Space

Saturn’s Atmosphere Is A Modern Art Sensation

This isn’t a newly-discovered Rothko painting or some kind of abstract masterpiece — it’s the atmosphere of Saturn, photographed four different times on the same day. The Cassini space probe used different filters to show the storms in the planet’s atmosphere in different lights. (The color is arbitrary, but gorgeous.) Click to enlarge. It reminds…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Nov 21

The Universe May Actually Be Teeming with Life

Click to viewMost of the the search for life on other planets has focused on finding a world just like ours: rocky and covered in liquid water. But as astronomers learn more about exoplanets, some are beginning to suspect that life can evolve under a wider range of conditions than anyone had thought before. Far…

io9 Lauren Davis Nov 20

The Texture of Martian Geography

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a satellite spinning over the surface of Mars, has revealed the tremendous variations in Martian geography. Here you can see slices of the bizarre surface features created by atmospheric conditions that don’t exist on Earth. Want to see more? The textures above are colorized images taken by the MRO. According…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 20

NASA Adds Smell Detector To Space Station, Insert Fart Joke Here

Apart from remodeling their home, astronauts on board the International Space Station are installing a new piece of equipment that may save their lives one day. Or embarrass them. It can go either way: Containing 32 sensors in a device the size of a shoebox, the ENose—or electronic nose—will be able to detect even the…

Space & Spaceflight Jesus Diaz Nov 20

Low-Budget Mini-Satellite Ready To Ride the Gamma-Ray Lightning

Click to viewA NASA satellite called Firefly, that’s not much bigger than a loaf of bread, is ramping up to study high-intensity electron beams created by powerful lightning storms. The energy released by these beams results in brief bursts of gamma radiation that shoot from Earth into space. Firefly will study these complicated energetic reactions…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Nov 19

NASA Astronaut Loses Tools, Gets Screwed Over By Space

A NASA astronaut lost her bag of tools outside the International Space Station earlier today when she went outside to clean up a solar panel. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper’s grease gun exploded all over her helmet camera and gloves, and while wiping off the mess, she shifted her attention off the tool bag. She lost her grip…

Space & Spaceflight Erica Ho Nov 18

30 Mars Phoenix Discoveries NASA Will Never Show the World

For this week’s Photoshop contest, I asked you guys to show us what the Mars Phoenix really discovered that government didn’t want us to know about. Well, apparently Mars is a popular destination for politicians, terrorists, Bigfoot and assorted other bizarre life forms. If most of this stuff did exist on Mars, the Men in…

Space & Spaceflight Matt Buchanan Nov 18

The Burning Flare of Gas Being Devoured by a Supermassive Black Hole

Click to view Two separate telescopes in Chile picked up the same black hole flare recently, allowing them to see for the first time what it looks like when superheated gas orbits the black hole’s event horizon as it is being devoured. The black hole in question is the Milky Way’s own supermassive Sagittarius A*,…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 18

The Official NASA Guide To Drinking Your Own Urine

Click to viewIf you’re going on a long space trip, you’ll soon realize that you can’t carry all the fresh water you’ll need with you. The cost of getting all that water into space would destroy your budget before you ever built a single photon torpedo launcher. The answer, of course, is recycling. Those childhood…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Nov 17

Indian Lunar Probe Crashes On Moon Surface

After a 25-minute descent, Chandrayaan-1’s Moon Impact Probe has successfully crashed on the Moon’s surface, taking images of the descent like these ones and making yet another man-made hole on the battered Earth’s satellite. The Moon Impact Probe (MIP), one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, successfully hit the lunar surface today at 20:31…

Space & Spaceflight Jesus Diaz Nov 17

NASA Scales Up 1966’s Moon Image to Amazing Ultra-High Resolution

When NASA released this image from their Lunar Orbiter 1 back in 1966, the first photograph ever of the Earth rising above the Moon’s surface, it was low resolution but they still amazed the world. This week, they have surprised every space aficionado re-releasing the same image in ultra-high definition. The cool part now is…

Space & Spaceflight Jesus Diaz Nov 16

Meet Veronica McGregor, Mars Phoenix Lander’s Humanoid Personality Construct

Over the last few weeks here on Giz, the Mars Phoenix Lander, already a prolific Twitterer, became the first spacecraft to blog from its cold, unforgiving home tens of millions of miles away on Mars as its mission came to end—culminating in a touching goodbye this past Monday. As some of you may have guessed…

Space & Spaceflight John Mahoney Nov 16

India’s First Lunar Mission Proves a Smashing Success

India has officially landed on the moon. Today, the Indian Space Research Organisation advanced its first deep space mission, Chandrayaan-1, by releasing its Moon Impact Probe, which successfully crash landed near the moon’s south pole and opened an exciting new chapter in Asia’s space exploration.ISRO reports that at 8:31 pm Indian Standard Time, the Moon…

io9 Lauren Davis Nov 14

The NASA Spirit Rover Lives!

Nerds cheered and wept with happiness as NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit responded to ground control commands today via the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Earlier this week, NASA feared that the rover would fall victim to the same problem that killed our beloved Phoenix Mars Lander. The dust storm is still a problem, but Spirit has…

Space & Spaceflight Sean Fallon Nov 14

Moon Dust-DNA Watch Made From Actual Moon Dust and Parts From Apollo 11

Romain Jerome’s Titanic DNA Watch was such a success that the company has decided to take the concept to the moon (literally) with their new Moon Dust DNA watch. Like the Titanic version, the moon watch will feature actual artifacts. The face includes dust from a rock retrieved during our first mission to the moon,…

Space & Spaceflight Sean Fallon Nov 14

Mysterious Infrared Aurora Glows at Saturn’s North Pole

This stunning infrared image of Saturn’s northern region shows a luminous aurora with the planet’s mottled rings below. The aurora appeared in an area that the Hubble Space Telescope can’t see, so no one knew it was there until Cassini spotted it recently. What’s really weird is that astronomers aren’t really sure what’s causing it,…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Nov 14

Meade ETX-LS Motorized GPS Telescope Basically Does Astronomy For You

Some details on Meade’s ETX-LS telescope have snuck out ahead of its early 2009 launch, and it looks like an amateur telescope for the digital age. That’s because it’ll drive itself to locate the stars you’ve chosen to look at automatically, using its database, in-built GPS and electronic level-detector system. And then there’s a sensor…

Space & Spaceflight Kit Eaton Nov 14

Astronomers Take First Ever Pics of Other Planetary Systems

Huge astronomy news! For the first time EVER, galaxy researchers have taken pictures of planets orbiting a sun-star, much like our own. The first, taken by the much beloved Hubble Telescope, shows a planet orbiting the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis. The second picture, snapped by upstaging…

Space & Spaceflight Elaine Chow Nov 13

It’s North America – In Space!

Click to viewThe amusing thing about the North America Nebula, which looks vaguely like the North American continent, is that it was named back in the eighteenth century — when America was almost as exotic to Europeans as outer space itself. [via Strange Maps]

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 13

China’s Chang’e 1 Probe Beams Back Completed Map of The Moon

With help from its moon photographing probe, the Chang’e 1, China’s created the country’s first full map of the lunar surface and they’re calling it the best one yet. According to the heads of the space program, the map is the most complete image of the moon’s surface, as well as the richest in detail,…

Space & Spaceflight Elaine Chow Nov 13

Saturn’s Atmosphere Is A Modern Art Sensation

The Universe May Actually Be Teeming with Life

The Texture of Martian Geography

NASA Adds Smell Detector To Space Station, Insert Fart Joke Here

Low-Budget Mini-Satellite Ready To Ride the Gamma-Ray Lightning

NASA Astronaut Loses Tools, Gets Screwed Over By Space

30 Mars Phoenix Discoveries NASA Will Never Show the World

The Burning Flare of Gas Being Devoured by a Supermassive Black Hole

The Official NASA Guide To Drinking Your Own Urine

Indian Lunar Probe Crashes On Moon Surface

NASA Scales Up 1966’s Moon Image to Amazing Ultra-High Resolution

Meet Veronica McGregor, Mars Phoenix Lander’s Humanoid Personality Construct

India’s First Lunar Mission Proves a Smashing Success

The NASA Spirit Rover Lives!

Moon Dust-DNA Watch Made From Actual Moon Dust and Parts From Apollo 11

Mysterious Infrared Aurora Glows at Saturn’s North Pole

Meade ETX-LS Motorized GPS Telescope Basically Does Astronomy For You

Astronomers Take First Ever Pics of Other Planetary Systems

It’s North America – In Space!

China’s Chang’e 1 Probe Beams Back Completed Map of The Moon

Southwest Is About to Limit Power Banks on Flights

Damn, the ‘Power Rangers’ Reboot Could’ve Had Four Movies

The Live-Action ‘One Piece’ Team Wants to Go the Distance

‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Will Please Gross Horror Fans

Somehow Paramount’s ‘Avatar’ Movie Has Leaked, Too

The World Is Basically Begging for Another iPod

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

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This Loud-Ass Party Speaker Almost Got Me High AF

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