Near Miss

You may have heard that Asteroid 2011 MD will pass by Monday morning. And by pass by, we mean within 8,000 miles.

That's pretty close. How close? Well, have a look at these animations:

Asteroid 2011 MD Flyby

The Twenty-First Century is When Everything Changes

OK, I'm about three years late finding this, but it's still cool:

Phobos and Deimos seen from the surface of Mars

50 Years in the Making

The future began 50 years ago today. I should probably make a long post about what the launching of Sputnik meant — for one thing, it directly led to my becoming a physicist instead of, say, a doctor or engineer (though an engineer might actually have worked in the space program). It also gave a big impetus to the fledgling semiconductor industry, as the US needed light-weight satellites to go on its relatively small rockets. As the Washington Post pointed out, Sputnik also lead to the founding of DARPA, which became ARPA, and, before becoming DARPA again formed something called ARPAnet. Wonder what happened to that?

Anyway, here's NASA's version of the day that changed the world.

The Final Frontier

Haven't posted for a long time, I know. We're doing lots of traveling in August. In the meantime, here's something to hold you over:

This is what it felt like to be a space geek in the '60s.

This Week's Sign that the Apocalypse is Upon Us

Slashdot has a report from CNN: for $ 6 million, minimum, you can arrange to create a small crater on the moon by hitting it with 10 kilos of your personally chosen payload. Heavy bidding may drive the price up. Word is that some people in Washington are looking to dispose of some embarrassing documents.