Exoplanets!

From David Brin's FB feed, I present the top ten most Intriguing Exoplanets. We are finding planets outside the solar system all the time these days. You can not believe how excited this makes my inner nerd. Exoplanets are vitally important to make 90% of science fiction real. I believe XKCD captures my feelings best:

Today's Moment of Awesome

I'm so happy.

Oh Man

I always thought of the Mars Spirit Rover as the little robot that could, but XKCD's take on it almost made me cry:



You are home, little guy.

You are home.

First Question

Does it have floating mountains or giant, sexy, blue cat-people?

This is now the first question we must ask whenever they find a new planet these days.

These new planets feature a surface temperature of of 2,00 degrees, so I'm going to guess no lush jungles here.

Shoot.

Keep looking!

Russia to Deflect Asteroid

Sure, the odds of this particulate asteroid hitting the earth so this is kinda a waste of time and money, but this how awesome Russia is going to feel when they do this. They totally kicked that asteroid's ass. So much better than say, invading a neighboring Country, which is something that Russia is always a threat to do.

I'm a big advocate of space exploration. The benefits are many, but one is that it gives you all the excitement and hard-ons of war, without all the death.

Spoils of War

Remember when we went to war with the moon last month? Turns out we found water with that little bombardment stunt. Lots of water.

Ho-Hum

Science marches on. These day we discover new extra-solar planets all the time. 32 new ones announced today. Woo!

We need something fresh to liven these discoveries up. We need a earth sized planet! With green stuff on it!

Need a better telescope.

Space Exploration Porn

50 years of space exploration on one map.

Via

NASA Verse The Moon

Last time we went to collect rocks and play golf, but this time

THIS MEANS WAR!

And Only 20 Light-Years Away!

see more Political Pictures

We found an earth-sized planet! Time to start packing!

2/3 Cool

Stephen Colbert now has his name on a room of the international space station. Do not open up your Internet poll to write-in answers, that's just asking for trouble. Sadly, #2 choice was Serenity, which would have been great.

Good Luck Buddy

The Kepler space telescope, whose mission is to find Earth-like planets in other Solar Systems, launches in March. For some of my most beloved scifi dreams to come true, it is vitally important that Kepler succeed. Specifically, in order for us to colonize worlds outside our Solar System, the first thing we have to do is find such worlds. We've been able to to spot big gas giants, but nothing Earth-like. To do all the really cool space stuff – colonize a planet, discover alien life, make contact with an alien civilization, fight an interstellar war - we need Earth-like worlds.

So good luck to Kepler. May you see true.

All I want for Christmas

Is a Space Shuttle.

The Space Vote

Cool. I look forward to the day that people living in orbit or on Mars constitute a entire voting constituency of themselves.

Well Bob, Chelsey Clinton has been running strong all night with the orbital vote, but George P Bush has been making up ground in the Marian polar regions.

I've been saying for a lunar month it was a mistake for Chelsey to come out so strongly in favor of death-ray control. They love their death-rays on Mars. All those roving mutants to worry about.

And speaking of lunar, let's go to a live report from a polling place at the Sea of Tranquility...

VIA

Most Important Mission

Space Shuttle Discovery is at the International Space Station;

Discovery carried Japan's prized Kibo lab, a 37-foot-long, 16-ton scientific workshop. The seven shuttle astronauts and three station residents will combine forces to install the bus-size lab on Tuesday.

The shuttle crew also brought a spare toilet pump for the orbiting outpost. The space station's Russian-built toilet broke nearly two weeks ago -- forcing the crew to perform manual flushes with extra water several times a day -- and engineers hope the new pump will take care of the problem.

Japanese Laboratory module: 1 Billion Dollars
Working toilet: Priceless.

Seriously, how much does a thing-a-ma-bob cost anyway. And how highly trained, educated and skilled is the astronaut that is currently works as a glorious plumber?

At least its a space toilet. Everything is

Shuttle Launch

Night Launch, Very Cool:

Oooooooo

I want pictures. I want video.

If we just spent a billion dollars on this just to prove we could, I want my money's worth.

Show me the show.

Oooooo, Fireworks

The Navy is going to try and shoot down an out-of-control spy satellite.

The reason is ether to keep its payload of hazardous rocket fuel from killing us all

or

Maybe there is a secret reason. A dark secret reason.

Ether way, very cool.

No Heroes

Not shocking - The Director of the FBI testified that the Attorney General lied to Congress. The fact that this isn't shocking pretty much proves how far Gonzales has fallen.

I am pretty shocked at this report from NASA which includes accusations that astronauts were drunk before flying.

Put together with new information that Pat Tillman may have been deliberately killed by other American soldiers and I pretty sure no heroes will emerge intact from the Bush era.

Con -Alt-Del

Reboot?

That can't be good.