BraiNation

Starts Friday! Enough Said.

(Image borrowed from MSNBC.com)

For all you star gazers out there, take a look into the sky every now and then this month in an attempt to see Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus or Mercury. I have to make this a quickie, but to find out where (other than in the sky) and when, click to read at MSNBC.com.

This is a quick video of Jennifer Heldmann, planetary scientist at NASA, explaining why moon dust is dangerous. Nothing really crazy here, just thought people would like to read a little about our giant night light.

Video borrowed from fora.tv.

(Vid borrowed from Chron.com)

Just a quickie, I found this video on Digg today. It comes to us from Chron.com. It’s pretty cool actually, it allows the astronauts to travel up to 1,000 km away from their original landing site. Another cool feature of this rover is that the astronauts don’t need to be in their suits in the vehicle and there is actually a door to their suits should they need to exit the vehicle. Anyway, enjoy the video kids.

Enceladus has recently been identified as potentially being the best candidate in our solar system for extraterrestrial life.

The picture above shows a large plume of water vapor emanating from the moon’s surface. According to scientists, this shows evidence of a large active ocean beneath the moon’s surface that circulates nutrients from the interior of the moon. It is the first time that scientists have discovered that world’s without atmospheres may also be likely candidates to harbor life.

Chemical analysis of this vapor emanating from the moon’s surface have found traces of methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and silicate dust all of which react with charged particles from the sun to create nutrition for microbes. According to astrobiologist Christopher Parkinson of the University of Michigan, there are tiger stripes on the moon which show where the ice is slowly circulating up to the surface taking nutrients with it. This ice could keep surfacing for the next million years at a fast enough pace to keep a microbial colony alive.

Ultimately no one can say that life taking hold on Enceladus would happen but according to Parkinson if we put life on Enceladus there is a possibility life could thrive.

Learn more about Enceladus

(source gizmowatch.com)

Haha this is hilarious. Japanese scientists have apparently devised a method for astronauts to ‘relieve’ themselves while out and about in space. These portable toilets, as seen in the hilarious cartoon picture above, will have built in sensors that will activate a suction unit to send the astronauts mess into the container on the back. The system will also wash and dry the user after each use… I wonder if it will apply baby powder too ha!

Via gizmowatch.com