Space & Spaceflight

This Week’s Earth-Buzzing Asteroid Could Be Worth $195 Billion

The idea of mining nearby asteroids for resources we could use on Earth is fast becoming a possibility—and the asteroid set to buzz Earth on on February 15th could be worth up to $195 billion. If we could catch it. According to scientists at Deep Space Industries—one of the companies intent on mining asteroids—the passing…

Remember that crazy, shiny rock Curisoity found on Mars? Probably just wind-eroded rock, according to NASA.

The SETI Institute is taking a vote to name Pluto’s new moons. They even accept write-ins—as long as its Hades-related.

Watch Commander Hadfield Have a Space-Chat with Captain Kirk on the ISS

Captain Kirk is probably one of the most iconic spacemen of all time, but there’s that pesky little detail where he doesn’t actually happen to be real. Commander of the ISS, Chris Hadfield on the other hand, is as real as you get. A few days ago, the two crossed paths when Kirk—OK, Shatner—and Hadfield…

Mars Rover Curiosity Has Successfully Drilled for the First Ever Sample of Mars’ Virgin Bedrock

Since Curiousity has landed on Mars, it’s been roving around finding all manner of…curiosities. Today, it’s pulled off an intergalactic first and drilled 2.5 inches deep into the red planet’s bedrock to obtain a sample. No one—no robot, as ever managed to pull that off before. 2.5 inches deep and 0.63 inches wide, the hole…

What the Hell Is This Weird Shiny Object on Mars?

The Mars Curiosity Rover has been busy snapping photos (selfies too) of Mars and found something… strange. A small, shiny, metal-looking “protuberance” sticking out from the red planet. Is it some secret lever to open up a world where Martians exist? Or some random space junk? We don’t know. You can see it in the…

The First Song Composed and Recorded In Space Actually Rocks

This is the first song composed and recorded in space, the result of the collaboration of ISS Commander Chris Hadfield and Ed Robertson, the singer of the Barenaked Ladies. Together with the band and the Wexford Gleeks choir, they recorded I.S.S (Is Somebody Singing) using a live connection between the International Space Station and CBC…

The 20 Loneliest Outposts At the End of the World

When humanity’s not trying to destroy itself, its steadily redefining its boundaries. Every passing year, we create further-flung outposts in places nature never intended to us to inhabit. Here are the loneliest places mankind has made its bed in search of the unknown, the overwhelming, and the great. The Salomon August Andrée’s Station at Danskøya,…

The Landsat Program Is the Closest We’ll Ever Get to Captain Planet

The Landsat program has revolutionized how we view the Earth during its forty continuous years of operation. The reams of data generated by seven generations of satellites has helped govern both public and private policies from agriculture and forestry management to cartography, geology, and urban planning. The eighth iteration of Landsat is slated for launch…

How NASA Wants Us to Explore the Universe With Robotic Avatars and Holodecks

Take three minutes of your life to listen to Dr. Jeff Norris, one of the science rock stars at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He talks about how NASA is working to democratize space exploration by using robots, holodecks and 3D technologies so we can all see space with our own eyes using…

Here Comes the Snowpocalypse From Space

Here it is. They can’t stop laughing at New Yorkers in Minnesota, where they have these “snowmagedons” every other day during winter—but show this picture from NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite to the former, and we will run away, screaming and looting supermarkets: The satellite image, captured at 9:01 a.m. EST, shows clouds associated with the western…

UK Scientists Are Launching a Satellite Powered By… a Google Nexus One?

A team of scientists from the University of Surrey, UK, are excitedly putting the finishing touches to their latest satellite, called STRaND-1. Due to launch on February 25th, the hi-tech beast is powered by… a Google Nexus One? The satellite, which measures 12 inches in length and weighs just 10 pounds, will be launched into…

An Amateur Astronomer Helped Hubble Snap This Galactic Monster

Hubble has joined forces with two amateur astronomers to capture a monster, and it may be one of the most beautiful four-armed giants ever seen. This colourful mosaic offers a highly detailed look at the spiral galaxy M106, which sits about 20 million light years away. The image was created by amateur astrophotographer Robert Gendler,…

Who the Hell Can Understand the Voyager Disc’s User Manual?

In a very distant future an alien spaceship will come across one of the Voyager spacecrafts. And when they do, they will find two things: a golden disc—a space-proof metal version of a normal vinyl record containing sounds, music and images from Earth—and a record player. When that happens, we will subject the aliens to…

This Woman Is Going to Be the First Porn Star to Go to Space

Coco Brown, whose work I’m surprisingly not exactly familiar with but has appeared in adult masterpieces like Big Booty Bomb 2, is training to become the first porn star to ever go to space. She’s already paid $100,000 to be part of a SpaceXC mission for 2014 and has already gone through anti-gravity training for…

Ahmadinejad Wants to “Sacrifice” Himself in Space for Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a serious resume: nuclear fearmonger, snazzy dresser, Israel-denier, and soon, maybe, his country’s first astronaut. A quasi-insane dictator, in space, hovering over America, manically laughing. After blasting a miserable monkey into space, Iran sounds ready to make the next step—or at least its president is, according to the AP: “I’m…

A Mosaic of Mars’s Surface, in Ultra-High Detail

This amazing image shows 90 percent of Mars’s surface, imaged in ultra-high detail by the stereo camera aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express. The image is stitched together from 2,702 individual images of the Martian surface. The blank sections are a result of the ESA being manned by perfectionists: those images were affected by…

Don’t Worry, Astronauts on the ISS Will Get to Watch the Super Bowl Too

There are plenty of things you don’t get to have when you’re in space. Like gravity, for instance. Or normal food. But Super Bowl parties aren’t on that list. Astronauts on the ISS will get the chance to watch the big game with the rest of us come Sunday. “Yes they are going to watch…

Will We Ever Get the Chance to Visit Other Stars?

Traveling beyond our own solar neighborhood has been an aspiration of high-minded explorers ever since we knew such a thing was possible. Well, technically possible. Will we ever actually be able to do it? It all depends on how optimistic you are, but the downside is you’ll probably definitely never live to find out whether…

The Columbia Shuttle Disaster Happened 10 Years Ago

On February 1st, 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia, NASA OV-102, disintegrated upon re-entry at the end of its 28th mission to space. The tragedy killed the seven brave crew members, in a moment of national sadness we’ll never forget. Space travel has always been a feat of pride for humans. It shows how awesome we…