satellites

Secret American Space Agency Gives NASA Two Spy Telescopes More Powerful Than the Hubble

What do you know about the National Reconnaissance Office? Did you know that the shadowy space agency has two spy telescopes more powerful than the Hubble that they’re simply not using anymore? And did you know that it gifted them to NASA for studying the secrets of the universe? Yep, that’s exactly what happened. The…

Space & Spaceflight Adrian Covert

The Dutch Have the Weirdest Google Maps Censorship

The Netherlands have given the world so much: pizza, sex tourism, The Hague, Rembrandt, Vermeer—and let’s not Aelbert Cuyp. In the tradition of the last three, the Dutch now serve up the most artistically bizarre Google blurring ever. Architizer brings us artist Mishka Henner’s “Dutch Landscapes” project: (click through for more) As Henner notes, the…

Tech News Sam Biddle

The Most Accurate Count of Emperor Penguin Populations. From Space!

Good news for penguin-enthusiasts everywhere (that’s all of us, right? Good… just checking): scientists studying emperor penguin populations in Antarctica have tallied almost 600,000 of the birds waddling around the icy continent. That’s around twice as many as they were expecting to find — but what’s really impressive is how they went about counting them.…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

What you need to know about North Korea’s failed rocket launch

North Korea launched a multistage rocket Friday morning in an act of international defiance, after being asked repeatedly by the U.N., U.S., Russia, Japan, and others to stand down. The spacecraft exploded less than two minutes after liftoff. Minutes later, fragments of the failed rocket were bobbing in the Yellow Sea. What does this mean…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

North Korea Defies the World and Launches Menacing Rocket (Updated: It Failed)

We knew it was coming, and here it is: Pyongyang just pulled the trigger and sent its Unha-3 rocket toward space, to the dismay of everyone who fears a North Korea who can strike the world. https://gizmodo.com/north-koreas-big-bad-missile-launch-begins-updated-5901135 Update: Both the US and Japanese governments say the launch failed, with the Unha-3 rocket falling apart shortly…

Space & Spaceflight Sam Biddle

North Korea’s Big Bad Missile Launch Begins (Updated)

North Korea is being extra naughty this week: the piss-broke dictatorship is about to launch a giant rocket for scientific purposes. Translation: a giant F U to the rest of the world, and a nuclear threat. Update: South Korean news reports the rocket has been launched. The country announced last month that it’d break its…

Space & Spaceflight Sam Biddle

The Government Can’t Even Hide Secret Spy Satellites Anymore

Last week, the National Reconnaissance Office, which runs our country’s top secret spy satellites—Hi, Iran!—launched its newest toy. It was a mystery—just a “payload.” But within hours, its orbit was tracked, and within days, amateurs astronomers were watching. There’s a dedicated community of non-pro satellite trackers, grinning each time they lock on to one of…

Space & Spaceflight Sam Biddle

50-kilogram metal sphere falls from the sky over Brazilian town

An unlucky cashew tree was blasted in half last week when a 50-kilogram metal ball dropped from the sky over the Brazilian village of Riacho dos Poços. The ball left a crater one-meter deep after landing near Valdir José Mendes’ house. Mendes, who was home at the time and initially mistook the din for a…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

Never Before Seen Satellite Spy Shots from the Depths of the Cold War

Depths might not be the right expression, actually, as all of these photographs were taken from space, decades and decades ago. Russian rockets, aircraft carriers, secret military compounds—one legendary spy satellite saw it all from orbit. We last visited the mammoth HEXAGON satellite when it was revealed to the public in September: https://gizmodo.com/this-massive-cold-war-spy-satellite-was-hidden-from-the-5841514 Beginning in…

Space & Spaceflight Sam Biddle

What weapons could be used in a real-life space war?

Space, the final frontier…of warfare? Science fiction tales often center around the militarization of space, with lasers and torpedoes made of light racing past (and through) battleships and star destroyers. But what about reality? Soviet and U.S. governments worked on a variety of space warfare projects during the Cold War, but were any of them…

io9 Keith Veronese

I Can’t Look At These Warped Airport Photos Without Getting Dizzy

Relying on satellite imagery collected from the internet instead of a camera, artist Hubert Blanz created these mind-bending images of airports for his X-planation collection. I rarely get motion sick, but browsing through these images makes me want to puke. The photos are obviously a result of clever pixel pushing in Photoshop, but the nauseating…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

The First Image of Earth Taken By NASA’s NPP Satellite

NASA’s new NPP—or NPOESS Preparatory Project—satellite travels in a sun-synchronous orbit. So as it photographs the planet, each photo is taken at the same time ensuring that all the images have similar lighting. It’s slowly being brought online and powered up, but this is officially the first complete photo of Earth its Visible Infrared Imager…

Space & Spaceflight Andrew Liszewski

These materials are being tortured in space

High-energy radiation and atomic oxygen wreak havoc on satellite parts. To evaluate the durability of materials being developed for future satellites, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory is running samples through a space-based torture test called MISSE-8. Astronauts bolted a platform full of one-inch samples of mirror coatings, laser-tuning crystals, structural foam and other materials to…

io9 Kaitlin Miller - Popular Science

How you depend on relativity every day, without knowing it

Special and general relativity help us see time, space, and energy in strange new ways. That strangeness seems to remove the theories from our everyday experience. Despite their exotic appeal, Einstein’s famous theories are part of our everyday life. Find out how you depend on special and general relativity to find your way around. The…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

What causes Europa’s mysterious “chaos terrain”?

Put in plain language, astrophysicists have figured out why Jupiter’s moon Europa looks so fucked up. The frozen moon’s surface is a layer of solid ice over a liquid sea — and that ice is shattered, cracked, broken, sunken, and twisted into contortions that science can’t fully explain. But now a new study suggests one…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Were US Satellites Hacked by the Chinese Military?

Much has been made of the cybertensions between the U.S. and China, especially when it comes to military secrets. While any conflict thus far has been minor, the latest allegation of China hacking American satellites validates those concerns at least a little. According to Businessweek, a congressional report revealed the Chinese were caught running interference…

Privacy & Security Adrian Covert

That Crashing Satellite Narrowly Avoided Wrecking Chinese Cities

Good news! The ROSAT satellite didn’t destroy all humans. Most of it just burned up in the atmosphere, as expected—but not all of it! Nearly two tons of German space junk hit the ocean—and almost China. https://gizmodo.com/sound-the-all-clear-rosat-does-not-go-splat-5852490 ROSAT’s watery grave is believed to be Asia’s Bay of Bengal (between India and Thailand), MSNBC reports. But,…

Space & Spaceflight Sam Biddle

Sound the All Clear: ROSAT Does Not Go Splat

ROSAT, the latest manmade object to fall from the heavens and threaten humanity’s safety, has apparently burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. The 1 in 2,000 chance of death from above we had all feared never materialized. The German Aerospace center estimates the 21-year-old, 5,348-pound satellite entered the atmosphere around 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time Saturday night…

Space & Spaceflight Jack Loftus

DARPA Wants to Hack Together Old Satellites into New Satellites—While In Space

Launching satellites is a risky proposition—costing as much as $10,000 a pound to make orbit and little recourse if a critical piece malfunctions. So, DARPA has devised a system to recycle the $300 billion worth of orbiting dead satellites into a zombie antenna array. The Phoenix system, as it has been dubbed, consists of a…

Space & Spaceflight Andrew Tarantola

Another Dead Satellite Is Blindly Plummeting to Earth

So apparently dead satellites blithely falling from the sky is a thing now. After last week’s UARS debacle, the now-defunct German Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT) is scheduled to crash to Earth in late October or early November. https://gizmodo.com/nasas-not-sure-where-in-the-world-this-satellite-will-c-5841128 The ROSAT was originally an X-Ray observatory developed by Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom and…

Space & Spaceflight Kyle Wagner

Secret American Space Agency Gives NASA Two Spy Telescopes More Powerful Than the Hubble

The Dutch Have the Weirdest Google Maps Censorship

The Most Accurate Count of Emperor Penguin Populations. From Space!

What you need to know about North Korea’s failed rocket launch

North Korea Defies the World and Launches Menacing Rocket (Updated: It Failed)

North Korea’s Big Bad Missile Launch Begins (Updated)

The Government Can’t Even Hide Secret Spy Satellites Anymore

50-kilogram metal sphere falls from the sky over Brazilian town

Never Before Seen Satellite Spy Shots from the Depths of the Cold War

What weapons could be used in a real-life space war?

I Can’t Look At These Warped Airport Photos Without Getting Dizzy

The First Image of Earth Taken By NASA’s NPP Satellite

These materials are being tortured in space

How you depend on relativity every day, without knowing it

What causes Europa’s mysterious “chaos terrain”?

Were US Satellites Hacked by the Chinese Military?

That Crashing Satellite Narrowly Avoided Wrecking Chinese Cities

Sound the All Clear: ROSAT Does Not Go Splat

DARPA Wants to Hack Together Old Satellites into New Satellites—While In Space

Another Dead Satellite Is Blindly Plummeting to Earth

AI Training Data Giant Mercor Is Reportedly Looking to Buy the Work You Did at Your Old Job

Utah Is Giving Dr. AI the Power to Renew Drug Prescriptions

Here’s the Perfect Excuse to See ‘Project Hail Mary’ Again

US Airlines Are Hiking Bag Fees Amid Iran War Oil Crisis

This Ridiculously Simple Trick Might Stop Gulls From Nabbing Your Lunch

‘Starfleet Academy’ Season 3 Could Have Done the ‘Voyager’ Sequel Episode of Robert Picardo’s Dreams

Judge Kills Lawsuit Against Infamous Study That Might Have Increased Teen Suicides

Artemis 2: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

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