NASA

The Missing Link Roundup

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Atlas V MMS Launch - NASA

NASA’s Atlas V rocket launched recently from Cape Canaveral with NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft onboard. The MMS spacecraft will construct the first ever 3D view of Earth’s magnetosphere. Awesome! — NASA

China’s Yutu moon rover has quietly been doing a bunch of science on our moon. Recently scientists announced that they’ve discovered over nine different layers of rock beneath the surface, leading them to believe that the moon has actually been volcanically active over the last 3 billion years. — New Hampshire Voice

Did you know there is a small binary star system called “Scholz’s star” that grazed our solar system 7000 years ago? — CNET

The Missing Link Roundup

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Hops383HOPS 383 is a young Class 0 (short-lived) protostar, and we’ve seen it start to form before our eyes. NASA says that HOPS 383 is the youngest protostellar eruption we’ve ever recorded, which is pretty awesome as we’re still trying to figure out exactly how this kind of thing happens. — NASA

Newly published research takes a look at why our solar system is so abnormal, could it be Jupiter’s fault? The Jupiter-gravity theory explains not only the hole in our inner solar system but also how the inner rocky planets formed. — UCSC News

Scientists have discovered evidence of nitrates in rocks from Mars. This is a huge discovery because  while we don’t know what it means yet, Nitrogen is one of the crucial building blocks of life (as we know it). — Phys.org

The Missing Link Roundup

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NASA Lunar PhotosA number of NASA’s ‘blooper’ reels from older space missions are up for auction. Which means we get to see all the photos, and they are very cool. — Sploid

After traveling for 9 years, NASA’s New Horizon’s craft is out of hibernation and closing in on Pluto. Even though it may not be a planet, we are about to learn a lot about the little icy rock on the fringe of our solar system. — NASA

On the 85th anniversary of Pluto’s discovery, New Horizon took photos of Pluto and its moons, Nix and Hydra. While the craft is still over 100 million miles away from the celestial bodies this is the best ever view we’ve gotten of the moons. — NASA

The Missing Link Roundup

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NASA Kepler PosterNASA released a few retro travel-agency inspired posters for planets in different solar systems that may be inhabitable. I love all of these, very cool! — The Register

With CERN starting another round of LHC tests this year, there is doubt being cast on the previous discovery of the “God Particle” and what it actually does. — IB Times

Nora Noffke, a geobiologist at Old Dominion University in Virginia published a paper in the journal Astrobiology which compares the morphological similarities of rocks on Mars and rocks on Earth. Life on Mars? If anyone is qualified to make these observations, it’s her, and it’s awesome. — Astrobiology

NASA Space Sounds

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While space is technically a vacuum, sound still exists in space. For some time now, NASA has used specially designed Plasma Wave antennas on its space probes to record electromagnetic vibrations within human hearing range (20-20,000 Hz). These electromagnetic waves come from interaction between the ionisphere, planetary magnetosphere, and the solar winds. Pretty cool, huh?

Recently NASA took a sample from a dozen different recordings of celestial objects (Saturn’s rings, Neptune, Earth, Uranus, Jupiter, etc) and compiled it into the above video. The result is something like a sci-fi soundtrack crossed with 1980’s whale sounds. It’s intriguing, strange, even a little eery, but mostly just very awesome. Give it a listen!