space
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Spacecraft could be killing endangered antelope
Add these two factoids to your store of knowledge about Kazakhstan, which, admit it, consists mostly of “It’s on the Risk board?” (it’s not! You’re thinking of Kamchatka) and “Borat is from there.” The central Asian country provides habitat for the endangered saiga antelope, which has a face like a fuzzy alien from Sesame Street. […]
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Galaxy, right ahead! The Milky Way’s on course for a head-on collision
One day, this is what the night sky will look like. Yup, that’s a galaxy (Andromeda, to be specific) headed straight for … our galaxy! Andromeda’s rushing towards us at the crazy fast speed of 250,000 miles per hour. Luckily, it is a galaxy far, far away, and so it will take 3.75 billion years […]
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Solar eclipse this weekend!
The Western U.S. is getting an annular eclipse this weekend, which is an eclipse where the moon’s shadow turns the sun into a “ring of fire.” A swath of the country from Oregon down to Texas will see the whole enchilada, and most other Westerners will get to see at least a partial eclipse. Those […]
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Brace yourself for tomorrow’s supermoon
Saturday is the night to engage in your moon-related activities — blow it up, write your name on it, release your singing marmoset creatures, whatever — because you’ll have a pretty good view. It’s a “supermoon,” where the moon is closer to earth in its orbit than normally — and it’s going to be the […]
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Surreal, weirdly beautiful photo of planetary destruction seen from space
Some things that look awful up close can look kind of beautiful from space. Like this enormous open-pit copper mine in northern Chile.
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Website shows you your place in the universe (and yes, you are very very small)
The Scale of the Universe is a web-based Total Perspective Vortex that will make you feel very very small — or very very large — with the swipe of a mouse. You start at the scale of humans/dodos/giant earthworms, and from there you can zoom up to galaxies and down to quarks, or you can […]
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Moscow looks awesome from space
NASA’s image of the day today is a night shot of Moscow, seen framed by the Aurora Borealis and the solar panels of the International Space Station.
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This train can launch you into space
Getting into space via shuttle is difficult and expensive. So why not take a train? Startram is a magnetic levitation train that could — theoretically — launch people into orbit for a fraction of the cost.