space

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Hammer and Feather Drop on the Moon

In 1971, astronaut David Scott conducted Galileo's famous hammer/feather drop experiment on the moon, during the Apollo 15 mission. Galileo had concluded that all objects, regardless of mass, fall at the same speed -- however, the resistance caused by the air (as in the case of the feather in Earth's atmosphere) can cause the feather to drop slower. Well, on the moon there is no atmosphere (a vacuum), so the objects should drop at the same speed. See for yourself how the experiment turned out in the... READ ON

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Attention, People of Earth

The New Yorker brings us an important message from extraterrestrials, translated by writer Paul Simms. I'm just gonna start this dialog by emphasizing that everything's cool. They just want to, you know, check out our planet and hang out. There are some details and stuff to work out, but nobody's gonna get eaten by huge laser-wielding death monsters. The message begins (emphasis added): We are on our way to your planet. We will be there shortly. But in this, our first contact with you, our... READ ON

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How Interns Stole NASA's Moon Rocks

In 2002, a ragtag trio of NASA interns conspired to steal millions of dollars' worth of lunar rock samples from their secure storage vault. (Apparently they didn't have an old comic book handy -- they could have easily ordered all the Moon Rocks they wanted!!) Anyway, last week gadget blog Gizmodo published the story of how they carried out the theft, telling the specifics of how they did it -- though the details are somewhat suspect, as their source is the guy who claims to have done all the crazy... READ ON

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Recovering NASA History in an Abandoned McDonald's

In 1966, NASA's Lunar Orbiter program performed a detailed survey of the moon's surface. The Orbiters mapped the moon in exquisite detail, searching for suitable places that later missions could use as landing sites. The Orbiters sent back their data via an amazingly complex system employing 70mm cameras, optical scanners running in space, analog lossless image compression, and radio transmitters. The data was stored back on Earth on 2,500 reels of 2-inch tape. Where this story gets interesting is what... READ ON

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Inside NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab

Following up on yesterday's Mars Phoenix Lander post, let's continue with the NASA theme. This past May, Jet Propulsion Lab Director Charles Elachi gave a speech about JPL, full of historic and contemporary photos -- including a surprising amount of goofing around. Elachi shows us the fun side of JPL, the serious side of JPL, and a bunch of cool stuff about the Mars Rovers (including some of the best Mars photos I've seen). The satellite imagery of Mars is beautiful and engaging. On the downside,... READ ON

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RIP, Mars Phoenix Lander

Yesterday, NASA announced that the Mars Phoenix Lander has died. Okay, they said that the lander had "ceased communications" and that the lander had "finish[ed] successful work," both of which are merely euphemisms for its tragic death after five months of lonely toil on Mars. The Mars Phoenix Lander's death is not unexpected. It landed in a polar region of Mars, because that's where the ice is. But it's also where it gets real darn cold during the Martian winter, and at this point, Phoenix (and its... READ ON

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The Arecibo Message

Let's say you're a human with a big radio transmitter, who wants to send a message to the putative aliens out there light-years away, listening by their radio receivers. What would your message say? How would you format it, since you don't have any concept of the recipient's language or cognitive abilities? What would be most interesting and salient to a completely unknown civilization? Given the limits of the exercise, there are only a few known factors about the recipient: you can assume that the... READ ON

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5 Reasons We'll Miss Arthur C. Clarke

The late Sir Arthur C. Clarke was loved by nerds and normals alike for his contributions to literature, film, and technology. Here's a rundown of the five biggest reasons we'll miss him. 1. Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World Clarke kept extensive files on mysterious events, objects, and locations throughout the world. Starting in the early 1980's, he mined these files to bring us Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, a thirteen-part TV series covering topics ranging from UFOs to crystal skulls.... READ ON

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Project Orion: The Nuclear Spacecraft

In 1958, Project Orion was formed at General Atomics (a defense contractor), seeking to design spacecraft powered by nuclear pulses -- in other words, bombs. The project designed incredibly large vessels, with theoretical sizes ranging up to 400 meters in diameter and weighing 8,000,000 tons. The ships were intended to travel to Saturn and Venus carrying large crews -- but the project ended in the early 1960's without building a full-scale vehicle. The project involved, among others, physicist Freeman... READ ON

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I always feel like somebody's watching me

Take that, Google Earth! See ya, Microsoft Virtual Earth! I think this web toy of sorts is much cooler -- it lets you view the earth from pretty much any satellite of your choosing (that's this morning's view from ECHOSTAR 8 at left). The satellite thing isn't your speed? The same website also lets you check out the planet from the vantage point of the Sun, the Moon, the night side of the Earth, "above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and altitude," or above various cities around... READ ON