Space

Google taps 'white spaces' for broadband in South Africa

In an effort to show the potential of the unused frequencies in the broadcast TV spectrum, Google has launched a trial program that will tap the so-called white spaces to provide wireless broadband to schools in South Africa.

The Web giant announced today it will use the unused spectrum to provide Internet access to 10 schools in the Cape Town area. The goal of the trial is to show that wireless broadband can be provided over white spaces -- the unused spectrum that sits between broadcast TV channels -- without interfering with licensed spectrum.

"White space has the advantage … Read more

Space spinach: Getting your greens on the ISS

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been giving us Earthlings behind-the-scenes peeks into life on the space station. He already showed us how he makes a peanut butter sandwich and how he clips his fingernails without inhaling them.

Now, he turns his attention to the sometimes controversial subject of spinach. Love it or hate it, it's packed with healthy vitamins and minerals. Hadfield posted a video demonstrating how to eat spinach in space.

When you're on the ISS, you can't just pop down to the local space grocery and pick up a nice bag of fresh baby spinach. It first has to be processed into a form that can handle traveling 220 miles from Earth to the International Space Station and not end up flying all over the place in zero gravity once it gets there.… Read more

Was that a meteor over New York (and zipping across Twitter)?

Apparently the bright object that people reported seeing shooting over the East Coast of the United States last night -- and that left a glittery trail across Twitter -- may well have been a meteor.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office told the Associated Press that, "going on visual reports," the flash was "a single meteor event."

"The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast," he added.

The object lit up Twitter last night at about 8 p.m. East Coast … Read more

New verdict in scientific whodunit: Dino-killing space rock was a comet

Some 65 million years ago, a big rock -- a very big rock -- slammed into the southwest portion of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, creating a 110- to 180-mile crater and triggering a biological catastrophe that wiped out more than half the Earth's species, including the dinosaurs.

In 2010, an international panel of scientists ruled out alternative explanations as they coalesced around the theory that the space rock impact was responsible for this cataclysmic event. However, they debated whether the crater was produced by a comet or an asteroid.

New research now points to a comet as the … Read more

Shoot retro fighters in Space Impact Free

Retro gaming is big right now. The App Store is filled with games that hearken back to the days of brightly colored pixels, indistinguishable faces and simple but ultimately addictive gameplay. Few games channel this as well or as thoroughly as Space Impact Free. If you were to glance at Space Impact Free in passing, you would immediately think it to be an actual retro game, straight from the Atari 2600 that once sat in every American basement. But the game is an original design and, while it uses many of the same basic elements of its forebears, it has … Read more

What if a meteor heads toward NYC? NASA says 'pray'

At a House Committee hearing today, NASA administrator Charles Bolden Jr. was asked what America would do if a meteor similar to the one that hit in Russia on February 15 was found to be on a path toward New York, with impact three weeks away. His response? "Pray."

At the moment, we might be lucky to get even three weeks' warning. The United States and the rest of the world simply do not have the ability to detect many "small" meteors like the one that exploded over Russia, which has been estimated at roughly 55 … Read more

Voyager 1 may have left the solar system, 35 years after launch

Voyager 1 truly has gone where no man (or spacecraft) has gone before. Huge changes in the environment around the space probe indicate that it has gone beyond the heliosphere, our little corner of space that's dominated by the influence of the sun.

It only took 35 years for the craft to travel more than 11 billion miles from the sun and possibly exit the solar system. What scientists are seeing is a huge spike in galactic cosmic rays.

"Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere," said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.… Read more

New clues emerge on origin of Kepler's famous supernova

More than 400 years after skywatchers -- including astronomer Johannes Kepler -- witnessed the appearance of a spectacular new star in the night sky, astronomers have uncovered important new details about the origins of this famous supernova.

The supernova remnant contains iron-rich material surrounded by an expanding shock wave that scarfs up interstellar gas and dust in its path. The ensuing shroud of gas and dust is estimated to be 14 light-years wide and is expanding at 4 million miles per hour.

A new study published online and in the February 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal found that the … Read more

Sex in space may be dangerous, study says

I've always imagined that being up in space isn't really so much fun.

Yes, the views are nice, but the claustrophobia must be entirely stifling. What are you supposed to do up there, for days on end? You can't just work all the time.

The temptation, then, might be to occasionally enjoy a little recreation in the procreative sphere.

Sex would surely offer a touch of vigorous exercise and a little human community.

However, now research has emerged suggesting that sex up there could be dangerous.… Read more