White Holes

You. You. You are alive. And sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees. And sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player’s eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again. And sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream. And the universe said I love you. And the universe said you have played the game well. And the universe said everything you need is within you. And the universe said you are stronger than you know. And the universe said you are the daylight. And the universe said you are the night. And the universe said the darkness you fight is within you. And the universe said the light you seek is within you. And the universe said you are not alone. And the universe said you are not separate from every other thing. And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code. And the universe said I love you because you are love. And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love. You are the player. Wake up.

♡♡♡ (via escap3real1ty)

A mini supernova

The International Space Station above the spinning Earth.

Photo credit: NASA

InSight Mission to Mars

Our InSight mission will place a fixed science outpost on Mars to study its deep interior. Findings and research from this project will address one of the most fundamental questions we have about planetary and solar system science – How in the world did these rocky planets form?

By investigating the interior structure and processes of Mars, the InSight mission will gain a better understanding of the evolutionary formation of planets, including Earth.

InSight will record Mars’ vital signs to learn more about the planet, including:

Seismic Activity:

A seismometer will be used to record the seismic activity on Mars. This will give us information on the crust, mantel and core; and the relationship between them.

Temperature:

A heat flow probe will be used to take Mars’ temperature and determine the change over the course of a full Martian year.

Reflexes:

By looking at how the rotation of Mars wobbles, we will better understand what the core size may be and its composition.

Launch for the InSight mission is scheduled for March 2016, and even though you can’t physically travel with the lander, you can send your name to the Red Planet onboard. Make sure to submit your name before Sept. 8!

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nature | Night Life | by Joshwallace | http://ift.tt/1IeKeUi

An Exo-What...?

Simply put, an exoplanet is a planet that orbits another star. That said, just because a planet orbits a star (like Earth) does not mean that it is automatically stable for life. The planet must be within the habitable zone, which is the area around a star in which water has the potential to be liquid…aka not so close that all the water would evaporate, and not too far away where all the water would freeze.

Recently, with the help of our Kepler spacecraft, scientists have discovered the most Earth-like exoplanet ever, Kepler-452b. Pretty cool! This chart shows 12 other exoplanet discoveries that are less than twice the size of Earth, and live in the habitable zone of their host star. Kepler-452b is special because all previous findings have orbited stars that are smaller and cooler than Earth’s.

You may be thinking, “Okay, so what? There’s an Earth-like planet that spins around a similar sized sun.” Well, Kepler-452b orbits its sun at nearly the same distance from its star as Earth does from our sun, which means that conditions on the plant could be similar to those here on Earth!

We can already guess your next question…”When are we going to Kepler-452b?!” Well, this planet is located in the constellation Cygnus which is 1,400 light-years away, so not anytime soon. However, our Kepler spacecraft continues to search for Earth-like exoplanets and gather important scientific information about them.

Give support to this project

Comet PanSTARRS and a Crescent Moon

A photo of S Rings, a ring near Saturn. Took by Cassini with COISS on March 04, 2013 at 08:56:39. Detail page on OPUS database.

This is the most detailed map yet of our place in the universe

Say hello to Laniakea, our local galaxy supercluster.

The Laniakea Supercluster (Laniakea; also called Local Supercluster or Local SCl) is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way, our galaxy, and therefore to the Solar System and the Earth.