Astronomy
31 posts
Someone Stitched Together 400,000 Space Photos – You’ll Be Glad People Have This Kind of Time
YouTube user Daveachuk has created a late-night, where-do-I-fit-in-the-universe, pondering-life-late-at-night video from over 400,000 photos as well as data taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The resulting video is almost mesmerizing...
Charon Photobombs New Horizon Photo of Pluto
Back in 2006 the New Horizon space probe left Earth on mission to visit Pluto. On July 14th of this year, New Horizon will finally reach its destination and give us a closer look at the piece of rock that was once on the a-list of planets...
Amazing Kreskin Opens Supernatural Dating Site – Predicts It Will Take Dating to a New Dimension
In a move only he could’ve seen coming…you know….because he’s who he is…the Amazing Kreskin has opened the gates on a new dating site… A site for “enthusiasts of the paranormal, the unexplained, the mystical, the implausible…” While we’re...
Predator Might Be Hiding on Rosetta’s Comet – Based on the weird sound we’re hearing
The jury’s out on what’s causing the sound (which is far, far below the level of human hearing) and a whole lot of theories are being tossed around about it. Everything from magnetic fields to ionization of particles shearing themselves...
Huge Meteor Burns Out Over Russia – Plays Out Like a JJ Abrams Movie!
Like found footage from an unannounced JJ Abrams flick, video is slamming YouTube from all over Russia about a large meteor that hit the atmosphere. Details are still coming in about the event and we’ll have a fuller piece about it later....
Object Lands In Active Volcano In Mexico!
December 21st of this year is the big party date for the supposed end of our world. Sure everyone’s already ordering kegs, ordering faux “Danger: Apocalypse In Progress – Do Not Cross” banner tape by the case and prepping for their...
BOOM! Possible Supernova Recorded in 774AD
Centuries ago, in AD 774, some guy in Britain is keeping a written record of life’s goings-on. In that year he mentions witnessing something strange…a weird “red crucifix” hanging in the sky. Fling yourself forward in time. Researchers are...
NASA Finds Earth Sized Planets, How Big are They Compared to Earth, Venus?
The Kepler telescope has spotted two Earth-sized planets circling another star. Although they are too close to the star to be habitable, they are the smallest planets we’ve ever observed circling as close to their star, not unlike our sun....
Suicidal Comet Will Attempt To Survive A Pass By The Sun
A newly identified comet is coming home for the holidays. And by holidays I mean mid-December and by home I mean the Sun. So really that first sentence doesn’t mean anything. But a comet is going to graze the surface of the Sun, most...
Man Climbs Chimney To See Passing Asteroid, Falls Into Chimney
A modern day tale of Icarus! The burning need to see an asteroid pass between the Earth and the moon led one man to do his best impression of Father Christmas one and a half months early. Translated from French paper Est Republicain: A...
The Mystery Behind China’s Two Suns
It’s pretty apparent the sky is going effing bananas. Moon’s are going super and now the sun is frigging multiplying. Or, at least is seemed like it was. This shot from Chinese television appears to show a pair of suns shining down like...
Neutron Star Displays “Weird Physics”
The Weird Things staff loves all kinds of science, but we hold a special place in our heart for “weird science”, which is exactly what astronomers from the University of Alberta are saying is going on inside the neutron star Cassiopeia A....
Sun Rises Two Days Early In Greenland
No one knows exactly why the sun rose roughly 48 hours ahead of schedule in the remote Greenland town of Ilulissat which like many arctic circle towns spends prolonged periods in total darkness. Some say global warming has melted the ice...
We’ll make great pets: Why we shouldn’t fear our new alien overlords
So a new research paper has come out and told us what Hollywood has been telling us for years; if we meet aliens they’re most likely going to act like 16th century conquistadors and take our resources and annihilate us in the process....
Terrifying Close Calls With Asteroids? Not Such A Big Deal
Astronomers are chuckling to themselves after laypeople paying attention freaked out last week when two astroids swooped through Earth’s orbit, nearly missing our planet. While a double complete asteroid swipe is rare, the still scary idea...
Good Morning Mr. Sun! New Solar Storms Could Destroy Our Economy
The sun has awoken from his slumber and you will feel his wrath upon your global positioning satellites and financial services. Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, explains what it’s all about: “The sun is waking up from...
Is A Massive Star About To Collapse, Fry Us All?
Phil Plait dissects a recent rumor about the Betelgeuse star. The short version of the rumor? The star is going to go all supernova in weeks or months (not years or hundreds of years) and the brightness could affect crops and cause...
Have Scientists Found First Ever Proof Of Ejected Black Hole?
Probably not, but maybe! A mystery object in a galaxy far, far away could be a supermassive black hole that got booted from its home galaxy’s center, according to a new study. Then again, the strange body could be a rare type of supernova...
New Discovery Helps Prove That Earth Sucked Until Asteroid Brought Water
A thin film of water ice and organic material has been identified on an asteroid by a NASA telescope. This bolsters the theory that an asteroid brought both crucial elements for life to Earth. “It now appears that when the asteroids and...
Has Radio Astronomy Discovered The Coming Of Galactus?
Who needs The Watcher? According to radio astronomers at the University of Manchester, a “baffling new object” in a nearby galaxy is unlike anything they’ve seen before. But those who know better sure recognize that color scheme, that...
New Astronomy Technology Hunts For Alien Life, Our Very Origins
As per Popular Science: Until recently, radio astronomers have concentrated almost exclusively on the high-energy radiation streaming in towards Earth from exotic stellar bodies like pulsars, quasars, and super-massive black holes. But...
Does Our Solar System Have 900 Planets?
After the discovery of Neptune in 1846 astronomers began to wonder if there were other planets beyond its orbit. The discovery of Pluto (now not a planet) seemed to answer the question, but others wondered if even further out a larger...
A Crowded Multiverse?
In the latest Scientific American theoretical physicists Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez speculate that there might be a greater chance of life developing in other universes with different physical laws and that our own may not be as...
Mars Needs Bacteria
In an interesting experiment to see how well terrestrial bacteria might survive on Mars, a group built their own Mars simulator. From UniverseToday.com: A team led by Giuseppe Galletta of the Department of Astronomy at the University of...
Ruskies plan to invade Venus
The Russian space research institute IKI has announced ambitious plans to explore the planet Venus. Is this a sign that they’ve forgone Mars because the “Red Planet” is just so cliche now? Or do they know something we don’t? BBC NEWS |...
NASA to blow up the Moon
Mr. Show had it first… Real story.
5 Of The Weirdest Moons In The Solar System
Ah, moons. So often overshadowed by your rocky, gassy, and thermonuclear overlords, you help invoke tides, stabilize axial tilts, sculpt and replenish rings, and provide at least one species with a stepping stone to timidly venture from...
Meteorite Strikes Boy’s Hand
photo credit: aresauburn™ Space.com posted an article last week about a boy being hit in the hand with a meteorite. Since then the online community has been abuzz, some excited, some crying fraud. The details of the event itself are...
Saturn’s Persistent Hexagon
Saturn’s North Pole (Cassini-Huygens, 2007 and 2008) In November 1980, planetary scientists eagerly examined transmissions received from the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it sped past Saturn. And with good reason! Amid those transmissions was...
Making Star Trek Possible: Warp speed without the warp drive
A five-part series that tries to explain how to make the science of Star Trek real… Probably the most fascinating idea that Star Trek popularized was the idea of a warp drive. This was a concept from golden age sci-fi that went mainstream...
Iceballs From Outer Space!
Astronomers have identified two massive balls of ice, orbiting a dwarf planet on the fringe of our solar system. According to sciencenews.org: You’d need a mighty tall glass to hold two space objects that researchers have now identified as...