Russians Will Save the Earth From Hollywood-Like Doomsday Scenarios

Taking a huge leap past the Americans like a modern day Sputnik, the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency said that if a world-ending asteroid like Apophis even thinks about heading towards the Earth, they will have the technology to take that shit out. And they won’t even need nuclear weapons! Read more »

Something Really Big Crashed Into Jupiter

Despite the billions of dollars worth of high tech equipment that agencies like NASA employ to track comets and other space shit that could destroy life as we know it, an amateur astronomer in Australia was credited with discovering the almost Earth-sized dark spot on Jupiter’s south pole over the weekend. The scar indicates that something very massive hit the largest planet in our solar system. Although they missed out on the original impact, experts at NASA and countless other space gazing facilities are now training their sights on the gas giant, hoping something else pops off. (According to National Geographic: “The dark spot is in the upper right of the above picture because the planet appears upside down.”) |National Geographic|

Space Rocks Are Now Classified According To New Military Policy

For the past 15 years, scientists have been allowed to collect data from classified military satellites primarily used for detecting nuclear bomb tests, but also useful in observing “shooting stars” and other inbound phenomena. Well that gravy train has ended. Space reports that “a recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released.” Researchers are pissed off naturally, but why should you care? Because as this “Space Insider Columnist” notes, “It’s nice to know that a sky-high detonation is natural versus a nuclear weapon blast.” Yeah, one could see how that would be important. |Space|

Japanese Astronauts Allowed To Fuck Around In Space

While U.S. astronauts will be stuck doing mostly serious experiments on-board the International Space Station under the watchful eye of their NASA overlords, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will have free time to execute at least 16 offbeat ones like doing cartwheels. |PinkTentacle|

Stephen Hawking + Zero-G = Human Beach Ball

photo: Zero Gravity
Stephen Hawking got his wish on Thursday when he experienced weightlessness on board a special plane designed to simulate zero-gravity for 10 to 15 second intervals through a set of steep roller coaster like maneuvers. Mr. Hawking, who is significantly paralyzed from Lou Gehrig’s disease, was lightly tossed and spun by the accompanying crew to his absolute delight. Physicians were concerned that Mr. Hawking could potentially get further damaged, but the world respected author and astrophysicist who claims the future for humanity is in outer space, had no problem in a zero gravity environment and was ready for more:
“I could have gone on and on–space here I come.”
Stephen Hawking’s zero-gravity flight |cnet|