That's right, NASA is hiring a Planetary Protection Officer (PPO) with a salary of $124,406 - $187,000 depending on experience. "The Planetary Protection Officer (PPO) is responsible for the leadership of NASA's planetary protection capability, maintenance of planetary protection policies, and oversight of their implementation by NASAs space flight missions. The PPO also supports the Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) Technical Authority and serves as a principal advisory resource for the Chief, SMA and other senior officials on matters pertaining to planetary protection," said NASA. Continue reading for another video and more information.
With manned missions to Mars just starting, many well-known companies will be contracted to produce vehicles, and one of them could be Lamborghini, or so designer Xundi Li thinks. Called the Lamborghini Mars X1, this rugged vehicle is designed to go anywhere on the red planet, from collecting soil samples to traversing dangerous terrain. It features a main bed to haul larger items, while even the wheels even have storage space in the center. Continue reading for more pictures and information.
The International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) and Moon Express have just announced a collaboration for the delivery of the first International Lunar Observatory to the South Pole of the Moon in 2019 (ILO-1). This will be the world's first instrument to image the Milky Way Galaxy and to conduct international astrophysical observations and communications from the lunar surface. "Moon Express now has all the capital it needs to land its small robotic spacecraft on the surface of the moon. The company's goal is twofold: 1) mine the moon for valuable resources, such as Helium-3, gold, platinum group metals, rare earth metals and water; and 2) help researchers develop human space colonies for future generations," said co-founder and chairman Naveen Jain. Continue reading for another video and more information.
NASA's Juno orbiter has transmitted stunning close-ups of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. It's been orbiting the massive planet for more than a year, but last weekend's flyby was the closest that the probe came to the solar system's most famous superstorm. The images were captured from as little as 2,200 miles above the cloud tops, while flying directly over the Great Red Spot at a distance of 5,600 miles. Continue reading for another video, more pictures and information.
For the first time ever, a team of scientists from China have managed to successfully teleport a photon from the ground to a satellite in Earth's orbit 311-miles away. This strange phenomenon occurs when two quantum objects, such as photons, share a wave function. Since they come into existence simultanously, they share the same identity, even when separated. This means whatever happens to one, happens to the other - wherever it exists. Continue reading for another video and more information.
Alexander Pietrow is an astrophotographer who wanted to try something new. So, he took an old Game Boy Camera, strapped it to a 6" Fraunhofer telescope with a Gosky Universal Cell Phone Adapter, and then proceeded to take pictures of the moon, as well as Jupiter. "I wondered if it would be possible to do astrophotography with this camera. Searching the internet I was surprised that nobody had tried this before and decided to give it a go," said Pietrow. Continue reading to see the full rig and the images he took.
The Mayak, a tiny Russian satellite, is expected to become the brightest star in the sky. It's set to be launched aboard a Soyuz 2.1v vehicle on July 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Once in orbit, at approximately 370-miles high, it will unfold to a giant pyramid-shaped solar reflector that spans 170 square feet, and is claimed to be 20 times thinner than human hair. Continue reading for another video and more information.
Researchers believe there's a Mars-sized planet lurking at the edge of the solar system. That's right, Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra studied the orbits of objects in the Kuiper Belt, the asteroid field where Pluto is located, and discovered that objects orbit at an incline relative to the rest of the solar system. These unusual orbits normally can be explained by the gravitational influence of nearby planets, but there are no existing planets that could have caused this kind of tilt. Continue reading for another video and more information.
These incredible space photos may appear to be from NASA's archives, but they're actually the work of photographer Adam Makarenko who specializes in miniatures. The planets are handcrafted from foam spheres and plaster, while the textured surfaces are created with other materials, such as ferric chloride, paint, cement. Continue reading for more pictures and information.
Christian Stangl spent 18-months creating "Lunar," a project that uses digital effects - mainly stop-motion and panoramic stitching - to turn thousands of NASA images of the Apollo missions into a short film. "I was fascinated by the amount and the quality of the Pictures. They were thousands of that beautiful high-res photographies made by the famous Hasselblad-Moon camera. When I looked at the Archive, I knew immediately that I want to make a film with these photos," Stangl told Peta Pixel. Click here to view the first image in this week's funny demotivational posters gallery. Continue reading for a viral video of a faceless fish that hasn't been seen in 100-years.
