Category: Space

It’s blurrier than old MySpace snapshots, but it’s there as expected. The Apollo Lunar Modules and the US flag left behind at the Apollo 17 landing site has been caught in a close-up image by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The lander as well as the flag, or rather the remaining flag pole, seen in the image above are exactly where they should be based on this shot by the Ascent Module “right after Apollo 17 lifted off the Moon”:

Going a step further, the location can be compared to more recent images of the landing site and everything still jibes up. So, can we now finally quiet down with the moon landing conspiracies and focus on figuring out how to colonize the tubes up there? Pretty please? [SESE via Discover]

Rejoice, because you are alive: An asteroid named 2009 TM8 just passed only 216,000 miles from Earth, racing at 18,163mph. That’s closer than the moon. But don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to panic, says the JPL:

If it’s typical density, it would create a 4 kiloton explosion in the Earth’s atmosphere if it were to hit, which of course it won’t. You’d expect an object of this size to fly within the orbit of the moon every few days or so.

That's what Don Yeomans—manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California—said talking about 2009 TM8 and the other 7 million objects in the near-Earth space which, "needless to say we have discovered only a small fraction of them."

Great. At 30 feet, something like 2009 TM8 is not as big as the killer Apophis or as the superkiller that can destroy everything on Earth. But who cares about destroying everything when this thing is large enough to annihilate Brooklyn.

Ah well, as if I needed any excuses to celebrate after this sodding Friday. Zacapa rum, here I come. [MSNBC]

Most missions through space are lonely. Solitary probes arc through the solar system, charming us with their photos and data, and eventually—quietly—fade into disrepair, or out of range. But witnessed together, they form something sublime.

National Geographic has combined mankind’s nearly 200 manned and unmanned exploratory space missions into one infographic. It’s not nearly to scale, and it doesn’t even try to follow the actual paths of the various chunks of metal we’ve tossed into the ether.

But the broad strokes are all here, and they’re fascinating: Of the dozens and dozens of probes launched in the last 50 years, precious few have made it past the asteroid belt; a handful have been tossed into the face of the sun; and just the luckiest, boldest pieces of hardware have been jettisoned into the outer reaches of our solar system.

NatGeo’s got an interactive scrollable map here, but honestly, I’d skip straight to the poster-sized version on Flickr. [NatGeo via i09]

Our moon may not be so dry after all, in fact, findings suggest there’s water everywhere.

It was bound to happen, so I'm not surprised: According to The Onion—reportedly America's finest news outlet—Apollo 11 Mission Commander Neil Armstrong has finally admitted that the Moon landings were fake and staged. All thanks to Ralph Coleman:

“It only took a few hastily written paragraphs published by this passionate denier of mankind’s so-called ‘greatest technological achievement’ for me to realize I had been living a lie, ” said a visibly emotional Armstrong, addressing reporters at his home. “It has become painfully clear to me that on July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module under the control of my crew did not in fact travel 250,000 miles over eight days, touch down on the moon, and perform various experiments, ushering in a new era for humanity. Instead, the entire thing was filmed on a soundstage, most likely in New Mexico.”

“This is the only logical interpretation of the numerous inconsistencies in the grainy, 40-year-old footage,” Armstrong added.

About bloody time, Neil. Now, we only need to uncover where Elvis is hiding, and my life will be complete. [The Onion]