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space porn

The Years Go Really Fast, On A Doomed Planet

Here's a computer-generated image of TrES-3, a planet which is slowly falling into its sun. A year on the planet, in the Hercules constellation, lasts only 31 hours because its orbit is so small. Twice the size of Jupiter, the planet might already be toasted if its sun wasn't smaller and cooler than our own. It occasionally passes right in front of the sun that will soon kill it, and then it's visible to amateur astronomers — like it was this week. Astronomers from the Trans-atlantic Exo-Planet Survey (TrES) discovered the suicidal world a year ago. Want to see a picture of it preparing to plunge into the sun? More »

4:15 PM on Fri May 9 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
347 views, 5 comments

Latest by Grey_Area: Let's name this planet "Moth". more »

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Twin Moonraker Space Stations in Orbit, Obvious Plot to Destroy Earth!

Robert Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites hotel chain and head of Bigelow Airspace, has two functioning space stations in orbit around Earth. The older module, Genesis 1, just passed its 10,000th orbit, and both it and Genesis 2 appear to be functioning normally. It's pretty exciting that an entrepreneur can keep two small stations in orbit , and move ahead with his plans to launch a crewed "Sundancer" version by 2011. But has anyone thought about what Bigelow's really up to? "Bigelow Aerospace" sounds an awful lot like "Drax Industries" in Moonraker... oh sure, there's probably nothing to worry about. But could it really hurt if we politely asked Mr. Bigelow to search the Genesis modules for nerve gas? (from Space.com)

9:32 AM on Fri May 9 2008
By Michael Reilly
618 views, 17 comments

Latest by brentbent: I'd love a longer story about these two stations and Bigelow's stated intentions. more »

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Satellite Smackdown -- Which Moon is the Solar System's Awesomest?

A little while back, io9er Ed said Titan was "The Awesomest Moon in the Solar System." Well where I come from, them's fightin' words. What about Earth's Moon? Mars' Phobos? Europa?? There are boatloads of kickass moons in the solar system. We break down ten contenders in a highly scientific chart to settle this debate, once and for all. More »

1:50 PM on Fri May 2 2008
By Michael Reilly
7,916 views, 56 comments

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Saturn Thunderstorm Would Fry Earth in a Hurry

When other planets do storms, they do 'em right. The Cassini spacecraft snapped photos of this monster thunderstorm on Saturn that's been raging for five months now, each lightning bolt packing 10,000 times more juice than it's Earthly counterparts. Jupiter's still got the illest storm in the solar system with it's almost four-century old Great Red Spot, but Saturn's storm's not too shabby — it's that blotch down in the lower right-hand part of the planet. That bright spot just below the rings? That's Saturn's moon Tethys looking way bigger than it should because it's in the foreground, just to give you a rough sense of scale. (from NASA)

9:31 AM on Thu May 1 2008
By Michael Reilly
1,053 views, 6 comments

Latest by steven522: Hasn't it been determined that the "red spot" on Jupiter is really the calm eye of a planet-covering mega storm? Like the eye of a hurricane here on earth? more »

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We Can Predict When Stars Will Explode

Need to get rid of a bunch of space trash, or jumpstart a wormhole? Now you can, at least if you can get near enough to a neutron star when it's heading into explosion mode. Using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), some astronomers have made an extraordinary breakthrough: they've discovered how to predict when neutron stars will unleash massive explosions. What this means, in essence, is that stellar explosions can be compared to Old Faithful, the geyser in Yellowstone Park that erupts at precise times. More »

1:21 PM on Wed Apr 30 2008
By Annalee Newitz
597 views, 6 comments

Latest by moff: @DocGratis: I'm having a love affair with these ice cream sandwiches. more »

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Japan to Scan Venus, Find King Ghidora

The Japanese space agency, JAXA, is sending an orbiter to Venus in a few years to scan the surface of our nearest planetary neighbor. The PLANET C orbiter (it even sounds like a secret weapon straight out of a Godzilla movie) will use million-pixel cameras to peer through the dense cloudcover and see what lies on Venus' surface. Of course, kaiju fans know what they're likely to find with their super-advanced UV and infrared digital cameras - a giant, three-headed, lightning spewing dragon named King Ghidora. More »

8:00 AM on Mon Apr 28 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
699 views, 6 comments

Latest by lightninglouie: Um, could NASA find MF Doom instead? more »

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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 »

3:06 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
2,233 views, 28 comments

Latest by Jeff-Minor: I think one of the amazing things about Hubble is that it allows us to perceive the Universe with a slightly different relativity. Galactic-scale events -should- humble us. These pictures do seem to prompt ideas both philosophic and-or religious, probably more »

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Stars Flare Into Life Around A Massive Black Hole

Omega Centauri is one of the biggest star clusters orbiting our own galaxy, with the light of millions of stars blazing from it — including some visible with the naked eye. But those stars aren't all the same age, as this new image from the Spitzer Space Telescope shows. Combining visible and infrared images, this new composite shows a mixture of ancient stars (which are red) and younger stars, like our own sun (which are blue). And click through for new evidence that all those stars may be circling a massive black hole at Omega Centauri's core. More »

4:38 PM on Wed Apr 23 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
1,214 views, 11 comments

Latest by Silver_Back: Wow. That's gotta be tough. Being born and then eaten by a Black Hole. Jeez. more »

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Why Titan is the Awesomest Moon in the Solar System

It's bigger than Mercury, has dune seas like Tatooine (or Arrakis) and has the coolest name of any moon: Titan. The Cassini spacecraft is still revealing many of its secrets, with another flyby scheduled just a few weeks from now. Here are five reasons to get excited about Saturn's largest satellite. More »

8:00 AM on Wed Apr 23 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
2,983 views, 21 comments

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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 »

4:00 PM on Tue Apr 22 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
1,142 views, 10 comments

Latest by blorp: @dead_red_eyes: I second M83 - their music sounds like this space porn looks. more »

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Exploring the Sulfur Dioxide Volcanoes of Venus

If the 800-degree heat or crushing atmospheric pressure doesn't get you, you might want to watch out for spewing plumes of sulfur dioxide and liquid lava flows on your next visit to Venus. We've long known that our neighboring planet has lots of volcanoes, but no one is sure if any of them are currently active. It's impossible to see through Venus' dense CO2 atmosphere, but the European Space Agency's Venus Express orbiter has found evidence of drastic, sudden chemical changes at high altitudes. An active volcano might be the culprit. More »

8:00 AM on Fri Apr 11 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
832 views, 4 comments

Latest by corpore-metal: @Gann: Um, no, not really. The amount of CO2 on Venus is many, many, many times greater that what we've generated over the last 100 years. Human generated greenhouse gases will have fubar'd our civilization long before we approach those levels. more »

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Dunes of Mars

In yet another cool image from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter near Mars, we see these dunes on the planet's surface. This image comes from the Hellespontus region of Mars, where sand from local mesas has been molded into these shapes by high intensity winds. No word yet on whether the famous canals of Mars are actually wormsign. You can learn more about Martian sand dunes here. Photo via AP, HO, and NASA.

7:00 AM on Thu Apr 10 2008
By Annalee Newitz
928 views, 14 comments

Latest by Grey_Area: You fools! Flip the picture 180 degrees and one can plainly see these are GIANT HOOFPRINTS!! more »

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Magnetic Structures Larger Than the Sun

We've long seen the results of solar flares on Earth, but haven't been able to predict when they'll strike next. New research released last week has given us a better understanding of solar weather. The massive, looping jets of superheated gas that erupt from the sun are driven by giant magnetic structures that extend out beyond the sun itself. More »

11:40 AM on Tue Apr 8 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
1,533 views, 9 comments

Latest by dOk: @Annalee Newitz Space Porn.... The Final Frontier.... Didn't the Shat say that? XD more »

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Ultracold Polar Telescope Searches for Dark Energy

Is an invisible, undetectable force tearing the universe apart? The South Pole Telescope is scanning the skies for signs of dark energy to help pinpoint the cause of cosmic expansion. The answers it provides could allow us to better explain the origin of the universe and its ultimate fate. More »

2:30 PM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
932 views, 12 comments

Latest by Jeff-Minor: As humans look out further, gathering in larger bits of the Universe to examine in detail, the Universe grows larger. Our human minds can collapse entire chunks of an finite Universe simply by observing. That's one of the things human more »

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What Lurks In The Dark Clouds Between The Stars?

Could this be the birthplace of our next neighboring star? Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory have discovered a way to look inside the impenetrable "giant complexes of cold gas and dust" in interstellar space, by using the scattered near-infrared light, or "cloudshine." There interstellar clouds are the nurseries of future stars, so it's incredibly valuable to be able to understand where and when new stars will appear. But the dust in the clouds blocks all visible light spectrums, so you can only see through them indirectly. Until now, the only way to examine the distribution of matter within the clouds was to measure the light form the stars behind them. [ESO]

4:07 PM on Fri Mar 28 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
630 views, 4 comments

Latest by phoenix: Hydrogen. And lots of it! more »

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A Vector Map of the Unnamed Methane Sea on Titan

Peter Minton is a California teacher who loves to make vector maps in his spare time. His favorite places to map are islands and coastlines, and so when the Cassini-Huygens probe sent back images from Saturn's moon Titan he was happy to discover the geographical features he loves most. There, on the pole of Titan, was a sea full of islands. An unnamed methane sea, but still mappable using vectoring software. This is the map he created, with longitude and latitude lines. More »

7:00 AM on Thu Mar 27 2008
By Annalee Newitz
3,437 views, 21 comments

Latest by JetertoCano: My vote, perhaps as an ode to Marvel Comics' Eternals, is Lake Eternal. more »

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NASA's Probe Will Buzz Titan Landing Site

NASA may have failed to prove there's an underground ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus, but now scientists claim they've found outstanding new evidence that there may be a vast ocean under the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. In this newly released image, Titan peeks out from behind Saturn while another moon, Tethys, streaks past the planet's shadowy rings. Click through for a gorgeous Titan gallery. More »

4:00 PM on Mon Mar 24 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
1,191 views, 13 comments

Latest by rikchik: I still want to think of this as a tidally locked planet with moving surface features but maybe I need to give that up :) more »

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Hot Hot Hot! Is There Life In This Boiling Cauldron?

Pity our descendants, who are going to have to find a way to venture into the white-hot furnace of HD 189733b, a planet 63 light years away from Earth. Now that HD 189733b is the first planet outside our solar system that we know includes organic molecules, we'll need to brave the temperatures of the "Hot Jupiter," which range from 1200 to 1700 fahrenheit, so we can see what — if any — sort of life could survive there. Chances are it's just a dead world that just happens to contain methane, one of the building blocks of life. But we've been surprised before. Click through for a gallery of this giant super-hot planet (which needs a new name.) More »

10:30 AM on Fri Mar 21 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
1,072 views, 7 comments

Latest by Jeff-Minor: Grey Area, I need to test out my new anti-M projectors, so I'm thinking I'll just blow the entire thing up. I'm in a mood today! If you want to flash over, I'll wait. It's not like anyone of importance more »