Video shows skydiver almost getting hit by meteorite

If you decide to go skydiving, be sure to watch out for meteorites. Anders Helstrup, member of the Oslo Parachute Club, was wearing a helmet cam that caught images of a meteorite narrowly missing his open chute. A geologist confirmed that a meteor had exploded in the atmosphere about 12.5 miles (20 km) above Helstrup and his fellow skydivers.


And, yes, this is entirely believable.

Another strange fireball in the sky, this time over Maine

Meteor? Falling space junk? Jet contrail? We may never know, but Bruce York got it on camera:

Low-res but fascinating video of Earth and moon captured by Juno spacecraft

From the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube page:

When NASA's Juno spacecraft flew past Earth on Oct. 9, 2013, it received a boost in speed of more than 8,800 mph (about 7.3 kilometer per second), which set it on course for a July 4, 2016, rendezvous with Jupiter.

One of Juno's sensors, a special kind of camera optimized to track faint stars, also had a unique view of the Earth-moon system. The result was an intriguing, low-resolution glimpse of what our world would look like to a visitor from afar.

The cameras that took the images for the movie are located near the pointed tip of one of the spacecraft's three solar-array arms. They are part of Juno's Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) and are normally used to determine the orientation of the magnetic sensors. These cameras look away from the sunlit side of the solar array, so as the spacecraft approached, the system's four cameras pointed toward Earth. Earth and the moon came into view when Juno was about 600,000 miles (966,000 kilometers) away -- about three times the Earth-moon separation.

During the flyby, timing was everything. Juno was traveling about twice as fast as a typical satellite, and the spacecraft itself was spinning at 2 rpm. To assemble a movie that wouldn't make viewers dizzy, the star tracker had to capture a frame each time the camera was facing Earth at exactly the right instant. The frames were sent to Earth, where they were processed into video format.

The music accompaniment is an original score by Vangelis.

A tribute to space helmets in cinema, set to an intriguing mash-up of The Beatles and David Bowie

Fireball sighting over U.S. East Coast [video]

Another large meteor streaked across the sky yesterday. Sightings were reported all along the East Coast.

Map: Mike Hankey/American Meteor Society

All Russian meteor videos in one place

Alexander Zaytsev, a web developer in Russia, has collected two dozen videos of the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, less than 200 miles from his home. He has posted them all here.

Video of fireball over California

While not nearly as spectacular as the meteor that exploded over Russia yesterday, the one that burned up over the San Francisco Bay area last night was still pretty impressive.

Russian meteorite: Video compilation and photos of damage

(from RT.com)

Video of massive meteor exploding over Russia

By now you've probably heard of the massive, 10-ton meteor that streaked through the sky and exploded over Russia with the force of an atomic bomb, shattering glass and injuring nearly 1,000 people. Naturally, the incident was captured on video. (Seriously, how boring would the internet be without the Russians and their video cameras?)




As impressive as that was, this meteorite was nowhere near the size of the one that exploded over Tunguska in 1908, leveling over 800 square miles of Siberian forestland.

Video of the moon swallowing Jupiter

This was the view one astronomer in Brazil had on Christmas day.

(via Slate.com)

Curiosity's interactive 360° panoramic view of Mars

If you want to see what the Curiosity rover is seeing on Mars, click here.

Curiosity rover sends back shocking photo from Mars

Proof we're not alone? You be the judge.

How to sell a house in Canada

Make sure the for sale sign includes all the important information needed to lure potential buyers.

More on this story here.

Man attacked by mountain lion, saved by bear

Nothing unusual here. Just your typical mountain-lion-bites-man-bear-bites-mountain-lion story.

iPhone Travels to Space, Falls 100,000 Feet, and Survives

This is cool. Over the span of eight months, seven year old Max Geissbuhler and his father built a spacecraft designed to carry an iPhone that would record the trip to the outer edge of Earth's atmosphere. Here is footage of that amazing trip.



So what did your kid do for his science project?

Solar Beat

For those of you into ambient music, you might enjoy chilling out to this "simple ambient musicbox, with sounds generated using the orbital frequencies of our solar system."



I wonder why Holst never thought of that.

UFO Saved Earth from Destruction?

On June 30, 1908, there was a sudden, violent explosion in the sky over the Tunguska River in Siberia. The blast, 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, leveled 830 square miles of forest.

To this day, no one knows exactly what it was. Countless possible explanations have been put forward over the decades: a meteor or comet exploding in the atmosphere, a passing black hole, a falling chunk of antimatter, a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, and the ever-popular UFO crash.

One Russian scientist takes this last theory to an entirely new level:

According to The Sun, Dr. Yuri Labvin, head of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, has found quartz slabs with strange markings that he thinks were part of a UFO control panel.

He made the discovery near the site of the so-called "Tunguska event" -- a massive and so-far unexplained explosion that devastated more than 100 square miles of Siberian forest in June 1908.

Dr Labvin claims the slabs provide evidence that a spacecraft deliberately crashed into the meteor to prevent it slamming into Earth and wiping out life on the planet.

Does Hallmark make a "Thank You" card for that?

"Good Times" with the Bordens

From the back cover:

"GOOD TIMES...with a variety of good music (from Polkas & Waltzes to Rock & Roll) have been the key to the success of the "BORDENS", a versatile family dance band, who have played in various parts of the country including Thunder Bay, Ont., Edmonton, Alta., and are now living and playing in the Northwestern Ontariou community of Dryden, Ont.

The band consists of George (accordion), wife Jeanette (Electrovox organ), son Roger showing his versatility on saxophone, guitar, and vocals, and son Gary (age 12), a talented young drummer. A nephew, Bill Dombradi on guitar, has been added to the group for this recording."

And now, without further ado, here are the Bordens performing the theme from Star Wars!



(Found here.)

"This Tang Tastes Funny..."

The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour is bound for the International Space Station on a remodeling mission:

The masterpiece of the interior improvements is without doubt the new $19 million toilet system complete with a privacy enclosure. Until now the crew have had to make use of only one toilet located in the Russian segment of the station, and that one from time to time has not worked well.

What makes the toilet even more special is that it will be hooked up to the $250 million "Regenerative ECLSS system" -- basically a complex closet-sized dehumidifier-cum-water treatment plant capable of recycling sweat and urine into clean drinking water and fresh oxygen.

"I like to refer to this whole process as a coffee machine," said shuttle astronaut and one-time station resident Pettit. "It's going to take yesterday's coffee and make it into today's coffee."

The crew won't get to test that morning java theory for at least four months while NASA makes sure It works as advertised. It's creator expects no problems.

"We did blind taste tests of the water," said NASA's Bob Bagdigian, the system's lead engineer. "Nobody had any strong objections. Other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water."

A Conspiracy Theorist's Dilemma

We finally have eyewitness testimony that the U.S. government has been covering up evidence of extraterrestrials! From the Daily Telegraph:

Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr. Edgar Mitchell -- a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission -- has stunningly claimed aliens exist.

And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions -- but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr. Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now".

Dr. Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

"I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real," Dr. Mitchell said.

Wait a minute... He claims to have walked on the moon? How are we supposed to trust a guy who is part of one of the biggest conspiracies in the history of conspiracies?

Dr. Mitchell, if you want to salvage any credibility at all, you will admit to your role in faking the moon landings, and that all the footage we saw was shot in a studio in Area 52. (Yeah, that's right. We know Area 51 is just a decoy.) Come on, Dr. Edgar Mitchell (if that is your real name). Don't you think you owe America the truth?