The internet always needs new pictures of me.

quantumaniac:

Google Goes into Space? 

This upcoming Tuesday, during a press conference at the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery (located in the Museum of Flight in Seattle), a new company called Planetary Resources will come into existence.

Two of the men behind the mystery project are Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google. Others involved include director James Cameron, Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Charles Simonyl, Google Board of Directors member K. Ram Shiram, and Chairman of the Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr.

The cryptic press release didn’t give any details save a name and vague description of the company’s goals. It will “overlay two critical sector – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.” It goes on the say that the innovative startup will “create a new industry and a new definition of natural resources.”

It may be convoluted, but it’s enough information to give some scientists a pretty clear idea of what Planetary Resources might do. It’s likely an asteroid mining company. That’s really the only thing in space that we need on Earth and could redefine natural resources.

Scientists have long suspected asteroids, which are believed to be made of material leftover from the Solar System’s formation or a mystery planet’s destruction, might hold valuable resources. There are tens of thousands of astroids in orbit between Mars and Jupiter – the so-called asteroid belt – and occasionally one comes close enough to Earth to pose a threat. But, they also come close enough to make a sample or resource collection mission possible.

Read more. 

OMG I have been waiting for this for years! Hearing that things you read in sci-fi books are coming true is a pretty awesome feeling.

quantumaniac:

Our Incredible Planet

These incredible images of the planet Earth show it at its most striking and dramatic, and are more akin to those normally taken from Neptune, Mars or Pluto.

The alien-looking images come from a variety of locations across the globe including the White Desert in Egypt, Monument Valley in the U.S., and the Chocolate Hills of Bohol Island in the Philippines. The images include shots of salt plains, rock formations, geysers, sand dunes, mud playas, lava shelves and deserts.

physicsphysics:

There always exists a possibility of the world ending, but we promise you that if it does in the next year it won’t be because of some misunderstood and misconstrued folklore.

Cheers!

I suppose some might see my last post as ‘depressing’ so i’ll follow up with this.

‘The chance that higher life forms might have emerged is comparable with the chance that `a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein”

The most horrifying form of torture/punishment in the known Universe. The Total Perspective Vortex (it’s so mind bogglingly terrifying it even gets Capital Letters) is a small, featureless steel box, barely big enough for one man to stand in.

The hopeless victims stand in the Vortex, and are suddenly shown, for the merest instant, the whole of the Universe: the whole infinity of creation, spanning over several trillion light years, and countless millennia, with an insignificant dot saying “You Are Here”.

The victims, totally demoralised by their experience, fall dead.

quantumaniac:

Name These

I’m following you. But not on tumblr.

physicsphysics:

“Hail Sagan”

by Brankovranic

Why didnt we just take the pill?

Shut up. Just drink it.