probes
Science
NASA Moon Bombing Mission May Have Worked Out After All
5:00AM Jack Loftus | So that anticlimactic moon bombing NASA attempted the other day may have kicked up a little dust after all. More »
Science
China’s Chang’e 1 Probe Beams Back Completed Map of The Moon
3:30PM Elaine Chow | With help from its moon photographing probe, the Chang’e 1, China’s created the country’s first full map of the lunar surface and they’re calling it the best one yet. According to the heads of the space program, the map is the most complete image of the moon’s surface, as well as the richest in detail, in the world. More »
Science
Cassini Probe To Be Used to Look For Life on Saturn Moon
9:29PM Kit Eaton | NASA is considering re-purposing its successful Cassini-Huygens probe to do something that it wasn’t designed for, but is nonetheless amazing: searching for signs of life on Saturns frozen moon Enceladus. Back in July 2005 Cassini observed a huge plume of ice particles and water vapour shooting from the tiny moon, suggesting the possibility that there’s a liquid ocean hiding beneath its surface. More »
Science
Nasa IBEX Probe to Go Where Only Voyager Has Gone Before
10:40PM Jack Loftus | On October 19, NASA will launch the IBEX, or Interstellar Boundary Explorer, into a 210km earth orbit to begin mapping the very edge of our solar system. This region of space, also known by the kick arse scientific name “termination shock,” is rife with mystery. Only the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft have ventured there, but they weren’t armed with the right kind of tech to adequately catalog what’s going on at the point where our solar system meets outer space. IBEX is, and from its orbit around our planet it will beam back some of the first detailed measurements of the region. More »
Science
NASA Envisions Robot Future That’s More Wall-E Than Phoenix Lander
3:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | When the Mars Phoenix Lander touched down on the Martian soil, discovered water ice and microbe-friendly acidic alkaline soil last month, it was quite a feat–for a human-controlled robot. But what if the robots sent to distant worlds could think for themselves, a la Wall-E and his Apple-esque main squeeze, EVE? NASA’s betting on it, and has actually already started work on a “tier-scalable reconnaissance” program that would see armies of small probes exploring the outer reaches of our solar system with minimal human intervention, if any at all. Of course, such self-sufficient robots wouldn’t be as cute as Wall-E–they’d actually be large hivemind dirigibles controlling an army of autonomous planet-side probes (think: Rush Limbaugh’s radio program)–but nevertheless, the possibility for intergalactic robot love stories has never been closer to reality. More »
Weapons
Study Finds That One-Third Of Taser Victims Need Medical Attention
6:30AM Sean Fallon | Only days after Taser International was found liable in a wrongful death suit, a new study conducted by CBC News/Radio-Canada and the Canadian Press have concluded that one in three people shot by a Taser require medical attention. The information was gathered from RCMP incident reports filed between 2002 and 2007. Of the 3,226 tasings laid down during that period, 910 of the victims went to a medical facility to treat their injuries–and many more potentially serious cases did not seek treatment.
Science
NASA Preparing to Fire Solar System’s Unluckiest Probe Ever Into the Sun
3:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | Believe it or not, humanity has never fired a probe directly into the Sun. By 2015, NASA hopes to check that interstellar bucket list item with Solar Probe+ (pronounced Solar Probe plus), a heat-resistant spacecraft “designed to plunge deep into the sun’s atmosphere where it can sample solar wind and magnetism first hand.” At first the mission sounds like a tough break for the little probe, especially as its older cousins play in a sandbox and tool around Saturn, but once you dig a bit deeper there’s actually quite a bit left to learn about our parent star’s lingering mysteries. More »
Science
First Time Jitters Cause Inaugural Mars Lander Load To Miss Target
1:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | Our favourite Martian gadget of the moment is experiencing some performance anxiety. While all of Phoenix’s parts are working just fine, including the 8-foot scoop arm, the little guy just couldn’t seal the deal when NASA scientists gave the green light to scoop dirt and put the bun in the oven. None of the inaugural sample made it into the first oven, you see, and scientists at the University of Arizona are scrambling today to find out why.
Science
