The planets are 1,200 light years away. A light year is almost 6 trillion miles. The planets circle a star that is 7 billion years old — about 2.5 billion years older than our sun.
‘If there’s life at all on those planets, it must be very advanced,’ said Borucki.
NASA’s Donald Pettit
Donald Pettit, the astronaut who takes all the great time lapse videos and photos of Earth from the ISS, explains how and why he does it. (via PetaPixel)
A new private company called Deep Space Industries announced today that it intends to send a fleet of small spacecraft to near-Earth asteroids with the aim of mining resources and turning them into products using space-based 3-D printers.
Last year was thick with audacious private spaceflight company unveilings, including the announcement from Planetary Resources, Inc. of their plans to mine relatively valuable platinum group metals from asteroids. With the formation of Deep Space Industries, it seems that 2013 could see a new crop of private space companies with lofty goals.
Yawn, just another asteroid mining venture. Welcome to 2013!
Reblogged from wired with 184 notes / #space #asteroids #2013
The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons: 1) The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it. 2) The Administration does not support blowing up planets. 3) Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
Official White House response to petition to: secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.
Long-exposure photography from the International Space Station by Flight Engineer Don Pettit (via ISO 50)
(Source: Flickr / nasa_jsc_photo)
‘Explore the Galaxy’ lets you travel across the Milky Way from the comfort of your browser
Google’s Chrome Experiments have long provided users with in-browser distractions that simultaneously show off the power of HTML 5, Javascript, and other open web technologies, but a new one that arrived today is definitely one of our favorites. “Explore the Galaxy” lets you zoom all the way in on the Sun and a number of other nearby stars and then click, drag, and scroll your way across the entire Milky Way galaxy. It’s a visual treat that really drives home the vastness of outer space that simultaneously fills your brain with knowledge — clicking on the 87 stars closest to Earth will pull up quick Wikipedia-sourced descriptions for each.
Absolutely amazing — always wanted to see a star map like this.
Reblogged from thisistheverge with 185 notes / #space #stars #maps
The European Southern Observatory has stitched together a nine gigapixel image of the center of the Milky Way, capturing more than ten times more stars than previous studies.
First panorama from Curiosity – go to the source for full size and full effect. And if you’re curious about why NASA only included a two megapixel camera on-board, check out this article from The Verge. In short: the spec had to be agreed on eight years ago and they’re limited to transmitting only 31.25MB per day from MARS.
