Tag: Space
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Who would you fly to Mars with? Who would you drop off? We’ve got a little list
Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence star in the movie “Passengers,” which tells the tale of a space journey far beyond Mars. (Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures) A just-for-fun survey suggests that three out of every 10 Americans have thought about going to Mars, and almost half of them have thought about it more seriously…
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‘Rogue One’ and more: 10 big-screen tales of science fiction (and fact) to watch for
Felicity Jones stars in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” (Disney / Lucasfilm Photo) Mild spoiler alert! This review doesn’t reveal any major plot twists, but wait to read it if you don’t want to know a single thing about “Rogue One” or other science-fiction films. Tonight’s the first chance most of us will have…
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NASA brings an out-of-this-world assortment of GIFs and images to GIPHY and Pinterest
What’s better than watching astronauts eat in space? (NASA via GIPHY) In space, no one can hear you scream. But on Earth, they can hear you laugh, or say, “Whoa.” Which is what you should be doing if you take time to check out NASA’s new GIPHY page and Pinterest feed. Lovers of GIFs should…
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The stars align: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin treated in New Zealand hospital by Dr. David Bowie
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left, and his doctor in New Zealand, David Bowie. (Christina Korp Photo via Twitter) Only an out-of-this-world coincidence could produce such earthly results. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who is in a New Zealand hospital after falling ill during a tour of Antarctica, is being treated by a doctor named David Bowie. The space…
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LIGO goes back to the gravity-wave grind
The beamlines for the LIGO detector site at Hanford stretch out across the desert terrain of southeastern Washington. Each arm of the L-shaped detector is 2.5 miles long. (Credit: LIGO) The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory is back on the hunt for ripples in spacetime, months after reporting the first signature of a black hole collision in gravitational…
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NASA unveils a skill for Amazon’s Alexa that lets you ask questions about Mars
Tom Soderstrom, IT CTO of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab announces NASA Mars at AWS re:invent Amazon’s Alexa has gained many skills over the past year, such as being able to read tweets or deliver election results and fantasy football scores. Starting on Wednesday, you’ll be able to ask Alexa about Mars. The new skill for…
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How cloud computing boosts NASA’s quest to explore the final frontier
An open-source cloud computing project, known as OpenStack, was developed by NASA and Rackspace Inc. to standardize the data on NASA websites. (NASA Photo) When one of NASA’s top geeks talks to the cloud-computing geeks at Amazon Web Services’ re:Invent conference, you can bet the talk is not going to be just about outer space.…
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Star Wars fans jam up ‘Rogue One’ ticket websites – and get new trailers to watch
Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, in “Rogue One.” (Disney / Lucasfilm via YouTube) The past 24 hours have brought good news and bad news for throngs of Star Wars fans who are eagerly awaiting “Rogue One,” the next installment in the film saga. Let’s start with the bad news: Many of those fans faced…
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Holiday guide to science books about life, the universe and everything
“The Cell” turns the inner workings of life into a coffee-table book. (University of Chicago Press) Fans of the late science-fiction humorist Douglas Adams know that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42 – but what’s the answer to the annual holiday gift conundrum? If you’re buying a gift for…
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You’ll get a howl out of this: Supermoon turns Buzz Aldrin into American Werewolf
This week’s supermoon has been pretty much clouded out in Seattle, but it appears to have had an effect on Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. In a Twitter update, the 86-year-old space icon mugged for the camera, werewolf-style, and said it took all his willpower to stop from howling. Took all my will power yesterday…