The new Mars rover Curiosity has successfully launched and is now well on its way to the Red Planet. The 9 month journey will (hopefully) conclude in a successful landing and an awesome 2 year (plus) mission to explore the Gale Crater for evidence of microbial life. Here’s the launch....
This is a fantastic video produced onboard the International Space Station while orbiting 250 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. The video was put together by NASA Astronaut Ron Garan. It is absolutely stunning in every way. Just click play, make sure HD is on, click the...
The latest “Symphony of Science” video is out, making it the 12th to be released (released, as it was, on Carl Sagan’s birthday at that). If you’ve never seen the “Symphony of Science” videos, they are most definite worth a look. Their latest video, “Onward to the Edge”, features Neil...
If I’ve learned anything from Star Trek, it’s that when the words “spacetime” and “rip apart” occur in the same sentience, you get the heck out of the solar system at warp 9. Yet, having failed to blow up the planet with the LHC, particle physicists (being the crazy, zany,...
Phil Plait, the creator of the Bad Astronomy blog over on Discover Magazine, just put up a great post about James van Praagh, who claims to be able to communicate with the dead (would that not make him a Necromancer?). The James Randi Educational Foundation recently offered him $1 million...
A shocking report from scientists at the University of Leeds has revealed that Medieval knights were encumbered by heavy armor, and expended more energy than they otherwise would when not wearing heavy armor. The study was performed on medieval reenactors for the Royal Armouries in Leeds, who donned full plate...
This is perhaps the greatest tribute to America’s Space Shuttle program that I have yet seen. An 8 minute video from Nature Videos (of the Nature science journal), it highlights every mission in the 30 year program–it’s good times and bad times, it’s triumphs and it’s tragedies. So turn up...
The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed this morning at 5:56am EDT on July 21, 2011, bringing to a close the halcyon days of Mankind’s exploration of space. Okay, I suppose it is a bit too harsh to say that this end’s the human exploration of space. The point is simply that,...
On July 20th, 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis will touch down after a 12 day mission, marking the end of an era. Never again will one of these distinguished spacecraft grace the launch pad of Cape Canaveral, rocket through the sky above the Atlantic, or reach onward to that great...
The following video is actual video of an approach to Saturn and its moons, not 3D CGI or other computer animation. It’s real footage of Saturn, its rings, and moons. It was created from a compilation of actual photographs taken by the Cassini space probe in 2004. It is truly...
