Posts

Can’t make it to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art for the 'Star Wars' display? This is the companion book set you’re looking for!

Image
Taschen, purveyors of fine art and design special-edition books, have teamed up with George Lucas and his newly opened Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles to present a masterful two-volume catalog of the museum’s illuminating offerings. Housed in a sturdy slipcase, readers will discover a pair of lavishly illustrated volumes spanning 832 pages and tipping the scales at nearly 14 pounds. At $200 for the pair, it's not cheap, but look on the bright side; hoisting these illustrated tomes will save you a subscription to your local gym! This immersive collection documents in great detail the astounding scope of rare items on display in Lucas’s treasury of paintings, murals, photographs, sculptures, posters, comic strips, illustrations, costumes, and magazine covers that have spurred humankind’s imagination. Developed in collaboration with George Lucas and the Lucas Museum of Narrative ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A supercomputer is about to launch to the moon for the 1st time, aboard a rover named FLIP

Image
HAWTHORNE, Calif. — A moon buggy carrying a history-making supercomputer is ready to launch to the lunar surface. And it's taking some inspiration from Mars. Later this year, Astrolab will launch its uncrewed moon rover FLIP to the lunar south pole as part of the Griffin Mission 1, or Griffin-1. The California company is one of two that NASA has selected to develop a drivable rover for the agency's Artemis program. On board FLIP will be Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) Spaceborne Computer-4, an advanced computer module built to be used in space. This will be the first time that high-performance computing and artificial intelligence will be tested on the lunar surface. As NASA gets closer to landing humans back on the moon with Artemis, advancements like this aim to support future human habitation as well as economic activity on and around the moon. "We're sending the first ...
Post a Comment
Read more

On this day in space! Oct. 19, 2016: Europe's ExoMars orbiter and Schiaparelli lander arrive at Mars

Image
On Oct. 19, 2016, the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission arrived at Mars ! ExoMars 2016 consists of the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli lander. The orbiter and lander traveled there together and separated on Oct. 16, three days before the orbiter entered orbit around Mars , and the lander touched down on the planet's surface. But something went wrong during the lander's descent, and it crashed into the ground. Schiaparelli did not survive the accident , but the Trace Gas Orbiter is still functional. It is currently circling the planet, looking for methane and other gases in the Martian atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological activity. Artist’s illustration showing the separation of the ExoMars 2016 entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, named Schiaparelli, from the Trace Gas Orbiter, and heading for Mars. (Image credit: ESA) Why it mattered Exo...
Post a Comment
Read more

The moon is shrinking. 10,000 cracks on the lunar surface reveal by how much

Image
The moon is shrinking, and scientists are narrowing in on exactly how much our natural satellite has dwindled over the years. The moon is thought to have formed from a violent collision between a massive object and our young Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago, and its interior is still gradually cooling off from this ancient collision. As it cools, the moon contracts, leading to a long, slow shrinking process . Now, in a new study, scientists think that they have figured out how much smaller the moon is actually getting. In this new study, scientists analyzing images snapped by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) have spotted over 10,000 young faults, or cracks across the moon's surface. This helped them to figure out how much the moon has contracted over time, and they now estimate that the moon's radius has decreased by about 148 feet (45 meters) over the past 400 to 800 mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fatty liver disease is actually five different conditions, scientists discover

A common liver disease affecting nearly 30% of adults worldwide may be far more complicated than scientists previously realized. Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered that fatty liver disease actually consists of five distinct biological subtypes, each carrying different risks for liver failure, cancer, heart disease, and other serious complications. from Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/BicnEw8
Post a Comment
Read more

Did a giant object collide with Earth to form the moon?

Image
For as long as humans have watched the night sky, we have wondered about the moon , pondering everything from its alien appearance to its influence over phenomena on Earth such as ocean tides, climate stability, and even the natural rhythms of many organisms. Among the many questions we have about Earth's lone natural satellite, one remains preeminent: what are the moon's origins , and how long has it orbited Earth? Today, the leading theory among astronomers is that deep in our planet's past — perhaps within roughly the first 100 million years of solar system history — Earth collided with a planet-sized object, creating the moon within a period that may have been as short as just a few hours . Known as the giant-impact hypothesis, this proposed event involves a hypothetical Mars-sized protoplanet astronomers call Theia. The material ejected into orbit by the powerful impact in q...
Post a Comment
Read more

Japan launching bold sample-return mission to Mars moon Phobos today: Watch it live

Image
Japan will launch an epic mission to Mars today (Oct. 19), and you can watch the action live. The Martian Moons eXploration ( MMX ) mission is scheduled to lift off atop an H3 rocket from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center today at 3:41 p.m. EDT (1941 GMT; 4:41 a.m. on Oct. 20 local Japan time). You can watch it live via the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Coverage will begin at 2:45 p.m. EDT (1845 GMT). An artist’s concept of JAXA’s MMX spacecraft during its Mars orbit insertion. The Martian moon Phobos, which MMX will explore and sample, is in the background. (Image credit: JAXA) As its full name suggests, MMX will focus on Mars ' two moons, Phobos and Deimos . They're both tiny compared to Earth's own moon; Phobos is just 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide, and Deimos is even smaller, with a diameter of about 8 miles (13 km). They're also quite mysterious. While astr...
Post a Comment
Read more