The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Detection Network, that's usually used to monitor for covert nuclear weapons testing, serves and alternative use in its spare time: it detects asteroid impacts. This video visualises the data it's managed to collect since 2000. Read More >>
A brief exchange in the back of last week's issue of New Scientist asks: "I understand that the lines and sagging skin we acquire as we age are due to the sun and gravity. If I lived in a space station in zero or microgravity away from the sun, would I stay looking young?" A perfectly innocuous, if even somewhat boring, question—but the answer, supplied by a reader from London, touches on some fascinating terrain. Read More >>
You can't hear sound in space. But that doesn't mean that you can't make sound from space. Lefse Records recently did just that, inviting 14 artists to make songs using "sounds" from space. The first track released is by Youth Lagoon, and it's pretty good! Read More >>
The SpaceX Dragon capsule that just left Earth for the International Space Station is carrying many an important item: a new laser communication system, coffee (which they just ran out of!), a planter for fresh produce, and billions and billions of microbes swabbed from dinosaur bones, trainers, and spacecraft clean rooms. Over the next few days, we'll find out how well these bacteria grow in space. Read More >>
Static, low-res satellite imagery is so passé. Watching HD video from space satellites is the future, especially when looking down on the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. Read More >>
So you know how we all kind of thought that our odds of getting destroyed by an asteroid were remarkably low? Yeah, that was wrong. According to new research, the odds of a large-scale asteroid impact are actually three to ten times higher than we thought. And the only thing stopping total and utter destruction? Sheer, dumb luck. Read More >>
The designers at Astronomika have launched a limited edition screenprint series that they describe as their attempt to draw everything humans have sent into space. They call it "a growing compendium of beautifully crafted screenprints celebrating the past, present and future of spaceflight." Read More >>
The Earth's magnetic field protects life on Earth, shielding it from damaging radiation and moderating our climate. So the idea that it could completely flip around, or collapse altogether, should cause us to worry, right? Well, yes and no. Read More >>
It's no subspace transceiver but this prototype communicator bound for the ISS could revolutionise how we share data over the vast expanses of solar space. It will deliver Gigabit speeds through deep space. Read More >>
This is a new picture taken by the Hubble Telescope that shows us the universe in more detail than we've ever seen it. It's a 14-hour exposure that shows objects at various stages and distances in cosmic history—showing tiny objects that would appear a billion times fainter if looked upon with our weak human eyes. Read More >>
NASA has a plan to better explore how our own local star system, and life within it, got started. It wants to intercept, study, and sample a passing asteroid. The only thing more impressive than this mission's astronomical level of precision is how the space agency somehow shoehorned "Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer" into a functional acronym. Read More >>
Here's 12 minutes of gameplay footage of Star Citizen, a space flight simulator video game that will let you live in a parallel universe. Not only pilot a spaceship, but have a living avatar there. And with Oculus Rift support, it will be a total alternate universe experience. It looks absolutely fantastic. Read More >>
This bright blue sperm, in fact a swirling mass of dust and gas, doesn't need an egg to impregnate: it's producing baby stars all by itself. Read More >>
It isn't everyday we give you lot the opportunity to go into space, but today is different. We've found a deal that, provided you have the money, could see you floating around in zero gravity. Read More >>
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