io9: Porn

This Galaxy Screams Across The Void

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:34:00 PDT

The galaxy NGC 1275 has long commanded attention because it emits such strong radio waves and X-rays. And new images of the galaxy, at the heart of the Perseus cluster, paint a super-violent picture of events at its heart, thanks to the black hole at its exact center. This image combines optical imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green and blue) with X-ray data (soft violet) and radio waves (red). Click through to see X-ray and radio images separately.

X-ray images:

Radio waves:

[Chandra Observatory]

Now You Can Ogle Mars via Webcam

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:00:00 PDT

Want to see what Mars looked like a few days ago, so you can pretend you're flying in orbit around the red planet almost in realtime? You could be doing that right now, thanks to the European Space Agency's Mars webcam. Mounted on the Mars Express Probe is a visual light camera that basically takes pictures of the planet every day. ESA researchers post galleries of the images every few days, and even do "best of the year" compliations. One of my favorites, though, is a movie showing what Mars looked like over the course of a month — we've got it for you below.

I love that you can watch the weather moving across the face of the planet. Of course it makes one yearn for a full-color, high-resolution set of pictures, but I'll settle for this. The cam is called the Visual Monitoring Camera, and it's lucky the device even works at all. This is a standard camera, not a scientific instrument, and researchers weren't even sure it would survive the journey through space to reach Mars. But when the Mars Express reached the plent in 2007, the camera came back online and started snapping photos. Let's call them the first tourist snapshots of Mars.

Watch the cam here, and find out more about the ESA Visual Monitoring Camera project here. Thanks, Eric!

The Tentacled Galaxy Where Cthulhu Was Spawned

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:31:36 PDT

NGC 1275 is a galaxy that basks in the sizzling heat of X-rays emitted by its many sister galaxies in the Perseus galaxy cluster. Not only does NGC 1275 have a supermassive black hole at its center, like any self-respecting galaxy would, but it also exhibits a very rare trait. Those pale purple tendrils of light you see are actually cooled gas that's been ejected by the black hole at its core, and their tentacley shape is caused by the magnetic fields connecting NGC 1275 with other local galaxies. This is a recent image taken by the Hubble Telescope, and it tells us a lot about galactic behavior.

Here is a touched-up version of the same galaxy so that the tendrils are more obvious. The image you saw on top shows what would be visible to the naked eye, which is pretty damn cool. So what's this galaxy all about? Explains Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait:

These tendrils have been a problem for astronomers: they’re very narrow (only a couple of hundred light years wide), have masses a million of times that of the Sun, and should fall apart rapidly (they’re blasting out into hot gas which should disrupt them, they’re massive enough to collapse under their own weight to form stars, and tides from the galaxy itself should shred them). Yet they seem at least semi-stable, lasting for hundreds of millions of years. What holds them together?
Turns out it’s that old standby, magnetism. Recently released Hubble images (like the one above) have given astronomers insight into the structure of these tendrils. Hubble’s hi-res view shows details previously unseen in the tendrils, allowing astronomers a better view and the ability to determine the magnetic strengths needed to hold the tendrils together against the forces that would rend them asunder.

In case you weren't already convinced that this was Cthulhu's home galaxy, that freakish and inexplicable persistence of the tentacles in the face of massive force should confirm it.

R'lyeh! R'lyeh! Actually, come to think of it, R'lyeh would make a great name for this galaxy, don't you think?

The Magnetic Tendrils of NGC 1275 [Bad Astronomy]

Why Venus is the Second-Most Inhabitable Planet in Our Solar System

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:18:04 PDT

Last week, I told you about Tobias Buckell's awesome new space zombies vs. alien-enhanced ninja novel, Sly Mongoose. The book hits stores this week, and SF author John Scalzi invited Buckell to write something about what inspired the novel. Buckell says that he owes it all to a NASA scientist named Geoff Landis, who gave a presentation on Venus that blew Buckell's mind and instantly spawned the idea for the planet Chilo where his novel takes place. The really cool part, aside from getting to read about floating cities on a planet covered in thick, sulfurous atmosphere, is that Buckell gives an excellent layperson's summary of what makes Venus habitable.

Buckell writes, in part:

[In his presentation,] Geoff [gives] us the rundown on Venus and what planned missions to Venus are going to look like, or may look like if they’re approved. Then he suddenly reminds us all about Venus’s basic properties. It’s hot. Crazy hot. The pressure is off the chain. It rains frickin’ sulfuric acid! There’s no air.

Then Geoff says, all that aside, Venus is probably the second most habitable planet in the solar system.

Say what? I’m intrigued, as Geoff goes on to explain that if you go high enough up into Venus’s atmosphere, the pressure is standard, the heat normal, you’re above the sulfuric acid-raining clouds, and then tells us that there, normal breathable Earth air is a lifting gas. So if you were to, say, enclose a mile-wide structure in a bubble, and fill that with normal breathable air, it would float.

In other words, you get a scientific justification for Cloud City. As long as it’s a giant floating marble.

Hell yes. And then maybe could you fill the floating marble with radio-controlled zombies, please? And like fight them? Yes, you could.

The Big Idea: Tobias Buckell [via Whatever]

The Russian Cold War Rocket That Still Does Heavy Lifting

Ed Grabianowski — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:00:00 PDT

This Russian Proton rocket, looking like something out of a 60s sci-fi novel, launched yesterday from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying one of the largest satellites ever built. Arguably the best heavy boost rocket in the world, the Proton is a Cold War relic that's still a workhorse (despite some recent failures) more than forty years after the first one was launched. How did this rocket, one of the deadliest weapons ever created, end up helping North Americans watch European football matches via satellite?

The first Proton was launched in 1965. It was originally designed as one huge freaking Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, with a massive range and terrifying nuclear payload. Since the East coast of the U.S. is not currently a smoking radioactive crater, you can be sure it was never actually used this way. Instead, it was put to work hauling satellites into orbit, as well as chunks of the Mir space station. Despite some recent mission failures, Protons are still regularly contracted out by international companies who need to get something heavy into space. In this case, British company Inmarsat hired a Proton to put their 6-ton Inmarsat-4 (I4-F3) telecommunications satellite into orbit. By the time you read this, we'll know if it was deployed successfully.

This photo by Flickr user alexpgp shows a Proton being lifted into launch position at Baikonur.
If you head over to his Baikonur Campaigns page, you can see a huge gallery of cool insider photos taken inside Baikonur as engineers prepare for various launch missions (apparently alexpgp is an engineer with one of the companies that hires Proton rockets). Top image by: BBC News.

Proton rocket in return to flight. [BBC News]

Love Is Like a Rocket Smashing to Earth on a Steep Ballistic Reentry Course

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:30:00 PDT

Nothing like the smoking ruins left behind after a rocket smashes to Earth on a fast, steep reentry course. I love this set of images showing the results of the Russian Soyuz rocket's return to Earth in April of this year. Recently uncovered by Dark Roasted Blend, the images show the rocket's burning tear through a field of grain, and then close in on the blackened husk of the reentry cone itself.

Imagine riding in that sucker down to Earth at like a zillion miles per hour.

There's something so poignant about this rocket's blistered skin. It's like this machine loved its human companions so much that it came back down to Earth just for them, even though it died in the process.

Soyuz Reentry Pictures [via Dark Roasted Blend]

Birthing Stars Tear Into A Nebula With A Fierce Beauty

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:31:00 PDT

Here's a detail of a new image the Hubble Space Telescope released to celebrate its 100,000th orbit of Earth. It shows the "firestorm" of star creation in the nebula near star cluster NGC 2074. The three-dimensional image shows off "dramadramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-head 'pillars of creation,' and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation," says NASA. The high-energy radiation from all those hot young stars is slowly eating away at the wall of the nebula. Click through to see the whole thing.

And no, I don't know why part of the image is censored. Is it not work-safe? Is there something happening that NASA doesn't want us to know about?

That circle of blue gas at the bottom center may be hiding another young star cluster. This "fantasy-like landscape" is 100 light years wide and features dark dust towers rising above a glowing wall of gases on the surface of the dark molecular cloud that births new stars. Scientists theorize a supernova explosion may have triggered this frenzy of star creation. Happy orbitversary, Hubble! [Hubblesite]

Catch the Perseid Meteor Shower Tonight

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:30:00 PDT

Every summer, the Earth passes through the space wreckage left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. And you know what that means: Meteorites. Early Tuesday morning, after the moon goes down around 1:30 AM, is the best time to see the bits of junk burning up beautifully in the Earth's atmosphere. Everybody knows space explosions are romantic, so stay up late tonight with your sweetie(s) and contemplate astrophysics as you watch hunks of rocks and ice flare up and die, miles over your heads. [Space.com] Image via Marylandweather.com.

Hardcore Martian Moon Pix -- In 3D!

Ed Grabianowski — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:00:00 PDT

The European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter passed within a few kilometers of Phobos last week. While it was there, it took some stunning high resolution photos of the irregular Martian moon. We're talking almost "Phobos Street View" resolution here. Mars Express also took some shots with its stereo cameras. So put on your blue and red cardboard glasses and check out Phobos in thrilling 3D.

The Mars Express photos have a resolution of less than four meters per pixel, and they cover the entire surface of Phobos. This gives scientists an unprecedented look at the spudlike satellite. Next year, a Russian mission with the awesome name "Phobos-Grunt" will land there and take soil samples before returning to Earth.
I actually didn't have a pair of 3D glasses handy, so hopefully this looks as cool as I'm hoping it does. Is Phobos hurtling out of your screen at you while a cheesy Aerosmith song plays in the background? Check out the full-size (i.e., truly enormous) images here. Images by: ESA.

Mars Express Acquires Sharpest Images Of Martian Moon Phobos. [Science Daily]

Just In Case You Didn't Realize How Big Jupiter Was...

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:00:00 PDT

This is a picture of Jupiter's moon Io floating over the planet's clouds, to remind you how freaking huge Jupiter is. Io is the same size as our own moon. To celebrate the battle of Jupiter's Red Spots, in which the original Daddy Red seems to be in the process of eating the other two, the Boston Globe posted a set of the greatest Jupiter photos of all time, from NASA. Click through for a few of our favorites, including some truly spooky views of Europa and Io.

[Boston Globe via A Second Hand Conjecture]

What Light Through Yonder Laboratory Breaks? It Is the East, and the Large Hadron Collider Is the Sun

Annalee Newitz — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:00:00 PDT

Some say it might destroy the world, and others say it looks just like the Stargate, but you and I know the blazing glory that is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is just going to do a few little things to change our whole conception of reality. You know, like smashing protons together to recreate the conditions that prevailed in the universe right after the Big Bang. Here you can see the outer barrel of the LHC's compact muon solenoid experiment, which will examine what's happening in an energy region known as the "terascale." Which sounds totally Marvel Comics. Peek below for more hot proton-on-proton action.

Here's the endcap of the ATLAS detector, which contains several layered cylinders around the spot where the where the LHC's proton beams will smash into each other.

Here you can see the gigantic electromagnetic calorimeter, which is 6x7 square meters. According to the Boston Globe:

[It] consists of 3300 blocks containing scintillator, fibre optics and lead. It will measure the energy of particles produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC when it is started. Photons, electrons and positrons will pass through the layers of material in these modules and deposit their energy in the detector through a shower of particles.

In other words: This device measures the output of the smashed protons.

No, it's not some steampunk fantasy gear. This is a huge magnet that will become part of the endcap of the ATLAS detector we showed you above.

Want to see more hardcore physics experiment insanity? Check out the amazing set of photos at the Boston Globe. The LHC goes online and starts smashing tiny particles later this year.

Large Hadron Collider Nearly Ready [via Boston Globe] (Thanks, Gonzalo Sanchez!)

Lovely, Pristine Beaches off the Shores of Titan's Great Methane Lake

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:00:00 PDT

Here you can see the most recent satellite photo of Ontariou Lacus, or Lake Ontario, located next to a lovely beach on Titan. It's the first image that confirms without a doubt that Saturn's moon Titan contains lakes filled with liquid. Due to the angle of the camera, the image is wedge-shaped, but you can still quite clearly see that the right edge of the lake is a beach, lapped by gentle waves of methane. See below for more methane action.

This image was taken of the whole lake in 2005, and it's a bit blurry but now you have a sense of the lake's shape. That beach is part of the bulbous right-hand side of the lake. Perfect place for my summer home. When it gets too hot on Earth during those climate changed summers, you'll want to join me on icy Titan to enjoy whiskey-spiked coffee and the fresh aroma of methane rising off those silvery waters. Top image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona; bottom image - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Giant Lake Confirmed on Saturn's Moon Titan [via Space.com]

This Beautiful Galaxy Is Shrouded In Death

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:32:00 PDT

The Pinwheel galaxy shimmers with life, but it's surrounded by death. Those red and blue areas surrounding the galaxy are devoid of organics, otherwise known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which scientists believe are the building blocks of life, this new photo from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows. These "organics" diminish towards the outer portion of the galaxy, and then quickly drop off to nothing at the outer rim, destroyed by harsh radiation from stars. Click through to see a sunrise as photographed from the International Space Station.

Images by NASA/JPL-Caltech and AP/NASA. [JPL]

How Does Your Hero Measure Up On Our Wish-Fulfillment Checklist?

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:00:00 PDT

Sometimes you just want to escape into a heroic universe of wish fulfillment, with just the right kind of angst. And let's face it, some heroes do a better job of hitting your escapism sweet spots than others. We've put together a chart comparing the great action heroes, and seeing which ones hit most of the sweet spots of escapism.

The categories in the chart should be pretty self-explanatory. But here's some explanation anyway:

We love our heroes to be super rich, and to have an excuse for self-pity. If your fabulously wealthy parents got killed in front of you when you're a kid, so much the better. (Seriously, a tragic past seems to be a crucial ingredient for many escapist heroes, because it lets you project all your own real-life pain onto your hero, even as you're imagining rising about that pain and becoming a mega-adventurer. )

And it makes us happy when our heroes have two or more devoted acolytes/sidekicks, who follow almost without question, and awesome gadgets. Superhuman powers means what it says. "Gets laid" doesn't just mean your hero hooked up one time.

"Marked for greatness" requires slightly more explanation. If your hero is the subject of a prophecy (like Starbuck), or is "the One" like Neo, then he/she is marked for greatness. Captain Kirk wasn't marked for greatness on the original Star Trek TV show, but we have a strong suspicion that the new Trek movie, by revisiting his origins, will show that he was marked for great things from the beginning.

"Not tied down" doesn't just mean being single: it means that you get to roam around having adventures. And at the end of an adventure, you jump in your spaceship and zoom off to the next adventure somewhere else. Captain Kirk wasn't tied down, but Captain Sisko was.

"Becomes a god or king" means your character ends up with a lot of people looking up to him/her. The Hulk, for example, is destined either to become a ruler, the Maestro, or the last survivor of Earth. Captain Kirk becomes an admiral, but more importantly he becomes a legend in his own time. The Doctor becomes the last of the Time Lords, and gets called a god a lot. Neo turns into the blind buddha Jesus monster, or something.

This Is The World The Machines Made

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:00:00 PDT

A satellite image shows a totally machine-made world, which looks like a cubist painting. But it's not a giant set for the new Terminator movie, it's the remains of the Bolivian rainforest, after massive clear-cutting. The red areas are the places where vegetation still exists. This is just one of 30 amazing satellite images of the Earth which resemble abstract art, as posted over at Environmental Graffiti. Others include natural phenomena, such as the gorgeous Richat Structure in Mauritania, a huge bulls-eye impact crater in the Sahara. Click through to see a few more of our favorites.

[Environmental Graffiti]

Instant Moon Base to Be Delivered by Ares Rocket

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:00:00 PDT

When the Ares V rocket lands on the moon next decade, part of its payload will be a full-functioning, instant moon base that will be ready for a several-month long habitation. At least, if experimental architecture firm Architecture and Vision has anything to say about it. The firm's design, called Moon Base Two, was a hot topic at the recent Gravity Free conference in Chicago, and could actually work. More pictures, plus the beta version, below.

Here you can see the base from ground level. The station automatically deploys after Ares lands, and can host up to 4 people for 6 months. Architecture and Vision's website suggest that it will be an ideal halfway point between temporary and permanent housing for humans on the moon.

An earlier version of the base, Moon Base One, was inflatable. This is similar to other inflatable bases that NASA has been testing in Antarctica.

I like both designs, though Moon Base Two looks like it might be more durable. Apparently the dome shape is the best one for capturing solar energy. Emily Kemper has a great report on Archinect about what people said about the Moon Base Two project at Gravity Free.

Moon Base Two [Architecture and Vision]

The New Hottest Spot in the Milky Way

Nivair H. Gabriel — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:39:31 PDT

Two days ago, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope revealed an image of what could be the brightest star in our galaxy: Wolf-Rayet star WR 102ka or, more fondly, the "Peony nebula" star. Astronomers say that it burns with the light intensity of 3.2 million suns — but that's a rough estimate, and one that might even stretch to 4 or 5 million suns.

Researchers at NASA and Germany's Potsdam University observed the Peony nebula star, which by the way is about 100 times wider and 200 times heavier than our familiar sun. NASA offers more images, including a zoomed-in video view, of the Peony nebula at the link below.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ.

Brightest Star in the Galaxy Has New Competition [Spitzer Space Telescope @ NASA]

The Frozen Waterfalls of Mars

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:25:48 PDT

This deep gorge known as the Echus Chasma was ripped into the Martian soil by gushing water, and scientists speculate that it may once have boasted giant, 4000-meter-high waterfalls. This image, by the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite, was released this week along with a few others. We've got an even more gorgeous one for you below.

According to the European Space Agency:

[This is] an image taken by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express of Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on the Red Planet. Echus Chasma, which resembles Arizona's Grand Canyon, is an approximately 62.1 miles (100 km) long and 6.2 miles (10 km) wide. The data was acquired on 25 September 2005. A 4000-meter-high cliff marks the edge of the source area of Kasei Valles in its western part. Gigantic water falls may have once plunged over these cliffs on to the valley floor. The original shoreline is still partially visible. The remarkably smooth valley floor was later flooded by basaltic lava.

Photos via AP.

Echus Chasma Images from Mars Express [via People's Daily Online]

Brightest Supernova In History Has Turned To Velvety Goodness

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:52:00 PDT

This supernova dominated our skies for weeks, a thousand years ago. It was brighter than Venus and visible during the day, and observers documented it in China, Japan, Europe and the Arab world. We now know that the brightest supernova on record, SN 1006c, was caused by a white dwarf star that gained mass from a companion star until it gorged itself and exploded. Click through for some more mind-blowing images of SN1006c, including some super-colorful X-ray images.

[Chandra]

Welcome Your New Robot Over... Oh, Never Mind

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:22:00 PDT

The robot uprising has been delayed slightly, thanks to German engineers. The new Care-O-bot home robot faces several disadvantages if it decides to slaughter us all: First, it only has one highly flexible arm. Secondly, the arm automatically deactivates if a human comes into its radius, thanks to color cameras, 3-D sensors and laser scanners. It "read" human gestures, such as "put down that knife." (Unfortunately, it's also programmed to recognize household objects, such as electric carving knives.) The Care-O-bot is developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart. Click to enlarge. [Science Daily]

The Moon Rocket Project NASA Doesn't Want You to Know About

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:28:43 PDT

A group of secretive rocket designers have defected from NASA's rocket-building team to spearhead their own forbidden project. They spend their evenings designing Jupiter (pictured), a moon rocket they think will work far better for less money then NASA's current moon rocket, Ares, set to bring some people to the moon in 2020. With all its plans available on a site called Direct 2.0, and nearly 100 engineers working, its possible Jupiter could zoom to the moon before Ares — if it can get some funding.

According to Yahoo! News:

They call their project Jupiter, and like Ares, it's a brainchild of workers at the Marshall Space Flight Center and other NASA facilities. The engineers involved are doing the work on their own time and mostly anonymously, with the help of retirees and other space enthusiasts. A key Ares project manager dismisses their design as little more than a sketch on a napkin that won't work.

A spokesman for the competing effort, Ross Tierney, said concerned engineers at NASA and some contractors want a review of the Ares plans but can't speak out for fear of being demoted, transferred or fired.

It's depressing to think that NASA engineers are so frustrated by their current projects that they have to strike out on their own. But looked at another way, it's fantastic that they're giving NASA a run for its money. I want to see more amateur and private moon rocket projects creating a competitive market for space travel. Image by Phillip Metschan for Horizons.

NASA Engineers Work on Alternative Moon Rocket [Yahoo! News]

Murdered Galaxy Gets A Double-Halo Memorial

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:00:00 PDT

See that cool pattern around this edge-on spiral galaxy, NGC 5907? The one that sort of looks like two halos? Those are the only remains of another galaxy, which NGC 5907 slaughtered in cold blood. (Or maybe cold dark matter?) We've shown you galaxies colliding before, but here's an arresting look at the aftermath of one of those galactic hit-and-runs, courtesy of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. These "stellar fossils," or "ghost galaxies," result from the spiral galaxy's collision with a dwarf galaxy, which it mostly absorbed. Click through to see a bigger image, plus a look at NGC 4013's "ghost trail."

[IAC via Discover]

Does the New Shape of the Solar System Prove Vernor Vinge is Right About the Galaxy?

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:00:00 PDT

By now you've probably heard the news about our solar system not quite being the shape that everybody thought. A study in Nature today shows results gathered from the two Voyager space probes launched in the 1970s, which are both nearing the edge of the heliosphere, the region where the solar winds end and deep space begins. Based on data the probes beamed back, it would appear that the heliosphere isn't a sphere — it's more of an egg shape (pictured). And the boundary between heliosphere and deep space is shifting all the time. It sounds very similar to the way scifi author Vernor Vinge describes the Milky Way's galactic sphere in A Fire Upon the Deep. If Vinge is right about what happens when you leave a gravitational sphere for deep space, the Voyager probes are in for an interesting ride.

Vinge describes the galaxy in terms of "zones of thought." Near the center of the galactic core are "the unthinking depths," where spaceships must use analog technologies and travel is very slow. In the "slow zone," which includes Earth and most of the galactic disk, FTL doesn't work, nanotech is crude, and mind-machine interfaces are impossible. Then there is the Beyond, an egg-shaped volume perpendicular to the galactic disk that functions like the galaxy's heliosphere. There, FTL is possible (though expensive), AI and nanotech work, and human-machine interfaces are everyday technology. Most creatures live in the Beyond, because the tech is so much better there. Yet another region, basically the deep space beyond the galactic sphere, is called the Transcend. There FTL is cheap, and tech works even better.

Obviously Vinge was partly creating a kind of sociological landscape with his imagining of these galactic spheres — each corresponds to a stage or potential stage in human development. But I have always wondered whether there might be a grain of truth in there. Could it be that when the Voyager probes finally travel beyond the heliosphere (in about 10 years), scientists will get data back showing that Voyager is suddenly able to travel faster using the same amount of energy? Or perhaps other physical constants will shift?

Solar System is Shaped Like an Egg [Daily Telegraph]

Flying Into The Gaping Maw Of Mars

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:40:00 PDT

This is one of NASA's proposed landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory, which looks like a set of giant gaping jaws of evil. Do those look like teeth to anybody else? Actually, they're sand deposits resulting from wind activity, with the lighter parts being bedrock. The green and blue areas are full of iron- and magnesium- rich minerals like pyroxene and possibly olivine. And the reddish stuff is mineral-heavy clay. Okay, it's really just the Martian jaws of evil. Click through for a pretty pic from NASA's moon-rocket briefing.

Here's project manager Steve Cook gesturing at a video screen while talking about the Ares V moon rocket. NASA wants to beef up the size and power of the moonshot to enable it to carry more weight up to the lunar surface. Images by AP/NASA and AP/Jay Reeves.

The Measure of a Robot

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:01:51 PDT

With lovable brain-in-a-box robot Wall-E enchanting us in theaters, and hot-bod Cylons seducing us in Battlestar Galactica re-runs, it's clear that we've come a long way since the robot evil/human good days of Metropolis and HAL. Today's pop culture robots are all over the map when it comes to their good or evil natures — we practically need a chart to figure out which bots are nasty, which are friendly, and which are floating in an ambivalent in between. Just to help you figure it out, we've actually made that chart. We've plotted where 27 of the most intriguing bots of the past century fall using a Cartesian coordinate system to map where they fall on a scale of good to evil, and a scale of being humanoid-shaped to being AIs-in-a-box.

There's actually a pretty good range here, with bots falling all across the grid. It's interesting to note that there appear to be more evil box-shaped robots, and there's a pretty good clustering of bots who seem to be good and humanoid-shaped. Notably, there are two completely neutral bots who are box-shaped, but no neutral humanoid bots. And most of the evil humanoids are women, except the Original Terminator. (All but one of the good humanoids are male, as are all but one of the good boxes.)

Here's a quick rundown of the bots we included:

C3P0: Not a mean circuit in his system. But that metal body makes him not super high on the humanoid scale.

Lt. Cmdr. Data: Mostly good, but with a few quirks. Green skin makes him off-human.

Robby the Robot: He lives to please everyone, C3P0 style. The tire-shaped body pushes him very close to box-land.

David: This kidbot from the movie A.I. is as humanoid as you can get, though his terrible treatment at the hands of humans makes him less than good.

Gort: Kinda human-shaped. Sorta good?

RoboCop: Built like a human tank, nearing box-shape. Hard to be totally good when you've been programmed by an evil, union-busting corporation.

Crow T. Robot: Too capricious to be super good, and too goofy-looking to qualify as humanoid.

7 of 9: Humanoid except for those implants (I mean the ones in her brain). Not exactly a nice bot, though not evil either.

Marvin the Paranoid Android: Nearly box-shaped, and too annoyed to be good.

Iron Giant: Super-mega-good. Too giant to be humanoid.

R2D2: Postbox shaped. 100% good.

Wall-E: A box, but with limbs that give him a slight humanoid feel. Basically a good creature, but with a disobedient streak.

HARLIE: This AI from David Gerrold's novel When HARLIE Was One is pretty much an AI in a box. But he's naughty and does drugs.

Krell technology: Basically brain in a box. Entirely neutral — only manifests the subconscious desires of other creatures.

Eve: A sleeker version of R2D2. Not evil, but only good once she's overcome her programming.

WOPR: The computer from Wargames is entirely neutral. And he lives in a box, except for those missiles he can launch.

HAL: Lives in a box with a glowing red eye. He's only evil because evil humans have given him contradictory programming. But he does kill people, which puts him over into the evil category.

Proteus: He lives in a box and rapes Julie Christie in Demon Seed. I call that evil.

MCP: The Master Control Program from Tron lives in a box, where he can take humanoid form. He's totally evil and wants to enslave every other program in the system.

Daleks: They look like trash cans and want to exterminate. Evil.

Skynet: Total evil, totally living in a box. Connection? You be the judge.

Buffybot: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's evil mecha-twin isn't totally evil — she was just programmed that way.

Cylons: The skinjobs look human, but they can get pretty evil. Not totally evil, but most of the way there.

Cybermen: Sort of humanoid, and perhaps a bit too dorky to be totally evil.

Ro-Man: The creature from Robot Monster wears a diving bell on his head and a gorilla suit. This cuts down on the humanoid factor.

Original Terminator: Mostly human except for that metal skeleton. Evil except when reprogrammed.

Futura: The evil bot from Metropolis will stop at nothing to carry out the mad doctor's evil plans.

Amazing image by Stephanie Fox. Awesome robot research by Nivair Gabriel.

Our Future Galactic Overlords Glow Red With Power Lust

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:16:00 PDT

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!)

New image from Spitzer Space Telescope.

10 Scariest Asteroid Attacks on Earth: The Near Hits and Approaching Terrors

Michael Reilly — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:20:00 PDT

When it comes to comet impacts, the denizens of Earth may be living on borrowed time. Of course, comets are only about half the problem — there are plenty of asteroids whizzing around the inner solar system too — so we decided to have a look and see just how close modern society has come to destruction since 1900, and how close we're going to come over the next 100 years. The answers, provided in our nifty infographic, aren't reassuring.

NASA's list of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) currently numbers 959. That's 1,000 asteroids that astronomers pretty much know are going to get closer than 7.5 million kilomters to Earth, about 20 times the distance from here to the Moon. Five of those are expected to come between Earth and the Moon over the next century.

So we'll have a few close shaves but nothing to worry about, right? Not so fast. The total number of PHAs and comets astronomers think are out there is probably more like 20,000. That means we've mapped about 5% of the objects that stand a good chance of hitting us. So take the future part of this chart as a best-case scenario. The past five close encounters, however, show just how vulnerable we are:

1) The Comet of 1491. This one must've scared the hell out of some folks. At a little less than four times the distance to the moon, this was the closest pass ever recorded at the time, and no one knows for sure how big it was. Little did our ancestors know how much more interesting things would get.

2) Tunguska, 1908. One of the most famous Earth lcose calls of all time, it was also a pipsqueak. For a long time scientists believed a comet perhaps 60 meters in diameter exploded over Siberia with a force of as much at 30 megatons, or about 2,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, though nothing solid ever hit the planet. All those pictures of flattened forest certianly look impressive, but last year, scientists re-crunched the numbers and found that the comet oculd've been as small as 30 meters, and the blast just 5 megatons. In other words, much smaller objects can do way more damage than we ever thought before. Gulp.

3) The Great Daylight Fireball of 1972. The name says it all — it doesn't get much closer than this. Size estimates range from 3 to 14 meters in diameter, depending on whether it was ice or rock. Whatever it was, the object called US19720810 burned through the atmosphere from Utah to Canda for about a minute and a half. Luckily, the space rock struck a glancing blow — had it hit Earth directly, it could've blasted us with 1/2 a Hiroshima worth of energy.

4) 2004 FH and 2004 FU162. At 30 meters in diameter and made of solid rock, 2004 FH would be a thumper of Tunguska proportions if it ever hit home. In the right (or wrong) place, it could detroy a city. As it was, it passed 43,000 kilometers above Earth on on March 18, 2004.

Three weeks later, FU 162 came whizzing along. Astronomers basically discovered it at bascially the same time as the 6-meter in diameter rock soared just 6,400 kilometers above Earth's surface.

5) Comet Hyakutake. Now we're getting into civilization-threatening territory. At 2 kilometers in diameters, this comet only got within about 40 lunar distances to Earth in 1996. Compared ot our other close calls, that's pretty comfortable, but considr this: it was discovered less than two months before its closest pass. Had it been on a collision course with Earth there's almost nothing we could've done other than brace for the millions dead, massive climate disruption, crop failure, 500-foot high tsunami...you get the idea.

FUTURE:

6) 1999 AN10. In a little less than 20 years, our usually quiet Earth-Moon system is going to have a lot of visitors. In August 2027, AN 10 is going to get about one lunar distance from Earth, and we'll get a chance to see just how big this bad boy is. Estimates range from 1/2 to 2 kilometers in diameter, plenty large to leave a dent in humanity if it ever gets closer.

7) 2001 WN5. Just six months after AN10 comes a callin' WN5 will get even closer, just about splitting the difference between Earth and the Moon. At 700 meters in diamters, this asteroid has a got potential for major dmaage, but current odds of impact are rated a negligible.

8) 99942 Apophis. By far the most famous of the end-bringing objects we know about in our solar system, astronomers thought for a while that this 270 meter-wide rock had an almost 3% chance of hitting us. Since then, odds have been lowered to 1 in 43,000 that it could slam into Earth in 2029. But if it passes through a gravitaitonal keyhole — a tiny region in space that could tweak its orbit ever so slightly — an impact could still happen on April 13, 2036.

9) 2005 WY55. Just 200 meters wide, astronomers think this asteroid could still pack a wallop. Right now it's scheduled to get within about 75,000 km of Earth, but impact odds are big enough to kep in mind — currently they're rated at around 1 in 70,000. If our number comes up on that faeful dayin May 2065, look out — blast yield estimates from this rock range to 1100 megatons.

10) 2000 WO107. Depending on how well humanity holds up under climate change, bird flu, and all the other things that could potentially kill us off, we might be able to look up and see WO107 zoom by in December 2140. The 400 meter-wide rock isn't scheduled to hit us — it should get about half way between Earth and the Moon — but if calculations are off by even a little bit (and all of the future examples here have some uncertainty) we could care a lot.

Sources: NASA's Near Earth Object Program, Harvard List of PHAs

Additional research by Nivair H. Gabriel. Image by Stephanie Fox.

Robot Finds Melting Ice on Mars

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:00:00 PDT

Remember that mystery white substance that the Phoenix Lander uncovered beneath Martian soil with its robot arms? Scientists were speculating that it might be salt or it might be ice. Now, a few days later, it's looking very much like ice. Why? It's melting, as you can see in these pictures.

This represents a huge breakthrough for the mission, which had until now been unable to find much solid evidence that frozen water existed beneath the Martian pole. A release from NASA quoted lead researcher Peter Smith, who said:

It must be ice. These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that.

Early yesterday, Phoenix was digging in a trench unrelated to the icy one, and found a very hard surface that scientists might be an entire layer of ice beneath the planet's surface. This bodes well for future missions to Mars that contain humans. If the ice can be converted into something drinkable, it could become a supply of much-needed water for thirsty colonists.

Exploring the Arctic Plane of Mars [via NASA]

Mystery White Substance, But No Water Yet at Martian Pole

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:26:51 PDT

The Phoenix Lander, our favorite robot chemistry lab on Mars, has successfully cooked up some soil in its oven to see if water evaporates from it when heated. So far, no dice. Though the Martian rovers Opportunity and Spirit have found evidence of evaporated water at the equator of the planet, Phoenix hasn't yet found similar evidence at the pole. What it has found, however, is fascinating. There is an unknown white substance right beneath the surface of the soil next to it (pictured), which could be ice or salt. And the Martian soil has turned out to be chunky, rather than sandy, which surprised scientists.

Space.com reports on the ongoing water search:

[TEGA team leader William] Boynton says the team wasn't surprised that they found no indication of water ice because the sample sat out in the Martian sun for several days while it was stuck at the entrance to one of TEGA's ovens, which heat up the soil so that the instrument's mass spectrometer can analyze the composition of the vapors the soil gives off.
In the next few days, scientists will further heat the sample up, to a maximum of 1,800 F (1,000 C), to vaporize out minerals that might have chemically-bound water, carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide.

"We expect there's a high probability that we would find minerals with chemically-bound water, which would release their water at higher temperatures," Boynton said. Signs of water in the minerals would indicate that rocks on the surface once interacted with liquid water.

And here's what's going on with that mystery white substance:

Mission scientists are still debating whether this bright, white material is exposed subsurface water ice or salt minerals. "It could be ice; it could be salt. We have to sample it to be able to tell," said Phoenix robotic arm team leader and mission digging czar Peter Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.
A small chunk of the material was knocked loose by the robotic arm scoop as it performed one of its backhoe-like maneuvers in the trench. Scientists will be monitoring this chunk and expect to see it change if it actually is ice.

"If it really is ice, we expect it to sublimate, or go into the vapor phase," Arvidson said.

Here's hoping it's the top of a secret underground laboratory put there by an alien race to study humanity from a distance.

Robot Finds Mars Dry So Far [via Space.com]

Our Endangered Space Shuttle Glides, As Seen From Space

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:00:00 PDT

Look how kick-ass the Space Shuttle Discovery looks, gliding over the clouds. It's hard to believe the U.S. government wants to pull the plug on the shuttle program, just as nerd hipsters like Sergey Brin are paying tons to get into space. Where are we going to get our space shuttle porn when NASA rolls up its launchpad and goes home? Click through for some more cool shuttle (and European rocket) pics from the last couple of days.

Space Madness Strikes Security Guard

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:00:00 PDT

A painting of space, based on satellite imagery, freaked out a museum security guard so much, he slashed it and ruined it. Vija Celmins' painting may be called "Night Sky #2," but it depicts empty space, with no view of the ground or any other reference point, and it's based on images from space. Carnegie Museum security guard Timur Serebrykov hated the $1.2 million painting so much he "snapped" (says his laywer) and used a sharp implement to slash it and ruin it.

The painting's vastness is intended to be unsettling, because "viewers may find it difficult to determine their relationship to the image," says the Art Institute of Chicago, which owns the now-worthless picture. In any case, Timur Serebrykov will not be the last human to freak out and go berzerk after staring too long into the uncaring vacuum. [Chicagoist]

A View of Thunderheads Brewing from Space

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:30:08 PDT

These thunderheads are brewing over the midwestern United States, a region where thunderstorms can whip up pretty damn fast. Courtesy of NASA, this image is one of a series running on the Boston Globe's website to celebrate the work done by the International Space Station. Want to see what this kind of cloud looks like a little closer?

This image is of a cumulonimbus cloud over Africa. It has a similar shape to that of the thunderhead, though it doesn't necessarily have to cause thunderstorms. Often it will, however.

You can see a ton of other images in this series at the Boston Globe.

The Sky, From Above [Boston Globe]

Look into the Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:52:04 PDT

No it's not some Heidiggerian metaphor, that pushpin really does mark the black hole at the center of our lives. Meet Sagittarius A, the ginormous black hole that resides in mega-gravitational splendor at the center of the Milky Way, sucking up energy and spitting it back out in the form of X-rays and even hotter, crazier particles too. Do you dare look more closely at its firey depths?

Well, obviously you do. So here you go.

These two images are taken from a high-def virtual tour of the galaxy, thanks to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which is packed with beautiful images that you can zoom around in just by moving your mouse. It's like the Google maps version of the whole galaxy.

A Glimpse of the Milky Way [official site]

Join the First-Ever Search for a Shipwreck on Mars!

Michael Reilly — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:35:53 PDT

We've seen the astounding images of the Phoenix Lander that the HiRISE satellite camera sent from its bird's-eye view in Martian orbit. But what about the rest of the robot explorers on the Red Planet? There are five successful landers other than Phoenix and HiRISE has found those, too. Now the search is on for the mysterious Martian Polar Lander, which scientists assume crashed on the planet in 1999.

The Planetary Society is heading up the effort, but they need your help: they've got a stack of high-res images of the likely crash area that require a human pair of eyeballs to examine. Find the polar lander and you'll go down as the first explorer in history to discover a shipwreck on Mars.

[Check out images of the other successful landers (Viking I and II, Mars Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity) here]

Source: The Planetary Society

Listen To Pink Floyd And Watch The Lovely Aftermath Of Stellar Destruction

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:00:00 PDT

It takes a lot of imaging power to capture the awesome aftermath of a star committing suicide. To get this freaktastic death blossom pic of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, it took three of NASA's Great Observatories, using three different light wavebands. The red is from the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared data, the yellow is visible data from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the green and blue are X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Cassiopeia went nova 11,300 years ago, but the nova itself would have been visible from Earth just 300 years ago. Image by AP/HO/NASA

Stunning High Res Shots of Phoenix Lander

Michael Reilly — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:00:00 PDT

The space blogosphere is rightfully abuzz over some jaw-dropping images the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera has taken of the Phoenix Lander parachuting down to Mars (pictured) and then resting safely on the Martian surface along with its parachute and heat shield nearby (below).

As Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait put it, the parachuting shot is "the first action shot" of a man-made machine landing on the surface of another planet. Very cool. This one's not bad either:

(click here for the full size shot from HiRISE)

The HiRISE camera has clearly been earning its money up there in Martian orbit, and has long since jumped ahead of the-great-and-powerful Google, whose Google Mars rainbow-colored elevation map of the Red Planet is a distant second to these awesome shots. I think the two should join forces for what could be a truly kick-ass mashup, with HiRISE imaging points of awesomeness like Olympus Mons, Vallis Marineris and the Viking I lander site, and GMars crunching the data and letting us users zoom in and do custom flybys.

Source: HiRISE via Bad Astronomy and The Planetary Society

8 Things You Didn't Know About Extrasolar Planets

Ed Grabianowski — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:00:00 PDT

While most of us have our eyes on Mars at the moment, there's a special class of astronomers who have their telescopes trained on planets a little bit farther away. Actually, a lot farther away - completely outside our solar system, in fact. We've found almost 300 extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) so far, and the search continues. Here are some surprising facts about planets that are way, way out there.

How many extrasolar planets have we found so far? 287 (as of April 1, 2008).

When was the first one found? Between 1988 and the early 1990s, several astronomers claimed to have found extraslar planets. However, the first confirmed planet was found in 1992, and the first orbiting a normal (non-pulsar) star was found in 1995.

Which one is closest to Earth? Epsilon Eridani b is a gas giant a little smaller than Jupiter that orbits a star 10.4 light years from Earth.

Which one is most likely to support life? Gliese 581 c is the smallest exoplanet found so far, and it orbits within the "habitable zone" of its star.

What is the largest planet? GQ Lup b has a mass of more than 21 Jupiters, or 70 percent of our sun's mass. In fact, there is some debate whether it is a planet or a brown dwarf star in a companion orbit to GQ Lup itself.

How do we detect extrasolar planets? It's almost impossible to find them by looking through a telescope - not because they are small, but because the contrast between the brightness of the star a planet orbits and the planet itself is too great for us to pick out the planet. We can measure the gravitational wobble induced in the star by the planet by looking at the shift in wavelength of light coming from the star (the Doppler effect) or we can examine the "gravitational lensing" effect produced when light from a background star passes through the distant solar system. In rare cases, a planet transits in front of its star (in relation to our point of view), allowing us to notice the dimming of the star.

What can we learn from these methods? By combining the data and doing some serious physics calculations, astronomers can figure out the mass and density of the planet and the characteristics of its orbit. We can even learn something about the composition of the planet and its atmosphere - the Hubble Telescope was able to detect methane in the atmosphere of a gas giant earlier this year.

Have we found any Earth-like planets? No. The majority of extrasolar planets found so far have been gas giants. We have found a few "terrestrial" planets, denser than gas giants, but they have all had five or more times the mass of Earth. Astronomers call them Super-Earths. Image by: NASA.

Extrasolar Planets. [Nature]

PlanetQuest: Exoplanet Exploration. [NASA]

The Phoenix Lander Is Now Broadcasting Live from Mars

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:40:00 PDT

The Phoenix Lander, a robotic research station that will do experiments for three months in the Martian arctic, yesterday touched down on Martian soil. It will drill down into the planet's crust to figure out what kinds of water exist frozen at the Martian poles, and perhaps help lay the groundwork for a Martian colony or scientific outpost. The lander settled into place late yesterday afternoon, landing without incident near the planet's north pole. It will be doing chemistry experiments and sending back tons of data (as well as pictures like this one, of its robo-foot on the Martian dirt) for several weeks. Unlike the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, it cannot move around so it will just be focusing on checking out the Martian arctic. Learn more about the Phoenix, and check out a constantly-updated stream of photographs, on the Phoenix Lander home page.

Jupiter Has Come Down With a Case of Chicken Pox

Michael Reilly — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:22:50 PDT

Jupiter seems to be sprouting lots of Red Spots these days. Of course the original gangsta, the multiple Earth-sized Great Red Spot has been around for just about four centuries. But back in 2006 Red Spot Jr. appeared and as this picture shows, researchers have just observed a third spot west of big daddy. What's causing the outbreak? Engineer Phil Marcus of the University of California, Berkeley thinks climate change is to blame.

According to Marcus, Jupiter's equatorial regions are getting warmer and the South Pole appears to be cooling. The difference in temperature between the two parts of the planet is causing increased cloud convection and turbulence — meaning more storms.

Red Spot III: Rise of the Clouds may be short-lived, though. Astronomers expect that it will meet up with the Great Red Spot by August, when it could be consumed by the much more massive, ancient raging storm.

Source: HubbleSite.org via Space Telescope Science Institute

Stars Gone Wild!: Supernova Caught on Tape

Michael Reilly — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:30:00 PDT

Researchers at Princeton University got one hell of a treat this past January when a star exploded in the galaxy NGC2770. It's a 100 million light years from Earth, but it marks the first time astronomers have gotten the chance to watch a star explode 'live' from start to finish (well the explosion happened 100 million years ago, but you know what we mean). Witnessing the event caused the lead author to utter the best quote we've ever seen from an astronomer.

From yesterday's Associated Press article, which described how NASA's Swift satellite caught the explosion on tape:

On Jan. 9, astronomers used a NASA X-ray satellite to spy on a star already well into its death throes, when another star in the same galaxy started to explode. The outburst was 100 billion times brighter than Earth's sun. The scientists were able to get several ground-based telescopes to join in the early viewing and the first results were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
"A star exploded right before my eyes," lead author Alicia Soderberg, an astrophysics researcher at Princeton University, said Wednesday in a teleconference (emphasis ours).

She likened it to "winning the astronomy lottery. We caught the whole thing from start-to-finish on tape."

Source: Associated Press