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5 Mayan Apocalypse Myths Debunked – Yahoo! News
On Friday, Dec. 21, some say, the Mayan apocalypse will arrive and the world will end. Fortunately, it won’t.
A bold claim, we know, but if it’s good enough for NASA, it’s good enough for us. The space agency has already issued a press release dated Dec. 22 entitled “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday.”
The Mayan apocalypse predictions arise from a misunderstanding of the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar, which wraps up a 400-year cycle called a b’ak’tun on Dec. 21, 2012, the day of the winter solstice. This just so happens to be the 13th b’ak’tun in the calendar, a benchmark the Maya would have seen as a full cycle of creation.
Did you catch that? Cycle. In other words, the Maya had a cyclical view of time and would not have seen the end of their calendar cycle as the end of the world. It wasn’t until Westerners began reinterpreting the calendar in the past couple decades that it got its apocalyptic overtones.
Mayan apocalypse rumors have proliferated on the Internet, running the gamut from beliefs that Dec. 21 will bring a new era of peace and universal understanding to predictions of a devastating astronomical event. We’re all in favor of world peace, but we’re here to put your fears to rest about the likelihood of planetary annihilation. Read on for five common Mayan apocalypse fears and why they won’t come true.
via 5 Mayan Apocalypse Myths Debunked – Yahoo! News.
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SpaceX Launch: Private Spacecraft Puts Star Trek’s Scotty’s Ashes Into Space | Technology | Sky News
US company SpaceX has become the first commercial organisation to send its own spacecraft toward the International Space Station with the launch of the cargo-bearing Dragon capsule.
On board the flight are the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played engineer Scotty in Star Trek. He died in 2005.
His remains, along with Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and more than 300 other hardcore space fans, are to be dispatched into the final frontier.The remains are held in a container with lipstick-tube-sized canisters and, if all goes as planned, the container should spend the next year or so circling Earth as an orbital space memorial before it is pulled back into the atmosphere and incinerated.
The test flight – which should include a fly-by and berthing with the station in the coming days – aims to show that private industry can restore US access to the ISS after Nasa retired its space shuttle fleet last year.
No humans are travelling on the Dragon, but six astronauts are already at the $100bn £63bn space lab to help the capsule latch on, to unload supplies and then restock the capsule with cargo to take back to Earth.
The mission was delayed on Saturday because of a faulty engine valve in the rocket’s main engine – that was repaired on the same day.
California-based SpaceX, owned by billionaire Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, is the first of several US competitors to try sending spacecraft to the ISS with the goal of restoring US access to space for human travellers by 2015.
Until now, only the space agencies of Russia, Japan and Europe have been able to send supply ships to the ISS.
The three-decade US shuttle programme, which ferried astronauts and cargo to the research outpost, ended for good in 2011, leaving Russia as the sole taxi to the ISS until private industry comes up with a replacement.
via SpaceX Launch: Private Spacecraft Puts Star Trek’s Scotty’s Ashes Into Space | Technology | Sky News.
Strange Random Space Quote:
Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards. – Sir Fred Hoyle
Related articles
- Confirmed: SpaceX Dragon Ferried ‘Scotty’s’ Remains Into Space (mashable.com)
- Yes, ashes of Star Trek’s Scotty really are in space (seattlepi.com)
- SpaceX Dragon makes International Space Station fly-by (slashgear.com)
- SpaceX Has Beamed Scotty Up to Orbit [Star Trek] (gizmodo.com)
- Ashes Of James Doohan, ‘Scotty’ From Star Trek, Sent Into Orbit (outsidethebeltway.com)
- SpaceX Scores High PR Marks (odwyerpr.com)
- Scotty Has Been Beamed Up (lezgetreal.com)
- BEAMED UP: Star Trek’s Scotty Reaches Outerspace Aboard First Private Spacecraft To Visit Space Station (geekologie.com)
- SpaceX Falcon rocket carried the dead when it launched (slashgear.com)
- SpaceX Has Beamed Scotty Up to Orbit (gizmodo.co.uk)
Kepler telescope team finds 11 new solar systems | TECHNOLOGY News
NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has found 11 new planetary systems, including one with five planets all orbiting closer to their parent star than Mercury circles the Sun, scientists say.
The discoveries boost the list of confirmed extra-solar planets to 729, including 60 credited to the Kepler team. The telescope, launched in space in March 2009, can detect slight but regular dips in the amount of light coming from stars. Scientists can then determine if the changes are caused by orbiting planets passing by, relative to Kepler’s view.
Kepler scientists have another 2,300 candidate planets awaiting additional confirmation.
None of the newly discovered planetary systems are like our solar system, though Kepler-33, a star that is older and bigger than the Sun, comes close in terms of sheer numbers. It has five planets, compared to our solar system’s eight, but the quintet all fly closer to their parent star than Mercury orbits the Sun.
The planets range in size from about 1.5 times the diameter of Earth to five times Earth’s diameter. Scientists have not yet determined if any are solid rocky bodies like Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury or if they are filled with gas like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
via Kepler telescope team finds 11 new solar systems | TECHNOLOGY News.
Strange Random Planet Quuote:
“The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.” – Galileo Galilei
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- NASA’s Kepler telescope finds 26 new planets (taholtorf.wordpress.com)
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- Kepler telescope finds 11 new planetary systems, one has five planets (slashgear.com)
- Nasa’s Keplar telescope discovers 11 new planetary systems (telegraph.co.uk)
- NASA finds 11 new solar systems (revolutionizingawareness.com)
- Kepler hits jackpot, discovers 26 new planets and 11 new star systems (inquisitr.com)
- NASA mission piles on the planets (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
- NASA Finds 11 New Planetary Systems (myfoxny.com)
- NASA’s Kepler mission finds 26 new planets (cbc.ca)
- NASA Finds 11 New Planetary Systems (myfoxphoenix.com)
Rich Guys Have No Luck in Space – Deal Journal – WSJ
Image via CrunchBase
If you want to be the richest guy in the universe, apparently you need to shoot a rocket into orbit just to make sure there are no Martians with more money than you.
Some of the terrestrial world’s wealthiest men, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos have backed newfangled private spacecraft. Sometimes these efforts end about as well as the crew’s trip in “2001.” A sample:
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com rich guy
As our colleague Andy Pasztor just brought you, an unnamed spaceship funded by the billionaire Amazon founder suffered a major failure during a recent test flight. Bezos’s privately funded Blue Origin was awarded NASA money earmarked for new efforts to support manned spaceflights.
via Rich Guys Have No Luck in Space – Deal Journal – WSJ.
Strange Random Space Quote:
“That intelligent creatures exist in outerspace is proven by the fact that they have not contacted us.” – Loesje (Dutch Fictional character “Active and International girl”, b.1983)
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- Blue Origin Spaceship Crash of the Day (geeks.thedailywh.at)
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- Jeff Bezos’ spaceship fails during test flight (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Rich Guys’ Forays Into Space Haven’t Always Been Stellar (blogs.wsj.com)
- Unmanned Spaceship Funded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos Misfires (foxnews.com)
- Blue Origin’s experimental rocket ship crashes (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
- Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!! (fountainabbey.wordpress.com)
- Jeff Bezos’ spaceship fails during test flight (sfgate.com)
Saturn in a spaceship
IMAX IN A BASEMENT
Not-for-profit animated IMAX film in early production by a single filmmaker. Visit the site to make a tax-deductible contribution to support the film. I hope to present this clip at the international IMAX show (GSCA Expo) next month.
I’m very excited to present the first test from “Outside In” that actually represents real footage in progress from the film. Camera moves are still being tweaked and this is cropped version as IMAX-sized stuff does not play well online. But thanks to the new version of Adobe After Effects, “Outside In” can be made as I have always envisioned.
Strange Random Space Quote:
To go places and do things that have never been done before – that’s what living is all about.— Michael Collins, flew on Gemini 10 and Apollo 11.
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- Amazing Saturn photos made into an IMAX movie (geek.com)
- Amazing Video of Saturn Made from Cassini Images (techeblog.com)
- [Video] Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation (edugeek.net)
- “Mars Needs Moms” – Film Clip “No Broccoli” (hollywoodnews.com)
- Lego Spaceship Designs From A to Z (wired.com)
- The Saturn Fly-By (science.slashdot.org)
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