Via his very first tweet, Jeff Bezos announced that his spaceflight company has accomplished a historic first. It sent a rocket to the edge of space and then landed that rocket’s main fuselage gently on dry land.
Most things humans have sent into space are pushed up there by a disposable rocket. Once the rockets do their job, they fall back to earth, usually worse for wear. They have to be rebuilt each time (though sometimes their parts can be reused). That’s an expensive process, especially if you are a private company hoping to bring tourists to space. Virgin Atlantic, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin all want to do just that.
And now Blue Origin has paved the way, landing its rocket on its second attempt (the propulsion module was destroyed when they first tried). Here’s the video in full:
Elon Musk responded to the news on Twitter. He pointed out that it requires much greater speed to actually reach orbit than it does to reach the edge of space. (Phil Plait has some good analysis of the exchange over on his Bad Astronomy blog.)
Still, it’s a pretty amazing accomplishment.
This VR Film Puts You In The World Of A Blind Person
Moscow (Sputnik) Jan 01, 2016 The Chinese military is undergoing a gradual shift to cyber and space warfare, and the move is more visible now as a new command structure has been created. After testing an anti-satellite weapon last fall, China moved one step forward in its preparations for future warfare, with the emergence of a brand-new Space Force, as reported by Washington Times. In the event of an armed confl Full article
Credit: Eric Benedetti
This is the follow-up to squine and cosquine, and I find students find it really cool. Are there any other shapes someone has done this for?
What would Earth’s skies look like with Saturn’s rings?
Illustrator and author Ron Miller specializes in, among other things, incredible visualizations of other worlds. Now, Miller brings his visualizations back to Earth for a series exploring what our skies would look like with Saturn’s majestic rings. Miller strived to make the images scientifically accurate, adding nice touches like orange-pink shadows resulting from sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere. He also shows the rings from a variety of latitudes and landscapes, from the U.S. Capitol building to Mayan ruins in Guatemala.
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Studies show that people decide if you’re trustworthy, adventurous, successful, smart, extroverted, or likeable within 3 seconds of meeting you. Source
‘Gene drive’ mosquitoes could end malaria once and for all
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New research from the University of Southampton has found that copper can effectively help to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, which are linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
S. L. Warnes, Z. R. Little and C. W. Keevil. Human coronavirus 229E remains infectious on common touch surface materials. mBio, November 2015 DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01697-15
This is human coronavirus 229E being inactivated on copper. Credit: University of Southampton
In an attempt to combat climate change, a multinational team of scientists are studying how shading sulfate aerosols that are dispersed into the stratosphere could help cool the planet and reduce the number of hurricane occurrences. “We’re basically mimicking a volcano and saying we’re going to put 5 billion tons of sulfates a year into the atmosphere 20 kilometers high, and we’ll do that for 50 years,” says John Moore, head of China’s geoengineering research program
Read more at: Injecting Gases Into The Stratosphere Could Reduce Hurricanes