Awesome Space

The 16mm footage that astronauts shot on the moon back in the early 1970s was only 12 frames per second, resulting in jittery images. Using modern technology, Dutch Steam Machine interpolated frames to 60 frames per second, resulting in smooth video that’s likely more representative of what the astronauts saw.

We all learned the positions of the planets from some chart on the wall in grade school. But as CGP Grey reminds us, planets rotate in elliptical orbits at varying speeds around the sun, meaning that the answer isn’t quite as simple as you thought – depending on the question you’re actually asking.

As NASA engineers work on the Space Launch System (SLS) it will use for its Artemis lunar missions, they must perform extreme tests to determine its structural limits. In this short video, they intentionally squeezed this liquid oxygen tank with millions of pounds of force until it burst, sending water everywhere.

Since 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has captured more than 425 million images of the Sun, with a still recorded once every 0.75 seconds. By grabbing one of these pictures from each hour, this time-lapse video condenses 10 years of footage down to just 61 minutes. Put on your sunglasses, sit back, and relax.

After seeing the Disney flick The Black Hole, we already were pretty cautious about visiting such an astrophysics phenomenon. But this clip from NASA Goddard provides significantly more scientific reasons you’d never want to get close to one.

Obsessed with a legend about a woman who lives on the moon, a young girl becomes determined to build her own rocket to prove that the myth is true. The trailer for this upcoming animated film gives away too much, but our curiosity is piqued. From award-winning filmmaker Glen Keane. Coming to Netflix Fall 2020.

Calling occupants of Planet Earth! This fun kit lets you build a pixelated 3D model of our globe using 1338 tiny bricks. The resulting planet is small enough to fit in the palm of your hands, and will look great sitting on your desk or bookshelf. Just don’t let the dog get ahold of it, or you’ll have a tiny armageddon on your hands.

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are frequent occurrences on the Sun. Some have been known to disrupt radio waves, but could they actually cause damage? Kurzgesagt stares directly into the Sun to educate us on solar storms, why they occur, and if a strong enough super storm could actually wipe out civilization.

Filmmaker Seán Doran poured through mountains of images and data captured by the HiRISE camera system on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to create this incredibly detailed black-and-white rendering of the planet’s surface, showing off details of Mars’ cratered and rocky surface like we’ve never seen it before.

This upcoming MMO invites players around the globe to build and explore a shared, persistent, and fully-editable universe. You can craft structures and spaceships, and buy, sell, and trade creations. Beyond its civilization-building, players can participate in space combat ranging from one-on-one dogfights to massive battles.

Put the moon in the palm of your hand with Shire Post Mint’s lovely lunar memento. Each coin features engraved detail of the near and far sides of the moon, struck into solid 999 fine silver. Available in 1″ (.25 troy oz.) and 1.5″ (1 troy oz.) sizes. Why can’t real currency look this awesome?

We used to play with those see-through water-powered rockets. Now, Haze Gray Art envisions what the Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Falcon Heavy, and the Space Launch System might look like if you could see inside of their fuel tanks during lift-off. The red is RP-1 kerosene, the orange is liquid hydrogen, and the blue is liquid oxygen.

Science fiction movies love to depict all sorts of nasty consequences of being sucked out into space. But what would really happen if you managed to slip out of your spaceship without a spacesuit on? The Infographics Show does their best to explain the unpleasant repercussions.

Dr. James O’Donoghue posts all kinds of informative motion graphics on his YouTube channel. Here, he stacked slices of the Solar System’s planets to show how their rotational speeds vary. You can view it flat, or projected onto a sphere. He’s also got a version that accounts for for differences in rotational direction.

We all know that science fiction takes its share of liberties with its depiction of what life is like in space. In this clip from Vanity Fair, astronaut Chris Hadfield shares his thoughts on what movies like Gravity, Armageddon, The Martian, and Interstellar got right and wrong.

Want a cool replica of the moon for your desk? Check out this clip from How to, who shows us how you can use a plastic sphere, candle wax, sandpaper, and paint to cast and sculpt a nifty, textured lunar model. We suppose if you stuck a wick in it, you could make a moon candle.

At the end of November 2019, NASA’s Curiosity rover captured a series of over 1,000 images which were used to create its highest-resolution panorama of Mars yet. The telephoto version without the rover in the image has over 1.8 Billion pixels for you to zoom in on, while the medium angle one with the rover has 650 million pixels.

This kit lets you view the night sky not with one eye, but two, for sharper, brighter, and more comfortable stargazing. It can be ordered as plans only, optics and hardware only, as a BYO 3D printing kit, or a kit with pre-printed parts. In 2022, they’ll also open source the build plans. There’s also a large, assembled model, but it’s much pricier.

Using data captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA was able to replicate the view that Apollo 13 astronauts saw on the far side of the moon back in 1970, but in razor-sharp 4K resolution. There are a variety of views depicted, including the trajectory of the astronauts as they came around the moon.

Amateur philosopher and space enthusiast exurb1a reminisces about the history of lunar exploration, from the Apollo missions through NASA’s plans to return to the moon in the 21st century. Along the way, you’ll learn a thing or two about the moon’s origins, its relationship to Earth, and more.

The earth gets pelted by small meteorites on a regular basis, but bigger bits of asteroids breaking through are far less common. MetaBallStudios does their best to give us a sense just how big some of these space rocks can be, standing them besides the skyscrapers of NYC for comparison.

Luxury electronics maker Bang & Olufsen presents a special edition of its Beoplay A9 living room speaker. Designed in collaboration with pop artist Daniel Arsham, this model takes advantage of its circular shape, replacing the solid color face with an image inspired by the artist’s cratered blue moon globe.

As Charlotte peers out into space from her observatory, she sees what can only be described as a literal black hole. As it approaches the Earth, she dives in and experiences a new perspective on her home planet. A wonderfully imaginative short film by animator Marlies van der Wel with music by Pieter de Graaf.