Back when single-celled organisms ruled Earth, a gigantic black hole lurking quietly at the center of a distant galaxy dismantled and devoured a star. On Wednesday, astronomers reported that they watched the whole thing unfold over a period of 15 months starting in 2010, the first time such an event had been witnessed in great …
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The largest full moon of 2012 happens this Saturday, but it’s OK if you don’t really notice. The moon doesn’t really get bigger, it just gets closer to Earth. At 8:40 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, according to the Griffith Observatory Sky Report, the moon will be at its closest point in its orbit to the …
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Just a few shots of the spacecraft, no aliens here. You will have to click the link to io9, but warning major spoiler alert. // Thx – Tara Tiger Brown
Last week, a friend of mine, Kirby Plessas, witnessed the arrival of Space Shuttle Discovery into Washington D.C. Here are some of the photos she took, see the full set on Flickr.
The peak of the Lyrid meteor shower will be viewable all over the world this Saturday night. With the best rates seen just before dawn. The Lyrids can offer a shower of activity, with peak meteor rates between 10-100 per hour. This year Dr. Cooke estimates that the rate will be around 15 per hour, …
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The Space Lab competition from YouTube invited young scientists to submit an experiment for the chance to have it performed by NASA aboard the International Space Station. From among thousands of entrants, six regional winners have been chosen. In North America, Emerald Bresnahan of Plainville, Massachusetts, was chosen for her Snowflakes in Space experiment. Emerald …
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Pulled from Quora, here is one of the best, and most popular, answers to a question. Written by Mark Eichenlaub, a graduate student in physics. How close does an object have to be to earth to be pulled by gravity? This question doesn’t have a direct answer because, for lack of a less-direct way of …
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For the first time ever, China has launched more rockets into orbit in a year than the U.S. In 2011, the Chinese sent 19 rockets into space. The U.S. sent just 18. Russia, the Walmart of space launches, fired off no fewer than 31 rockets. …Beijing is not about to catch up to Washington in …
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At the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, initial mating of space shuttle Discovery and the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft is complete in the mate-demate device. The device, known as the MDD, is a large gantry-like steel structure used to hoist a shuttle off the ground and position it onto the back …
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How big is Jupiter’s moon Io? The most volcanic body in the Solar System, Io (usually pronounced “EYE-oh”) is 3,600 kilometers in diameter, about the size of planet Earth’s Moon. Gliding past Jupiter at the turn of the millennium, the Cassini spacecraft captured this awe inspiring view of active Io with the largest gas giant …
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