlined in a new paper from Dr. Michael Callahan, whose team of researchers closely analyzed samples from 12 different meteorites, using a mass spectrometer and liquid chromatography. In their samples, they found traces of adenine, guanine, and a variety of molecules known as nucleobase analogs — including three that are rarely found on Earth. Scientists have long known that meteorites can contain DNA elements, but were unsure whether these materials actually originate in space. The presence of these three molecules, however, suggest that they do, potentially raising new questions about the dawn of life on Earth, and beyond. It’s all quite heady, but steam ahead for a NASA video that might help clarify things, after the break.
Continue reading NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space (video)
NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NASA Might Have Found Flowing Water on Mars (Updated) [Space]
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have just found flowing water on Mars. It’s the closest that scientists have come to finding flowing water on the Red Planet and will help determine if Mars could harbor life. More »
Giant body of water found in space, black hole claims it was just hydrating
Is that an intergalactic wave pool, or just a hungry, hungry quasar? Turns out it’s a bit of both — well, not the wave pool bit, but it’s watery. A NASA-funded peep into the farthest reaches of the cosmos has uncovered this “feeding black hole” 12 billion light years away. APM 08279+5255, as this compacted mass of inescapable doom is affectionately known, has been gorging on water vapor and spewing out energy. How much H2O exactly? It’s only the “largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe,” and it weighs in at 140 trillion times the amount in our oceans. Located via the cooperation of two teams of astronomers and their star-gazing equipment — the Z-Space instrument at California Institute of Technology’s Submillimeter Observatory in Hawaii and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps — this aqueous discovery proves the wet stuff is more universally omnipresent than we once thought. Also, surfing aliens, right?
Giant body of water found in space, black hole claims it was just hydrating originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This Photograph of the Shuttle Entering Earth Is Simply Unbelievable [Image Cache]
When I first saw this image just released by NASA I just couldn’t believe my eyes. It shows Atlantis re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere from the International Space Station, leaving a trail of fire behind it. As NASA describes it: More »
Watch 30 Years of the Space Shuttle In One Single Launch [Video]
The end. Today it’s all over. Three decades of the Space Shuttle, with its many amazing successes and two horrible failures, are gone forever. This video shows those thirty years in one single launch. More »
Space shuttle’s final voyage will include recycling urine into sports drink, crafting hilarious brand name
Just because the space shuttle Atlantis is on its final mission, that doesn’t mean NASA’s run out of cool experiments. Its latest example? A shiny silver bag — consciously inspired by the “stillsuits” from Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, Dune — that turns astronaut urine into potable drinking water. It’s been done, you say? Sure, but the earlier tech relied on electricity: a precious commodity aboard the International Space Station. The Forward Osmosis Bag requires no outside power source, relying on, you guessed it, forward osmosis to produce clean, filtered water. Not only that, but the resulting water mixes with a sugary solution to make a electrolyte-rich sports drink. On Earth this process takes four to six hours, but Atlantis astronauts will test its viability in space near the end of their mission. For an extensive on-planet demonstration, see the video after the break.
Space shuttle’s final voyage will include recycling urine into sports drink, crafting hilarious brand name originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Incoming house-sized asteroid will skim past Earth on Monday [Space]
An asteroid the size of a large house will zip within 12,900 kilometres of the Earth at about midday London time on Monday. More »
Dramatic new NASA animation depicts next Mars rover in action [Video]
NASA’s next Mars rover, the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory, will soon embark on a quantum leap in humankind’s scientific exploration of the Martian surface. More »
UrtheCast to stream live HD footage of Earth from ISS, like Stickam for space
Space nerds, get your browsers ready — UrtheCast will soon be streaming HD video of Earth straight from the ISS. The system will actually consists of a pair of cameras, one still and one video, that will be mounted on the Russian arm of the station. The still shots will be very wide, covering about 30 miles with a resolution of 18-feet per pixel. Much more exciting will be the three feet per-pixel stream of 3.25fps video that will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You probably won’t be able to see yourself waving as the ISS passes overhead, but you should be able to spot your cardboard box fort house. The feeds won’t be your typical boring NASA fare either — you’ll be able to search, rewind, and tag objects or events, and UrtheCast is providing APIs for developers to build upon the service. The project won’t be launching until June 28th, so bide your time by checking out the video and PR after the break.
Continue reading UrtheCast to stream live HD footage of Earth from ISS, like Stickam for space
UrtheCast to stream live HD footage of Earth from ISS, like Stickam for space originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jun 2011 09:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NASA lander prototype ditches the manpower for an autonomous flight (video)
Hear that? Those were the giddy giggles of some very happy scientists down at NASA’s Alabama-based Marshall Space Flight Center. Besting its previous June record for autonomous flight, this prototype robotic lander hovered for nearly half a minute at a height of seven feet before parking itself safely on the ground. Conceived as a joint project between NASA, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Von Braun Center for Science and Innovation, the intelligent bot is slated to go where its parachuting, aero-braking cousins can’t — like the Moon, or an asteroid. Future tests are on deck for the self-propelled lander to hover up to one hundred feet over the short span of a minute — no doubt its current feat is pretty neat, but we wouldn’t want to be the unsuspecting dolt who walked under it without his infrared goggles on.
NASA lander prototype ditches the manpower for an autonomous flight (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Spy satellites become reluctant space celebs, get their own paparazzi
Not only do American military satellites have to put up with the constant threat of ultrasonic space droppings, now they must also suffer the prying lenses of a couple of Frenchmen. Thierry Legault and Emmanuel Rietsch have spent the past two years turning consumer-grade components into a system that can keep up with the zippy and supposedly secret movements of craft like the X-37B space plane and the NROL-49 low-Earth orbit spy sat. Hit the source link and you’ll see videos of the International Space Station, which they also managed to capture with steady-ish focus as it hurtled through space-time. Looks like nothing will thwart these guys, except maybe nano-satellites.
Spy satellites become reluctant space celebs, get their own paparazzi originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 07:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
IBM turns 100, brags about bench pressing more than companies half its age
IBM is quite possibly the only tech company around that might have genuine difficulty whittling a list of its industry defining contributions down to a mere 100. And it’s an impressively diverse collection at that, including the floppy disk, the social security system, the Apollo space missions, and the UPC barcode. All of this self-congratulation is not without cause, of course. IBM was born 100 years ago today in Endicott, New York, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, a merger between three companies, all peddling different technologies. That diversity has helped define IBM from its inception, and has offered a sense of flexibility, making it possible to keep in step with technology’s ever-quickening pace for a century.
In 1944, the company helped usher in modern computing with the room-sized Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, and 37 years later, it played an important role in defining the era of home computing with the much more manageable IBM Personal Computer. In 1997, IBM introduced a machine that beat the world’s reigning chess champion, and earlier this year, it created one that trounced two of the greatest players in Jeopardy history. These days, when the company is not building machines dedicated to outsmarting mankind, it’s looking to promote sustainable development through its Smarter Planet program. So, happy centennial, Big Blue, and here’s to 100 more, assuming your super-smart machines don’t enslave us all in the meantime.
IBM turns 100, brags about bench pressing more than companies half its age originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 08:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Black holes may have been fundamental building blocks of the early universe [Cosmology]
Most astronomers agree that at the center of every galaxy lies a supermassive black hole. But how did these gravitational monsters form? Now it seems that they may have been here since the beginning of time. More »
The first-ever photos of a space shuttle docked at the International Space Station [Video]
The space shuttle Endeavour has taken its final bow, but its last mission also marks the first time a space shuttle has ever been photographed while docked to the International Space Station. More »
Is a hole in the universe opening up…in Wyoming? [Space Porn]
You’d be forgiven for having that reaction to this photo of the Ames Monument, a pyramid in Wyoming built to commemorate the transcontinental railroad. But that strange, unearthly light is just the beginning of the weirdness on display here. More »
NASA’s next-gen spacesuit could have an in-helmet display [Space]
Though NASA holds the keys to some of the most sophisticated technologies ever to make it into low Earth orbit, the spacesuits that astronauts wear up there are still in many ways similar to those worn during the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s. More »
The Last Space Shuttle Roll Out [Space]
This morning we showed you a breathtaking photo of the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the ISS for the very last time. Now here’s a beautiful picture of the Space Shuttle Atlantis being rolled out for her last launch. More »
NASA commits to Orion-based Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle for space exploration
There’s been a lot of talk of things coming to an end at NASA lately, but there are also some new beginnings, and the space agency has now officially filled in one big gap. It’s announced that the so-called Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (or MPCV) will be its go-to space exploration vehicle for missions beyond Low Earth Orbit — presumably, the individual spacecraft will get names more up to the level of boldly-named vehicles like Endeavor and Atlantis. If it looks a little familiar, that’s because the MPCV will be based on the Orion spacecraft that was developed under the now-canceled Constellation program and, like it, it will be built by Lockheed Martin. Once its put into service, the spacecraft will be capable of carrying four astronauts on missions up to 21 days, and it could even be used as a backup for cargo and crew delivery to the ISS — to actually get into space, it would blast off atop a heavy lift rocket, and then splash down Apollo-style in the Pacific Ocean. Head on past the break for NASA’s official announcement.
Continue reading NASA commits to Orion-based Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle for space exploration
NASA commits to Orion-based Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle for space exploration originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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