80 percent of Americans say global warming is real and poses a threat to humanity. Which is good because if the global temperature raises by 4 degrees we're all dead. However only 44 percent would be willing to face any financial hardship in the name of a solution.
posted on Aug 10, 2008 - View this thread

By 2020, Mars may have monkeys, adding to the impressive roster of primates in space.
posted on Apr 14, 2008 - View this thread

Planet Sydney. Planet Joshua Tree. Planet Kyoto. Sadly, you can't visit any of these worlds, but you can make your own.
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

Video (8MB, MPEG) of arctic sea ice extent, recorded from January to September 2007. [other formats] This summer a dramatic decrease compared to previous years in the extent of the north pole ice cap was observed. Scientists are freaked out [bugmenot]. This summer, the Northwest Passage was open for a few weeks, allowing three ships to traverse it.
posted on Oct 12, 2007 - View this thread

A gay boy wished for a planet full of unicorns, Planet Unicorn, Unicorn Planet! Episode: two, three.
posted on Jun 21, 2007 - View this thread

Recycle your computer junk. A large US office supply retailer just became the first to offer everyday, in-store recycling for computers & other office technology, and will recycle them using EPA guidelines. Only $10 an item (smaller stuff like mice and keyboards are free).
posted on May 31, 2007 - View this thread

Scientists have discovered a planet composed of scorching hot ice. Originally thought to be a gas giant due to its mass, its actually only four times the size of Earth and most likely composed of exotic forms of ice, such as Ice VII and Ice X with s surface temperature of 300° C.
posted on May 16, 2007 - View this thread

Spacefilter: ESA telescope detects planet 20 lightyears away with a temperature between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, dubbed "most Earth-like planet yet."
posted on Apr 24, 2007 - View this thread

Planetocopia - have some new planets for the New Year.
Future ones; tilted ones; wrong ones.
Plus instructions on how to make your own.
via Making Light.
posted on Dec 31, 2006 - View this thread

An interactive map of the 174 major meteor impact craters. The largest crater we know of is the Vredefort Dome in South Africa, caused by a meteor some 10 km in diameter. Almost as large in the Sudbury Structure, located in Ontario, which contains some of the world's richest nickel and copper reserves, and has been only confirmed recently to be a crater. Third largest is the now-famous Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan, which probably killed the dinosaurs. Then take a look at an animation of asteroids near Earth [animated gif] and the list of minor planets that could hit us. Want to find out what happens when an meteor impacts in your area? Use the handy Earth Impacts Effects Program!
posted on Oct 25, 2006 - View this thread

SAVE PLUTO
posted on Aug 25, 2006 - View this thread

My very elegant mother just sat upon ninjas ... the textbooks, mnemonic devices and more will have to be changed today. Pluto has been demoted from its status as planet to a dwarf planet. We now have 8 in our solar system. The debate is not at all new, and its apparent resolution may not matter to our everyday lives, but it's just a little weird to think of all of the things that will have to be retroactively edited or amended as a result.
posted on Aug 24, 2006 - View this thread

"Damn, Natalie, you a crazy chick!" (video) Natalie Portman, rapper and riot grrl? Maybe Lazy Sunday (video;mefi post) wasn't a freak occurence after all. Personally, I had expected the Lonely Planet guys to end up a one-hit wonder, but in my book they've (at least) moved up a notch to talented one-trick pony. Another very well-done digital short that should be seen by a lot more people than SNL's dismal ratings will allow.
posted on Mar 5, 2006 - View this thread

A new planet has been found. The new planet, named 2003 UB₃₁₃ is the farthest known object in the solar system, larger than pluto and a lousy tourist destination. Slacker Astronomy has an interview with co-discoverer Dr. Chad Trujillo.
posted on Jul 30, 2005 - View this thread

"This planet answers an ancient question," said team leader Geoffrey Marcy, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. "Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus argued about whether there were other Earth-like planets. Now, for the first time, we have evidence for a rocky planet around a normal star."
The star, Gliese 876, visible in the night sky, lies only 15 light-years away.
posted on Jun 14, 2005 - View this thread

Alien planet "The drama takes place on Darwin IV, a fictional planet 6.5 light-years from Earth, with two suns and 60 percent gravity. Having identified Darwin as a world that could support life, Earth sends a pilot mission consisting of the mothership and three probes." Discovery channel feature, Flash heavy site, via Pharyngula.
posted on May 9, 2005 - View this thread

300 miles up.
posted on Sep 15, 2003 - View this thread

A Doomed planet orbiting a distant star has been located. No, not Krypton. The planet is going to be consumed by the star soon, but astronomers are not going to wait up for it.
posted on Jan 28, 2003 - View this thread

World on Fire is brought to us by the fun kids at NASA, showing satellite images of active fires around the planet on July 11, 2002. "Across the world, the widespread fires that burn each year in the savannas of Africa, Australia, and Brazil dwarf even the most significant fire season in the western United States as far as total acreage and number of fires." NOVA Online has its own set of images from 2000 as well.
posted on Sep 3, 2002 - View this thread

Solar System Akin to Earth's Is Discovered Any minute now, I imagine somebody at a listening station on a smaller, bluer planet a few in from this one making a minute adjustment to their equipment and promptly spraying warm stimulant-laced beverage over their console...
posted on Jun 14, 2002 - View this thread

Reflections on a Mote of Dust "We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam." Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"
posted on Sep 11, 2001 - View this thread

"Having flown around the earth in the first satellite I saw how beautiful our planet is, let us not destroy it!"

Remembering Yuri Gagarin, 40 years on.
posted on Apr 11, 2001 - View this thread

Life Elsewhere? In an attempt to get away from the Chinese-American situation, scientists have recently discovered 11 new planets, with one possibly inhabiting a "Life-Zone."
posted on Apr 5, 2001 - View this thread

If you want to try playing with little planets or images of them, try visiting these websites...

Webearth -- builds a LIVE vrml model of the Earth as it is right now. It draws from current composite satellite photos. Or you can play with a VRML Moon, Venus, Mars or Jupiter, if you'd prefer. (Note: this site does require a VRML 2.0 compatible plug-in, like Parallel Graphics Cortona VRML Viewer.)

Here's an oldie, but a goodie... Same concept, just not live. Earth and Moon Viewer uses various static composite satellite images from many different points of view, and it lets you zoom in and out ... (to a certain extent).

Webwide World lets you zoom in on an earth-like planet... not quite the same thrill, but the images the site produces are beautifully gem-like. And the planet it produces is huge. You'll be able explore islands off the coasts of islands off the coasts of islands.

And for more satellite image zooming pleasure, you can't beat Microsoft's Terra Server.

New planets! Saturn-sized, even!
posted on Mar 29, 2000 - View this thread