Space & Spaceflight

This Robotic Surgeon Climbs Inside Astronauts’ Belly Buttons

If you’re an astronaut on your way to Mars, there aren’t too many options if your appendix bursts. That’s why a Nebraska-based technology company has developed mini robot space surgeons that can actually climb inside of astronauts’ bodies. The first zero-gravity tests on the machine are about to begin. It sounds creepy, but this thing…

Why Use the Fine China When You Have These Awesome Planetary Plates?

Back when Pluto had some status in our solar system, a handy way to remember the names of the planets was the ‘My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas’ mnemonic, where the first letter of each word represented each celestial orb. But it’s just confusing now that Pluto’s gone, so maybe a set…

A Stunning Picture of the Very Large Telescope (Oh, and the Milky Way)

This stunning fisheye photograph shows the towering wonder of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope—plus, you know, some galaxy called the Milky Way in the background, too. In fact, the image shows the four Unit Telescopes—Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun—that make up just part of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the VLT Survey…

The Inside Story of the Crazy Rocket Research at Jet Propulsion Labs

Everybody knows the cowboy reputation associated with early astronauts, the test-pilot swagger immortalized by Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff. But the rockets that took those astronauts to space were built by a group with an equally cinematic image: the nearly-unhinged, completely unfettered mad scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Mika McKinnon brings us a fascinating…

Beautiful Fields of Crops as You’ve Never Seen Them Before

If this image looks oddly familiar, it’s because its a series of crop fields seen from the air—just as a wonderful, colorful radar composite image. The images that were used to make the picture were captured by Japan’s ALOS satellite. The different colors show changes in the fields between image acquisitions—like harvesting at different points…

I can’t have enough of these incredible fly-by Hubble videos

I don’t know about you, but I can’t have enough of these fly-by videos of the Hubble space telescope. I wish the visualization teams at NASA and ESA made this for each and every single galaxy and nebula out there. https://gizmodo.com/the-most-amazing-hubble-videos-yet-in-one-single-place-1552823933

Why Does This Tiny Asteroid Have Two Rings?

Forget moons — the asteroid 10199 Chariklo is stepping up decorative accessories for small bodies. It has two rings. This tiny rock in the outer Solar System joins the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune as the fifth and by far smallest object with an observed ring system. Artist impression of the view from…

Soyuz Thruster Malfunction Has ISS Crew Running Two Days Late

Yesterday afternoon’s Soyuz launch has hit a snag. A thruster misfire means the planned six-hour flight, delivering U.S. astronaut Steven Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev to the International Space Station, will now take two days. Talk about a terrifying flight delay. https://gizmodo.com/what-a-hellish-mess-a-rocket-launch-can-be-1551860086 The intended 24-second engine burn would have adjusted the…

Vote For The Design Of NASA’s Next Spacesuit

NASA’s next spacesuit is currently up for public voting—and the weird new designs are unlike anything you’ve seen from NASA before. Drawing on ideas from bioluminescence, contemporary sportswear, and some speculation on the street fashions of tomorrow, whichever suit gets built will change our image of astronauts forever. https://gizmodo.com/you-can-decide-how-the-nasas-next-spacesuit-prototype-1550405152

Here’s your daily dose of mysterious steel structures direct from Kazakhstan. NASA’s chief photographer, Bill Ingalls, got up early yesterday to capture this stunning sunrise scene at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. You can see the empty Soyuz launch pad with its support booms and trusses wide open, shortly before the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft was rolled out…

Being a Celebrity Astronaut Is Tougher Than It Sounds

For a brief period in the American saga, the astronaut was the man of the moment. No profession commanded as much awe and admiration. Widely regarded as the personification of all that was best in the country, the first astronauts were blanketed with the adulation usually accorded star quarterbacks, war heroes, and charismatic movie stars.…

Feast your eyes on these early Soviet spacecraft

Rob Ketcherside, a hardware and software program manager in Seattle, has a truly amazing photo series hiding on his Flickr page. The photographs I am talking about were taken by his grandfather, David C. Cook, in Pavilion No. 32— called “Kosmos”—at the All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow. And I am very glad that I found…

Hasselblad Camera, Used on the Moon, Sells For Nearly a Million Bucks

The Hasselblad 500 is perhaps one of the coolest film cameras you could ever own, and this one—which has been to the moon and back—is even cooler. Which perhaps explains why it just sold for a cool $910,00. https://gizmodo.com/the-only-film-camera-i-would-kill-to-own-5910957 The Hasselblad wasn’t the first camera to reach the moon; that honor goes to the one…

The Jade Rabbit: not quite dead yet

I never predicted zombies would be a problem in space, but we’re starting to get a lot of undead activity near Earth. First, the Kepler planet-hunting space telescope returns from the dead. Now, the Chinese lunar rover Yutu, the Jade Rabbit, isn’t quite as dead as we thought! https://gizmodo.com/kepler-is-a-planet-hunting-powerhouse-1543642014 https://gizmodo.com/hell-yes-nasa-aims-to-revive-kepler-mission-with-cleve-1472501333 https://gizmodo.com/chinas-jade-rabbit-moon-rover-has-been-lost-1521264033 After making headlines with…

A Glitch in the Hubble Telescope Makes Beautiful Modern Art

You’ve seen all the mind-boggling space images from the Hubble telescope, so this might seem… bizarre. What looks like a light painting or a computer rendering is an actual image sent back during the Hubble’s observing session. This is what happens when the telescope locks onto a bad guide star. The European Space Agency explains:…

This Is the Clearest Infrared Panorama of the Milky Way Ever Captured

You’re looking at the clearest infrared panorama of the Milky Way ever captured. At 20 gigapixels, it’s going to take you a long time to check the whole thing out. Unveiled at the TEDActive 2014 Conference in Vancouver, Canada, yesterday, the panorama of our galaxy is constructed from more than 2 million infrared images taken…

Astronomers Think They’ve Discovered Waves on Titan

Saturn’s moon Titan, everyone’s favorite Earth-like orbiter, just got a little more Earth-like. That is, if astronomers’ latest findings are correct. Based on strange reflections off the surface of Punga Mare, one of Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes, they think they’ve found liquid waves on the moon. If confirmed, this would be the first time we’ve discovered…

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Looking Like a Swirl of Cream in Your Coffee

This might look like a splash of cream in your coffee—but in fact it’s Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, imaged by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft. It’s swirling rather faster than the spoon in your cup could manage, too—in fact, the winds that carry the clouds that create the spot move in excess of 400 mph, creating…

The World’s Largest Telescope Is Finally Getting Underway

It’s been almost five years since Gizmodo first reported on the Thirty Meter Telescope, a mega-telescope with a resolution ten times that of the Hubble. Now, it seems the long-delayed project’s time has come: Hawaii has agreed to lease a parcel of land for the telescope, and officials say construction could begin as soon as…

New Big Bang Evidence Suggests Presence of Alternate Universes

According to very real and totally verifiable scientific research, we might live in a multiverse. No, really. The same research that revealed the first-ever direct evidence of Big Bang inflation earlier this week also suggests the presence of alternate universes. https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-discover-first-direct-proof-of-the-big-bang-1545525927 So, universes just like our own, except separate? Not exactly. Miriam Kramer explains: The…