An Asteroid Could Have Killed Us Tonight [Space]
Rejoice, because you are alive: An asteroid named 2009 TM8 just passed only 216,000 miles from Earth, racing at 18,163mph. That’s closer than the moon. But don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to panic, says the JPL:
If it’s typical density, it would create a 4 kiloton explosion in the Earth’s atmosphere if it were to hit, which of course it won’t. You’d expect an object of this size to fly within the orbit of the moon every few days or so.
That’s what Don Yeomans—manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California—said talking about 2009 TM8 and the other 7 million objects in the near-Earth space which, “needless to say we have discovered only a small fraction of them.”
Great. At 30 feet, something like 2009 TM8 is not as big as the killer Apophis or as the superkiller that can destroy everything on Earth. But who cares about destroying everything when this thing is large enough to annihilate Brooklyn.
Ah well, as if I needed any excuses to celebrate after this sodding Friday. Zacapa rum, here I come. [MSNBC]
How They Fixed the Hubble [Space]
Hubble is alive—and delivering amazing images—after the successful mission that fixed it, the most difficult in the history of the shuttle program. Today, PBS’ Nova shows it all in the Hubble’s Amazing Rescue. Here’s the teaser. [PBS]
50 Years of Space Travel In One Beautiful Solar System Map [Space]
Most missions through space are lonely. Solitary probes arc through the solar system, charming us with their photos and data, and eventually—quietly—fade into disrepair, or out of range. But witnessed together, they form something sublime.
National Geographic has combined mankind’s nearly 200 manned and unmanned exploratory space missions into one infographic. It’s not nearly to scale, and it doesn’t even try to follow the actual paths of the various chunks of metal we’ve tossed into the ether.
But the broad strokes are all here, and they’re fascinating: Of the dozens and dozens of probes launched in the last 50 years, precious few have made it past the asteroid belt; a handful have been tossed into the face of the sun; and just the luckiest, boldest pieces of hardware have been jettisoned into the outer reaches of our solar system.
NatGeo’s got an interactive scrollable map here, but honestly, I’d skip straight to the poster-sized version on Flickr. [NatGeo via i09]
Posted: October 13th, 2009
at 4:20pm by John Herrman
Topics: 50 Years in space, Nasa, Probes, Space, Space Travel, Space travel map, infographics, national geographic
National Geographic: 50 Years of Space Exploration
Ready to lose 20 minutes of your day?
Check out this huge infograph that displays the last 50 years of space exploration. It’s awesome although it does kind of indicate that Venus is closer to earth than the Moon. The “50 Years of Space Exploration” graphic was created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic. I must say though, skip the interactive edition on NationalGeographic.com and check out the full size version on Flickr.
[via OhGizmo]
Posted: October 13th, 2009
at 1:00pm by Matt Burns
Topics: Headline, Nasa, Space, national geographic
50 Years Of Space Exploration In One Handy Graphic
By Andrew Liszewski
Created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic, this beautifully illustrated map includes the almost 200 missions to space from the past 50 years, showing which of our celestial neighbors we like to visit the most. The National Geographic website has an interactive version you can pan and zoom around on, but if you’d like to make yourself a nice little wallpaper you can find a full-sized version of it on Flickr.
[ National Geographic - Fifty Years of Exploration ] VIA [ io9 ]
