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EartherClimate ChangeWe’re Spending the Next Two Weeks Envisioning Our Future Earth
Right now, leaders from 195 countries are meeting in Paris to map out a plan for the planet’s future. Nothing like this has ever happened in our lifetimes—and it’s surely just the beginning of a long process that will consume the years ahead. As Gizmodo’s Maddie Stone puts it in her must-read introduction to why … Continued
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Tech NewsWatching Earth Breathe Is Very Soothing
NASA recently released a two-minute video that shows an average year of plant life on Earth. Jason Kottke calls it “The Breathing Earth,” and he’s right. It’s undeniably beautiful to see our little blue marble bloom with life and exhale as the sun retreats. [NASA, Kottke] GIF by Andrew Liszewski Contact the author at [email protected]. … Continued
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Tech News
The Earth Today, Seen from Space
It’s only fitting that the camera dedicated to sending home a steady stream of photos of what our planet looks like right now wears the name EPIC. Living in the future is awesome. The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) is on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). The satellite was originally built in the 1990s … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Scott Kelly Reveals the Raw Beauty of the Sahara From Space
Scott Kelly must be feeling pretty chipper about breaking the U.S. spaceflight record yesterday, because the social media-friendly astronaut has been even busier than usual on Twitter, posting one jaw-dropping image of the Sahara after another. Feast your eyes on the geomorphic beauty of our planet’s largest desert, courtesy of Earth’s favorite amateur landscape photographer. … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
This Photo of an Airplane Flying Over the Bahamas Was Shot From the ISS
Earlier this week, NASA’s Earth Observatory shared a beautiful photo of the Bahamas. While the landscape is majestic and all, PetaPixel points out that the coolest thing about the photo wasn’t immediately evident. The Bahamas’ Great Exuma is a series of cays, and if you look closely at one of the turquoise-green channels between one … Continued
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Tech News
The Last Man On Earth Proves That Survival Doesn’t Always Have to Suck
I love a good post-apocalyptic tale. The Road, The Walking Dead, The Leftovers—these are all fine examples of end-times entertainment. But the problem with all these things is that they’re so damn depressing. Why does the demise of humankind have to be so sad? That’s why I was so pleased to discover the show The … Continued
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ScienceSpace & SpaceflightVoyager’s Iconic Shot of Earth and Moon Shows How Far Space Photography Has Come
Today marks the anniversary when NASA’s Voyager 1 captured both the Earth and its Moon in a single frame. For the first time, we perfectly captured the two celestial bodies we call home. In the short time we’ve explored space, some of the most “holy shit” shots we’ve taken have been of our Earth and … Continued
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Tech News
Get Lost in the Swirling Green Seas of a Massive Algae Bloom
The summer of 2015 will probably be remembered as one of fire, drought, and hot, hot weather. But it’s also been a summer of frightfully voracious, microscopic life forms. From Lake Erie to the North Atlantic, tiny green algae are multiplying like crazy. And there’s no better way to appreciate the sheer immensity of these … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech NewsSploidWatch the Moon cross the face of the Earth in this incredible video
Here’s an absolutely stunning video that shows our Moon fly by and cross the face of our Earth. The detail is incredible, the size difference is dramatic, and it’s just lovely to see the phenomenon happen from outside Earth. We see the Moon streak the sky every night, this is what it looks like from … Continued
By Casey Chan -
io9
Compare All The Objects Of The Solar System
Yesterday, we looked at an interactive infographic on the relative orbits of everything in the solar system. Today, let’s compare the planets to one another. This site shows us how all of the solar system’s planets (and Pluto) stack up. This is another really neat tool that drives home just how diverse or solar system … Continued
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io9Fly Through The Solar System At The Speed Of Light With This Video
Space is really, really big, and there’s been a couple of great videos out there that show off the relative size of objects. This video puts the scale of the solar system into real perspective by showing how it takes you pass through the solar system at the speed of light. Light travels 299,792,458 m/s, … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Planetary Scientists are Officially Done Finding Craters on Earth
Science is meant to be an unceasing, always-sceptical search for knowledge, so it’s not often that scientists can call it a day, declare a problem all scienced out, and move on. But that’s exactly what the team counting asteroid craters on Earth are doing. You might think that it would be easy to find large … Continued
By Chris Mills -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Night-Shining Clouds are the Craziest, Most Beautiful Phenomenon
Clouds are not usually the most enthralling part of nature. But in the late spring and summer, weather conditions conspire to create noctilucent or ‘night-shining’ clouds, high-altitude clouds that glow with an electric-blue hue long after the Sun has set. It takes a very particular set of atmospheric conditions to form noctilucent clouds: a combination … Continued
By Chris Mills -
Tech News
Should We Terraform a New Planet Or Fix Our Own?
Before we talk about terraforming another planet like Mars, we have to talk about Earth—and whether we should be spending our resources trying to save it, or moving on to another pale blue dot. It’s a grim debate that some scientists say it’s time to have. Terraform This We’ve been imagining how to create a … Continued
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Tech NewsSploidStunning full color HD video from the ISS shows life on Earth in motion
This video is taken from space. And yet we can see so much detail on Earth that it’s almost unbelievable. Cars are driving on roads and buildings are moving throughout the day and boats are crawling through rivers, remember this isn’t your run of the mill drone footage, this is all taken from an ultra-HD … Continued
By Casey Chan -
io9This Music Video Goes On An Exhilarating Ride Through Earth and Space
The music video for Dream Koala’s “Earth” from the Earth.Home.Destroyed EP, directed by the duo FABULOUS, is awe-inspiring in so many ways. From the wreckage of civilization to the beauty of nature on earth, every shot is amazing. And so is the lonely astronaut traveling through space, only to crash to Earth. It’s kind of … Continued
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Tech News
13 Years of Cloud-Watching Makes a Beautiful Visual of the Earth
This beautiful map shows an average of all of the available cloud observations from the Aqua satellite. The shades of blue represent the cloudiness of our planet. The visual is based on data acquired from July 2002 until April 2015, offering a top-down view that shows where the satellite’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer saw clouds … Continued
By Attila Nagy -
Tech NewsMachines Sensed the Nepal Earthquake from 8,000 Miles Away
When a massive earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, it created seismic waves that traveled around the world in a matter of minutes, propagating swiftly through Earth’s crust and mantle to rattle seismic stations in the US. The Nepal quake was devastating, but the fact that it was felt 8,000 miles away is actually not … Continued
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io9
Two Leading Biologists Discuss The Next Step In Saving The Planet
Edward O. Wilson made his name by arguing that human society and the natural world are governed by the same principles. Sean B. Carroll made his name by unifying the study of humans and animals, showing that development in both is driven by the same fundamental molecular and genetic processes. So what happened when these … Continued
Edward O. Wilson and Sean B. Carroll - Mosaic Science