We All Know This Struggle, Cylinder. We All Know. March 4, We Make Their Dreams Come True On YouTube!

This is incredibly cool!

Journal paper here.

SpaceX plans to send two people around the Moon

Two private citizens approached the company, are ‘very serious’ about the trip

SpaceX has plans to send two private citizens around the Moon, CEO Elon Musk announced today.

It will be a private mission with two paying customers, not NASA astronauts, who approached the company. The passengers are “very serious” about the trip and have already paid a “significant deposit,” according to Musk. The trip around the Moon would take approximately one week: it would skim the surface of the Moon, go further out into deep space, and loop back to Earth — approximately 300,000 to 400,000 miles.

The plan is to do the trip in the second quarter of 2018 on the Crew Dragon spacecraft with the Falcon Heavy rocket, which is due to do its maiden launch this summer. Of course, Musk is well-known for his unrealistic deadlines — in 2011, he promised to put people in space in just three years.

The two people going on the trip, who weren’t named, already know each other. They will begin initial training for the trip later this year. Musk declined to comment on the exact cost of the trip, but said it was “comparable” or a little more than the cost of a crewed mission to the International Space Station. For context, one ticket on the Russian Soyuz rocket costs NASA around $80 million.

Continue Reading.

The Juno mission has been revealing angles of Jupiter we’ve never seen before. This photo shows Jupiter’s northern temperate latitudes and NN-LRS-1, a.k.a. the Little Red Spot (lower left), the third largest anticyclone on Jupiter. The Little Red Spot is a storm roughly the size of the Earth and was first observed in 1993. As an anticyclone, it has large-scale rotation around a core of high pressure and rotates in a clockwise direction since it is in the northern hemisphere. Jupiter’s anticyclones seem to be powered by merging with other storms; in 1998, the Little Red Spot merged with three other storms that had existed for decades. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstaedt/John Rogers; via Bad Astronomy)

When scientists get too honest

> I would love to see more science posts on Tumblr. I particularly liked, “The postdoc who did all the work has since left to start a bakery.”

why are the orbeez screaming sdkfskldfl

What’s Up for February?

What’s Up for February? Look to the night sky for a brighter Venus, Comet 45P, asteroid Vesta and more. 

Tonight, you can see Venus along with a crescent moon, Mars and Uranus just after sunset. No binoculars needed! 

While there are no meteor showers this month, behold the zodiacal light!

This phenomenon is caused when sunlight reflects off dust particles in the plane of our solar system. Use Venus and Mars as a cone-shaped guide on the western horizon in late February and March.

Comet 45P will be visible using binoculars and telescope and will make its closest approach to Earth on February 11.

Finally, bright asteroid Vesta can be found in the constellation Pisces.

Follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Old but gold 💛

Please subscribe, like, comment, and donate! Next (and last) episode April 15, 2017. Starring: Candice Lola Directed by Rebecca Berger Produced by Rebecca Berger and Candice Lola Written by Candice Lola Editing, Color, Sound Design by Rebecca Berger Animation by Rachael K McDonald Links: Music: http://ift.tt/1JICaNj and http://ift.tt/2lquxdO http://ift.tt/2lINlQJ http://ift.tt/2lqtjzr http://ift.tt/2lIL08B http://ift.tt/2lqvuCQ (Donations are always welcome!) http://ift.tt/2lITyw7 http://ift.tt/2lqvQJO

End of fillings in sight as scientists find Alzheimer's drug makes teeth grow back

Fillings could be consigned to history after scientists discovered that a drug already trialled in Alzheimer's patients can encourage tooth regrowth and repair cavities.

Researchers at King’s College London found that the drug Tideglusib stimulates the stem cells contained in the pulp of teeth so that they generate new dentine – the mineralised material under the enamel.

Teeth already have the capability of regenerating dentine if the pulp inside the tooth becomes exposed through a trauma or infection, but can only naturally make a very thin layer, and not enough to fill the deep cavities caused by tooth decay.

But Tideglusib switches off an enzyme called GSK-3 which prevents dentine from carrying on forming.

Scientists showed it is possible to soak a small biodegradable sponge with the drug and insert it into a cavity, where it triggers the growth of dentine and repairs the damage within six weeks.

The tiny sponges are made out of collagen so they melt away over time, leaving only the repaired tooth.

Happy TRAPPIST-1 Day! 

Here’s a comic on our latest discovery! 

http://www.space.com/35806-trappist-1-facts.html