Dark alien planet discovered by NASA
Scientists are unsure why the planet is blacker than coal, but believe it could be a chemical they ‘haven’t even thought of yet.’
Antiprotons discovered around Earth, could power spaceships of the future.
Information gained from a Russian Earth observation satellite has revealed a ring of antiprotons trapped in a ring around the Earths magnetic fields. The antimatter may last up to several hours before annihilating with normal matter.
That reaction between matter and antimatter produces more energy than the fusion process in the core of the sun. “This is the most abundant source of antiprotons near the Earth,” says a researcher. “Who knows, one day a spacecraft could launch then refuel in the inner radiation belt before travelling further.”
(via 8bitfuture)
Don’t Get Neil deGrasse Tyson Started About the Un-Science-y Politicians Who Are Killing America’s Dreams
As we’ve learned time and time again, when you need to hear someone kvetch hard about the state of science in this country, point your radio telescopes at Hayden Planetarium head Neil deGrasse. In the midst of the debt debacle, he responds to Bill Maher’s question about Washington’s possible assassination of the James Webb Space Telescope with a ranty explanation of how Congress is mortgaging the futuristic dreams Americans used to have. He ends with a good question: How far can science go in Washington when so few Congressmen are scientists?
See the full discussion here, and calm your Tyson-ish nerves with this relaxing Carl Sagan video.
Source: motherboard.tv
“Boeing says two of its own employees will crew the first manned mission of its new astronaut capsule. The US company has confirmed it will use the Atlas 5 rocket to test its CST-100 ship on three flights in 2015. An unmanned capsule will be used on the first and second launches. On the third, Boeing test pilots will take the vessel to the space station.”
Source: BBC
“Cuts to NASA’s astrophysics division would see it fall from being the highest-funded science division (2008) to one of the least funded in the agency (2012).”
(via Alasdair Allan via NASA Astrophysics: It Really Is This Bad | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine)
Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com
An anti-NewSpace conspiracy?
“Fact is, with the competition of the Shuttle out of the way, NewSpace, as the burgeoning commercial space flight industry is sometimes known, is number one on the runway, and there’s no good reason to assume that it will fail. SpaceX became the first private company to launch and then recover a spacecraft from orbit last year, and is on track to begin cargo deliveries to the International Space Station this year. Certainly it’s not fair to say that America has no plan in space. In fact it’s completely inaccurate.”
Open Source Space Flight Attempt Today
“The project is both open source and non-profit in order to inspire as many people as possible, and to involve relevant partners and their expertise. We intend to share all our technical information as much as possible, within the laws of EU-export control.”
Green Lantern movie and citizen science
Computers have failed at classifying the hundreds of thousands of galaxies imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope archive. Turns out, people are pretty good at it though. Oxford University’s Galaxy Zoo asks you to look at the beautiful galactic images and classify them according to their shape. Now, Galaxy Zoo is at the heart of an online transmedia game to promote the new Green Lantern movie.
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