Draw Every Day January 28, 2012: The Astronaut and the iPod

I love my bag of astronauts! For this drawing, I pulled one out of the bag with a flag and put it on my desk in front of my iPod Nano.  Ironic, since, they share the same country of origin.  Funny how the American flag the astronaut holds is all torn up (it does have 13 stripes, however--I counted!).

Draw Every Day for January 13, 2012: Space Capsule in Ink

I bought a bag of astronauts when I was at the AMNH last month and this old skool space capsule came included along with some moon buggies.

Science is Cool: Earth got its oceans delivered.

Holy crap this is cool--from NASA.gov:

Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth's surface ended up covered in water.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth's oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.

Science is so damn cool.  So now we think we have an understanding of how our oceans were created.  They were delivered by comets.  We've always understood that this was possible, but seeing a comet with the exact same chemical composition as our oceans is as close to proof as I think we'll ever get.

That makes me wonder if the same impact(s) that likely brought us our oceans also ejected the moon into orbit.  It also makes me think about the potential for more surprises to be delivered by Comet Express.  Who knows what else could end up on our doorstep?  If oceans were delivered once, anything is possible.  Hell, there have been theories for years that life, itself, was deposited here via cosmic-object-impact.

Science is awesome.

Download NASA Sound Clips and Ringtones!

Our tax dollars at work! But don't blame NASA. I'm sure they would spend our taxes on going to Mars if the government would give them enough money instead of paying for wars all the time. Meanwhile we can show our love for the space program by using these cool sound clips as ringtones and computer sound FX. We're all nerds, here, right?

Go here:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/sounds/index.html

Biggest Gadget in Space has Power Supply Issues

What's the worst thing that could happen aboard a space station? Try running out of power. OK, that's maybe not the worst thing, but it's pretty damn bad. While the power hasn't cut out entirely on the International Space Station, NYTimes.com reported a while back that the station's power system has been damaged.