The headline: NASA finds seven life-supporting planets only 40 light-years away. fyi: These seven planets are orbiting the dwarf star Trappist-1 and are very, very far awayyyy. Things to know before you book your flight… These planets are at least 40 light-years away. So, very far away. Note: 1 Light Year = 9.5 trillion kilometers. …
It’s Thanksgiving weekend (here in Canada) and I’m thinking about doing a “Star Wars” themed dinner this year. Mike’s top five signs it’s a Star Wars Thanksgiving. #5. Count Dooku cuts off your right arm after you pass him the stuffing. #4. Every few minutes someone says “Luke… use the fork…”. #3. Your friends Howard, …
Martians were happy with the discovery, “I can’t believe it was here the whole time”, said one Martian. Another Martian said “Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom?”. NASA promises to extend it’s search for water to include California and parts of Nevada over the next few years.
The New Horizons spacecraft just flew past Pluto, after traveling 3 billion miles (9 years). Top five things about being on a super long, nine year road trip in space… #5. You’re super tired of constantly converting local time to Earth time. #4. You find a good radio station and then 100,000 miles later – …
Out of roughly 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, a new analysis of Kepler data shows that around 17 percent of them have Earth-sized planets orbiting them, meaning there could be as many as 17 billion Earth-sized worlds. Kepler’s mission is to find and document Earth-sized planets at greater distances. The more planets …
Carl Sagan would have been 79 yrs old today. More on Carl Sagan…
The “Supermoon” full moon is this weekend! WikiPedia says: A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the moon’s disk as seen from Earth. The next occurrence will be …
Wow… 10 ton meteor explodes over Russia, injures more than 750. CBC News story. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXT_B4kx6YA?rel=0] In other news: Another meteor is heading our way today. NASA is saying there is no chance at all that it will hit the earth. They admit they didn’t even see this last one coming, but they’re 100% positive …
The near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis, which is about 3 miles wide, was within 4.3 million miles of Earth during its closest approach this morning (December 12, 2012). Deflector shields up! No disrespect to Toutatis, the great Celtic god and tribal protector, but “4179 Toutatis” is a bit of a strange name and no one knows …