Did you see a meteor streaking across the Los Angeles sky a few nights back during the supermoon? Well, it’s not quite what you think, but rather just a clever stunt by Red Bull. Simply put, what you saw were skydivers in wingsuits equipped with LED lights and “Sparking Pyrotechnic”. These daredevils jumped from a helicopter hovering 4000-feet above the Los Angeles skyline and zipped through the sky at nearly 120 miles per hour. Read more to see the video from the wingsuit’s perspective.
A geomagnetic storm occurred on Wednesday when a new sunspot blasted a small solar flare that lasted for just over an hour, causing disruptions for some radio operators in Europe and Africa. There was a CME, or a slower-moving, massive cloud of charged particles, that has pushed the Aurora Borealis south. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) predicts that the Northern Lights could be visible as far south as New York and Chicago on Saturday in the early morning hours. Read more for another video explaining the difference between CMEs and solar flares, along with additional information.
An Antarctic expedition organized by the Flat Earth International Conference (FEIC) aims to find the frozen barrier they believe marks the edge of our world, which is allegedly thousands of feet thick, stands 164-feet high and surrounds the entire planet. This trip has intrigued many, including YouTube star Logan Paul, who just may join in on the fun. “If you take a globe and you squish it down, the Antarctic would go all the way around the Earth. It’s kind of like an ice shore and it’s very, very large. It’s not like you just go there and you can just peek over it. We don’t believe anything can fall off the edge, because a big portion of the flat earth community believes that we’re in a dome, like a snow globe. So the sun, moon and stars are all inside. It’s very high but all contained inside. So there’s no way to actually fall off of the earth,” said FEIC founder Robbie Davidson to Forbes. Read more to watch Logan Paul’s flat Earth documentary.
No, this isn’t an alien structure that landed in NYC, just “The Vessel,” a public landmark that was built as part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project in Manhattan. Featuring a stunning honeycomb-like structure, it rises 16 stories and consists of 154 flights of stairs, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings. It was designed by British designer Thomas Heatherwick, and is the main feature of the 5-acre Hudson Yards Public Square. Read more for a complete walkthrough of the structure, additional pictures and information.
Photo credit: Joe Matus / NASA/MSFC
The final supermoon of 2019 will appear in the night sky on Wednesday, March 20th, coinciding with the spring equinox, and officially called the “super worm equinox moon”. Supermoons occurs when a full moon has reached the closest point to Earth in its monthly elliptical orbit around the planet, thus appearing larger and brighter in the night sky. Read more for another video about this special supermoon and how to watch.
Blockbuster’s sole Australian store, located in the Perth suburb of Morley on the country’s west coast, announced it would be closing at the end of March. “We put in a pretty good effort to be the last one in Australia, I suppose, but it was going to happen eventually and now is the time,” owner Lyn Borszeky told the Australian Associated Press. The once massive video rental franchise that peaked at 9,000 stores around the world now will only have a single store left in Bend, Oregon, and they’ll soon have to change their “The Last Blockbuster in America” shirts to “The Last Blockbuster in the World”. Read more for a video explaining why the company went downhill.
Rumors are swirling today that Amazon is planning to launch its own low-cost grocery store chain in the U.S. to complement Whole Foods Market, according to The Wall Street Journal. They reportedly plan to open dozens of the stores, with the first one being set for Los Angeles as early as the end of this year. A typical grocery store spans about 60,000 square feet, but these new Amazon stores will roughly occupy 35,000 square feet of space. Read more for another video and additional information.
A 25-year-old woman from Taiwan constantly used her smartphone at maximum screen brightness for two years and managed to do some serious damage to her eyes, including burning 500 small holes into her cornea. Why was her screen brightness set to maximum? She discovered it was much easier to read messages even in bright sunlight, but eventually, it was never turned back, even when watching videos with the light off. After a while, she would often wake up with bloodshot eyes and had blurred vision throughout the day until things got so bad that she finally consulted an ophthalmologist. Read more for the news report and additional information.
Photo credit: Halfrain / Flickr
Stargazers will be treated to the largest, brightest supermoon of 2019 when it lights up the night sky on Tuesday, weather permitting. This will be the second of three back-to-back supermoons, with the first occurring on Jan. 21, and the third falling on March 21. For those who are unfamiliar with supermoons, it’s basically a full moon that occurs when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in its monthly elliptical orbit around our planet. This makes the moon appear larger and more luminous than ordinary full moons. Read more for another video providing more tips on getting the best view of this phenomenon.
Mars One, a Dutch company that planned to send humans on a one-way trip to Mars and start the first human colony on the Red Planet, has officially been declared bankrupt by CEO Bas Lansdorp in a Swiss court on Jan. 15. “We are currently working with the administrator and an investor to find a solution moving forward, though at this moment that is all we can share,” said the company in an email. They began accepting applications in 2013 for a mission to establish a permanent settlement on Mars and launch a total of 24 people in groups of four every two years starting in 2024. The company claimed it could do so using existing technology, with the first four requiring $6 billion US in funding. Read more for a video explaining what the mission was all about.