There’s a vicious hurricane, Sandy, hurtling straight toward USA’s East coast. The current forecast is grim — it could be the worst storm in more than 100 years — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is even referring to the event as Frankenstorm: gale-force winds, snow, torrential rain, flooding and extreme tides in one unforgiving force of nature. Please,...
One might say that science and art are two completely different mediums, with both tapping into different portions of the brain. You won’t find many lab geeks producing million dollar art galleries, and visa versa. But this incredible NASA video, titled Gradient Sun, proves that the two disciplines overlap more than you’d think. “Science and art techniques are often quite similar,...
That’s Felix Baumgartner’s view from over 128,000 feet above Earth, and he’s as casual as ever. After a series of weather delays that pushed the jump back almost a week, the world’s craziest daredevil successfully did what no other human being has done before. It was a nervy few hours as the enormous helium balloon raced toward space. But after finally reaching the “float” point, almost...
Felix Baumgartner is currently inside the Stratos capsule floating up to the planned 23-mile high jump altitude. He is currently going through precautionary jump checks with Joe Kittinger, who holds the decades old freefall record from 1960. Last week’s jump on Oct. 9 was previously aborted because of inclement weather, but today’s conditions are favorable and a launch is a go. As I...
Scientists have discovered a planet said to be made primarily made out of diamond — twice as big as Earth. I think Kim Kardashian just fainted. Discovered by researchers at Yale, the bling planet, scientifically referred to as 55 Cancri e, was found orbiting a sun-like star in the Cancer constellation. Initially thought to be similarly composed to Earth, the planet’s combination of...
The average recreational skydive is typically in the 3000 – 13,000 foot range, with an average freefall speed of about 115 miles per hour. Exhilarating stuff, enough to get any adrenaline junkie’s blood flowing. But not Felix Baumgartner’s. Instead, he’s taking danger by the shirt collar and decking it square in the jaw. After Tuesday, the realm of what’s possible will never be the same...
This isn’t the plot of a movie, or even Science Fiction: NASA’s Curiosity rover is locked and loaded, and ready to start vaporizing the very planet it landed on earlier this month. According to Space.com, the 1-ton robot is set to zap a Martian rock on Saturday with its on-board laser — a step toward determining “whether the environment [is] favorable for microbial life.” Once the...
On Tuesday, July 24, Austria's Felix Baumgartner will embark on a journey that could put him in Man of Steel territory. From 90 thousand feet above the Earth's surface, Baumgartner will willingly heave himself out of a balloon and travel back down to normalcy with the rest of us basement dwellers. If all goes according to plan, he'll reach a maximum speed of 509 mph in 30 seconds — but...