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Meet Bobak Ferdowsi, NASA's "Mohawk Guy"

Bobak Ferdowsi is Flight Director on the Mars Science Laboratory mission (aka Curiosity). You may know him better as that guy with the mohawk seen at JPL Mission Control during Sunday/Monday's Curiosity landing. In the video below, Shira Lazar interviews Ferdowsi about Curiosity, his experience of the landing, and what it's like to be a sudden internet celebrity...while doing important science work for NASA. Representative line: "If my mohawk gets a few more people excited about science and this... READ ON

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CURIOSITY HAS LANDED

After a tense and slightly inebriated evening of watching NASA TV, I am pleased to report: NASA's Curiosity rover has... READ ON

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How to Watch Tonight's "Curiosity" Rover Landing

NASA's latest and greatest Mars rover, known as Curiosity, will attempt to land on Mars early Monday morning (or late Sunday night, depending on where you are on Earth). The landing is scheduled for 05:31 (UTC), which is Monday morning at 1:31am Eastern in the US, or 10:31pm Pacific time Sunday night. Because Mars is quite far from us, there will be a 14-minute delay before transmissions related to the landing will reach us -- which will make the viewing party that much more of a nail-biter. Prep... READ ON

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"2001" Trailers, Then and Now

Stanley Kubrick's 2001 is a moody sci-fi masterpiece. Its pacing is, by modern sci-fi standards, slow -- but those of us who love the movie see that as part of its appeal. It's a slow burn, so to speak. Recently a speculative trailer for 2001 has been making the rounds. In this new trailer, the movie is marketed as a modern summer blockbuster, using the conventions of modern sci-fi/action trailers -- loud techno, lots of cuts, and goofy onscreen text with that "slam" sound to drive it into your dumb... READ ON

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Yet More Brilliant Space Station Video

Without the Space Shuttle, our sources of fresh space video are somewhat limited. Fortunately, we still have the International Space Station, and photographs taken by its crew are released for public use. In this video, Knate Myers assembles these photographs into a radical time-lapse, giving us the impression of zooming over the Earth at insane speed. My favorite part starts around 3 minutes in, when we see the continents at night, then the Aurora Borealis, then lightning strikes. If you want to make... READ ON

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In Event of Moon Disaster: The White House Plan for the Worst-Case Scenario

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the lunar landing. Here's a look at the worst-case scenario plans, which Chris Higgins originally discussed in... READ ON

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11 Moons You Should Get to Know

You may have heard already that a fifth moon was discovered orbiting Pluto. (If not, Hubble spotted a fifth moon orbiting Pluto.) We know just enough about P5 to know that it's tiny, and it's a moon. Here are some other wild and wonderful worlds that orbit other worlds: 1. Phobos The larger and innermost moon of Mars, Phobos is probably a captured asteroid. It's covered in craters, including the gigantic Stickney Crater created by an impact that was nearly severe enough to destroy the moon altogether.... READ ON

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What's Happening on Saturn's Moons?

This 25-minute film explores what we've learned about Saturn's various moons via space probes. The data comes primarily from NASA's Cassini, though some is from the Voyager and Galileo missions. Nitrogen geysers, bizarre surface ridges, and real atmospheres are all par for the course -- though no big creepy monoliths have been found. Here's a snippet from the film's description: Flying by Europa, Voyager documented a complex network of criss-crossing grooves and ridges. In the 1990s, the Galileo... READ ON

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How NASA's Curiosity Rover Will Land

In just three weeks, NASA's Curiosity rover will land on Mars...except that the "landing" is more like controlled crashing. In this dramatic video, engineers explain how the landing is supposed to go. It involves a supersonic parachute, last-minute radar measurements, and rocket motors. You can bet that come August 5, we'll be freaking out until we get the first "I'm alive" ping from the rover. You can follow @MarsCuriosity on Twitter. And if you're curious about what the rover actually does,... READ ON

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11 Eye-Opening NASA Wakeup Calls

NASA has been waking up astronauts using music since the Apollo Program. Sometimes those wakeup calls get pretty weird. 1. STS-111 - "I Got You Babe" from Groundhog Day On June 19, 2002, the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour awoke to a tinny rendition of "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher, taken from the Groundhog Day soundtrack. This song was chosen because the crew, much like Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, was caught in a loop, repeating the previous day's deorbit activities,... READ ON