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Galaxy

douglas adams

The Unknown Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Prequel You've Already Read

Seven years after his death, an unfulfilled idea of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy creator Douglas Adams is about to come to fruition, as the BBC prepares to bring unlikely detective Dirk Gently into the Hitchhikers universe in a new radio series. This strange move is a result of creative frustrations that led Adams to consider changing the unfinished third Dirk Gently novel (following on from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul) into a book from the Hitchhikers series. More »

ecological dystopia

What's the Singular of "Fish"?

If you've been watching Doctor Who at all this season (and you should, if only for Catherine Tate), you'll know that the show has been laying subtle ground for giant Earth doom that somehow relates to the recent real-life phenomenon of disappearing bees. In fact, it's worse than even Who producer Russell T Davies knows: Fish are checking out, too. More »

space porn

Our Future Galactic Overlords Glow Red With Power Lust

Do you notice anything funny about this picture of NGC 6946, the "Fireworks Galaxy"? Like that lurid wealth of red splotches, for example? The bright red areas represent regions in the galaxy that are actively forming new stars, and there do seem to be an awful lot of them. Could we be facing a star-formation gap with this malevolent galaxy, which is a mere 100 million light years away from us? Could all those bonus stars be the breeding ground for the invaders who will subjugate our descendants in a mere billion years or so? We'd better start preparing for the worst. To help you prepare, here's a rogues gallery of the many faces of the Fireworks Galaxy. (Even its name is violent!) More »

star wars

A Wretched Hive of Scum and...Well, You Know

You're trying to finish a smuggling run and drop a load of spice in the Taanab system when a heavily armed ship shows up on your tail. Is it that bounty hunter Bossk, a Hutt crime lord, or maybe even a Dark Jedi? Now that your gamemaster owns Threats of the Galaxy, it could be any of them. Crap. More »

Welcome to the Post-Apocalyptic Sex Galaxy Yes, I meant for that headline to be confusing. You are probably wondering if the sex is post-apocalyptic, or if the galaxy is full of sex. The answer is yes. Our naughty sister site Fleshbot brings good news about a new movie called Sex Galaxy, put together out of weird found footage from old stag flicks, that premieres in LA next week. It tells the tragic tale of a future Earth where all sex is illegal, and a band of intrepid astronaut heroes must go on a quest to satisfy their desires on other planets. Check out more, plus a trailer, at Fleshbot. NSFW! [Fleshbot]

aces of the galaxy

These Skurgian Space Slugs Need Exterminating - Any Volunteers?

A few million Skurgians were unleashed onto the Xbox 360 this week, and all you have to defeat them is an unlimited supply of cluster bombs, torpedoes and chain gun ammo. Plus the ability to slow down time. Oh, and the occasional space warp. But other than that, you're on your own out there, man. Cluster bombs! What else is in store for you? More »

galaxy quest

Scott Lobdell Tells io9 The Fates of the Galaxy Quest Crew

What happened to the crew of the Protector after their ship crash landed into the scifi convention? We asked Scott Lobdell, writer of the new Galaxy Quest comic, based on the comedy movie about actors who meet aliens who have taken their old science fiction show way too literally. After the jump, check out an exclusive gallery and find out it Fred and his alien love Laliari are still together, why they're back in space and if Gwen still has the ridiculous cleavage she sported in the movie. Lobdell also spilled the beans on his new project, a sorority-slasher-meets-Groundhog Day movie. More »

hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

Now You Can Have the Real Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, the most indispensible form of technology is the Hitchhiker's Guide itself, a pocket computer containing information (some of it wildly inaccurate) about every place in the galaxy. Now the good people at Instructables have a posted a cool project that lets you create your very own Guide — just get crappy old handheld PC, stick Linux on it, and fill it entirely with Wikipedia. Presto, your own somewhat-inaccurate computerized guide to everything in the galaxy. Don't forget your towel! [Instructables via Hackaday]

galaxy quest

Galaxy Quest Returns, Goes Global

For fans of both Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver's cleavage, there's only one movie that manages to hit all particular pleasure buttons: 1999 Star Trek parody Galaxy Quest. And now, as if to prove that there's no audience too niche for indie comic publisher IDW, comes the news that a brand new Galaxy Quest sequel in comic format is on its way. More »

space porn

Hubble's Demolition Derby Of Galaxies

A smaller galaxy blasts through a larger one, like a mega-bullet, sowing disruption in its wake, in this image of Arp 148. The Hubble Space Telescope released 62 images of galaxies smashing into each other, to celebrate its 18th anniversary in space. Galactic collisions were more common in the early universe than they are today, and they're not jjust wanton destruction: they also turn on quasars and jumpstart the birth of stars. A hurtling galaxy would also make an awesome weapon, if you could figure out how to propel it. Click through for a gallery of our favorite galaxy-crashes from Hubble. More »

concept art

The Secret Interior of a Vogon Captain's Quarters

The other day we told you about the artwork created specifically for an online version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game that was created for the new BBC editions of the Hitchhiker's radio drama that came out a few years ago. This image, featuring a cartoony version of the Vogon Captain's quarters, was part of a set created for the same game. More »

concept art

Inside the Heart of Gold That You Never Saw

If you haven't seen the BBC television version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then you need to get off your lazy duff and give it a whirl. It's extremely different from the movie version, and much closer to the novels and radio drama. Probably the best thing about it is the Guide itself, complete with amazing 2D animations depicting whatever the book is droning on about. Like the spaceship Heart of Gold, pictured here. Check out the glorious old school animation style that makes up the Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson Brain, which powers the Infinite Improbability Drive. More »

space porn

A Galaxy Unwinds, 140,000 Light Years From Its Core

Baby stars spring to life at the supposedly desolate fringes of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as M83, in this new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer. Up to 140,000 light years from the galaxy's center, the outer arms of its "pinwheel" shape seem to flap away from the center like "giant red streamers," and these extended galaxy arms are giving birth to a surprising number of new stars. Want to see another image of the pinwheel galaxy extending itself? More »

triviagasm

Forget Warp Speed, Try One Of These Alternative FTL Ideas

In Star Wars and Star Trek, the main way to get around the galaxy is to use warp speed or flip on your hyperdrive, which is a bit like hitting the gas pedal as hard as you can so you'll get there a bit quicker. There's more science to it than that, involving subspace fields and hyperspace and all that jazz, but the end result is that you're traveling very quickly. But besides speed, what other faster than light alternatives are there? Check out our list of other ways to get there in scifi. More »

milliways

Secret History of Infocom's Never-Released "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" Game

One of the coolest text adventure games of the 1980s was Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, based on Douglas Adams' bestselling novel of the same name. Though the game was wildly popular, and a sequel to it was rumored repeatedly, nobody has ever known exactly what happened to that sequel. Until now. Andy Baio, the investigative journo-technologist at Waxy, has received a mysterious network drive from which he recovered all the notes, plans, emails, and information about what Infocom was going to do with the sequel that would have been called Milliways. And he's published it for all to see. More »

astrobiology

Which Parts of the Galaxy Do Aliens Hang Out In?

Here at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2008 in Santa Clara, Charley Lineweaver, a Senior Fellow at the Planetary Science Institute is trying to figure out where in a galaxy aliens might live - the so-called "galactic habitable zone." Planetary habitable zones are well-known - for our sun Sol, we think it's roughly between Venus' orbit and the asteroid belt outside Mars' orbit. Galactic habitable zones are little tougher to pin down - as usual you've got to worry about having liquid water (or liquid something), but things get interesting when you consider the risk of getting blown up by a supernova. More »

tezuka osamu

See The Lost Japanese Space Puppet Anime Classic

When Osamu Tezuka, the father of manga, died in 1989, nobody had a full archive of his works—at least not in English. But his genius was certainly recognized. Back in 1965, Stanley Kubrick even asked him to art direct 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Tezuka, a known workaholic, turned down the opportunity because he couldn't leave his studio for too long.) What was so important that he couldn't leave his studio for Kubrick? More »

star wars

You Can Plan The Kessel Run with a Map of the Star Wars Galaxy

Okay, this may be my new favorite thing on the internet: A map of the Star Wars galaxy, letting you know just how to get from Dantooine to Endor, and what other planets you pass on the way. It apparently originally appeared in the first issue of The Official Star Wars Fact File in 2002, before being reworked to offer more detail on planets of note for the February 2003 issue of fanclub magazine Star Wars Insider. All I'm saying is that I can sleep better in my bed tonight knowing that it is official canon that there's a planet in the Star Wars universe called Mon Calamari. More »