It’s the stuff that Hollywood movies are made of: scientists announced this week that there’s an asteroid headed towards Earth… but don’t start building that backyard bunker just yet.
SPACE.com reported yesterday, Tuesday February 28, that a 460-foot-wide asteroid (named 2011 AG5) is scheduled to cross Earth’s orbit by the year 2040. The European Space Agency doesn’t consider this a ‘real threat’, but scientists are keeping an eye on this enormous space rock, in the event that the situation should come to blows.
Threats and bunkers aside, what if you could get a closer look at an asteroid, or any other celestial body? What if we reversed the HD video cameras that we’re mounting to the International Space Station? We’d have what would essentially be a telescope in space.
These are precisely the types of questions that UrtheCast is posing now that our cameras are nearing completion.
Remember back when the CN Tower awed the world? In 1995, the CN Tower was so impressive that it was named one of the world’s modern wonders. Now that a Japanese company has announced plans to build an elevator into outer space, the world’s tallest tower looks like it’s beginning to shrink.
Reported by SPACE.com just yesterday, the mammoth Japanese space structure is slated for completion by 2050. The concept is the brain child of a Japanese company, Obayashi Corp. (which is also currently building the Tokyo Sky Tree). As a relatively modest precursor to the space elevator, and at a height of 634 m, the Sky Tree will become the tallest self-supporting tower in the world, surpassing Toronto’s 553 m CN Tower. Read more.
February 20, 1962, was a day that changed a nation and fanned the flames of the international space race. If you haven’t heard, this past Monday marked the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s monumental trip around the globe — three orbits around Earth that inspired a generation of would-be space travellers.
But that’s not all. As it turns out, astronauts have been all over the headlines this week. This time, in the name of education. Read more.
If you were sent to live in a moon colony, what couldn’t you live without? Your partner? Your pet? Superhero pajamas?
Russia isn’t the only country eying the moon, so there might be a chance for you yet. As recently as January 2012, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich began promising American citizens a moon colony by the year 2015. Whether he’ll have a chance to implement his plan remains in the hands of the U.S. voters, but countries like Russia and China are already hard at work figuring out the logistics of moon exploration: Read more.
This week’s astronomy conference contained some major findings presented by the brightest stars of the space science and astronomy world. These astronomers and scientists congregated from all corners of the globe in Austin, Texas, from January 8 to 12, for what was heralded as the ‘Super Bowl’ of Astronomy.
Telescope Array Field. Credit: Shutterstock.com
Held in the summer and winter of each year, this season’s conference had the potential for scientific buzz, and it delivered. In the face of a floundering economy and numerous cut-backs, the 219th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting left a nice array of impressive discoveries in it’s wake:
