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Space

10 Years Ago, Opportunity Rover Began a 90-Day Mission That Never Ended

David Smothers July 8, 2013

When NASA’s Opportunity rover launched on July 7th, 2003, expectations were modest. It would spend 90 Martian days exploring soil and rock samples and taking panoramas of the Red Planet; anything else would be a bonus. Nearly ten years after its initial shift was up, Opportunity is still going strong. Not that it’s been an… Continue Reading »

WATCHES

A Watch Inspired By–And Made From–The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

David Smothers June 19, 2013

Romain Jerome has become known as the watchmaker that incorporates exotic materials into its timepieces, from moon dust, to metal from the Statue of Liberty, to volcanic ash. And while it’s still embracing that role with the new Moon Orbiter, the watch actually puts more focus on the highly engineered flying tourbillon exposed at the… Continue Reading »

PLANETS

Gaze Upon All Of Mercury For The First Time Ever

David Smothers June 17, 2013

The existence of our solar system’s innermost planet has been common knowledge since ancient times, but that doesn’t actually mean we’ve always know much about it. Mercury’s proximity to the Sun has allowed it to jealously guard its secrets, and so this NASA video offers an unprecedentedly detailed view of the planet’s surface. This video… Continue Reading »

PHOTOGRAPHY

This Tiny Telescope Will Be The First Moon-Mounted Webcam

David Smothers May 29, 2013

Ever since humans looked up, we’ve been obsessed with gazing deep into the seemingly infinite cosmos. We’ve got plenty of telescopes both on Earth and floating around it that are staring out into the abyss, but the ILO-X is going to be perched on the moon. And you’ll be able to use it right from your… Continue Reading »

GOOGLE

Google Unifies Its Free And Paid Storage Options, Gives You 15GB To Share Between Drive, Gmail And Google+ Photos, 30GB For Apps Users

David Smothers May 14, 2013

Until now, you’ve had to track your free storage on Google products separately. It was just another thing that Google hadn’t brought together to make it easier on users. Today, the company announced that you’ll now have 15GB of free storage to share between Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos. Google Apps customers are getting a… Continue Reading »

SCIENCE

How NASA’s Nuclear Rockets Will Take Us Way Beyond Mars

David Smothers April 2, 2013

The first people to step on to the surface of Mars won’t arrive aboard the chemical-fueled rockets that delivered Apollo 11 to the Moon—they simply don’t provide enough thrust to get to the Red Planet before exposing their crews to months of dangerous space radiation. Instead, NASA is turning to long-ignored nuclear-thermal rocket technology to… Continue Reading »

FBI

FBI’s famous UFO memo fails to resolve ‘flying saucer’ mystery

David Smothers March 28, 2013

Still wondering about the mystery of flying saucers and 3-foot tall aliens dressed in metallic clothing, which the FBI described in a 1950 memo? The agency has released a statement with details about the famous document. The memo describing the mysterious UFOs was created in 1950, three years after the Roswell incident, but the Federal… Continue Reading »

HELTH, NASA

Sex in Space Could Be Deadly?

David Smothers March 14, 2013

In a new study that’s sure to make everyone’s world just a little darker, scientists have discovered that sex in space could lead to severe health problems and life-threatening illnesses—brain disease and cancer included. Specifically, the study wanted to look at how zero gravity would affect the reproduction process, and since sperm cells in plants… Continue Reading »

NASA, SPACE

This Black Hole Spins at (Almost) the Speed of Light

David Smothers February 28, 2013

NASA and the ESA have teamed up to measure how fast a black hole, that weighs 2 million times more than our sun, spins—and the result’s mind boggling. Using two X-ray space observatories, the space agencies have measured the spin of the black hole which lies at the center of a galaxy called NGC 1365…. Continue Reading »

PLANETS

Star Trek Trumps Mythology in Naming Pluto’s New Moon

David Smothers February 26, 2013

Due to popular demand, one of Pluto’s recently discovered moons is to be named Vulcan, after the fictional home of Star Trek’s Spock. And that makes no kind of sense. The name Vulcan was suggested by William Shatner, then reinforced by Leonard Nimoy. Over 450,000 people voted to name the moon, in a poll run by SETI,… Continue Reading »