Awesome Space

Filmmaker Seán Doran processed about a week’s worth of data captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory to create this awe-inspiring UHD video of the Sun’s activity. Max out the resolution, go full screen, dim the lights, and crank up the audio for a truly hypnotic journey to our Solar System’s number one life-giver.

We recently took a tour of a room painted in the world’s blackest paint. DipYourCar applied the same Musou Black paint to a car. The paint absorbs 99.4% of visible light, resulting in a strikingly dark background for a shimmering starfield effect they created with by spraying it with thinner and their HyperShift pearl coat.

Want a real coloring challenge? Grab this book which features 35 amazing full-color images captured by NASA, side-by-side with coloring outlines based on the photos. Add a set of two-tone space colored pencils and you’ve got a great gift for any astronomy fan.

(LOUD) Enjoy some rocketry goodness as Japan’s Interstellar Technologies, shows off a static test of one of their rockets. The ethanol/LOX-powered engine cranks out 12 Kilonewtons of thrust, which sounds like a lot until you realize the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters produced more than 25,000 Kilonewtons of thrust.

Dreipunkt’s flat-pack wood kit lets you build your own orbital model of the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon. As you move its lever, each astronomical body rotates relative to the others, as an arrow indicates the date on which they take up those positions. From Laserdeko, who has all kinds of nifty laser-cut stuff for sale.

Launching a rocket to the Moon isn’t quite as simple as just going straight up and into the sky. Exploring Space provides a great layperson’s explanation of the mechanics at play, starting with an orbit around Earth, a gradual transition to the Moon’s orbit, and descent to the lunar surface. Lear more about orbital mechanics here.

Pretty much every living thing on our planet depends on the sun in one way or another. But what might happen if the Earth didn’t have our solar system to count on and was left out on its own? Kurzgesagt explores the horrible things that might happen to us if a star got too close and knocked Earth out of its orbit.

The Mars Curiosity Rover has been roaming the surface of Mars since 2012. Using AI tech, Curiosityandbeyond upscaled and colorized a series of images captured by the rover over the course of a year. We can’t wait to see what kind of images and data the Perseverence Rover sends home after it lands in early 2021.

The classic NASA “worm” logo is back, and now you can own a memento of this iconic work of graphic design thanks to Register Seven. The company will produce a sweet CNC-machined version of the logo milled from 6061-T6 aluminum, then anodized in NASA red, black, or grey. Measures 7.5″ w x 2″ h x 1″ d.

Seán Doran combined images captured by astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from the ESRSU image archive to take us on a serene flight above the Southeast corner of North America, passing over Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba for a view of their blue-green waters. Want more? Watch Heaven: The Inner Sound of Outer Space.

Take a walk on the surface of the moon – without leaving your living room or bedroom. These fun circular carpets feature a printed image of the moon on a high-density Polyester fiber pile. It’s comes in sizes from 60cm (~2′) to 180cm (~5’9″), in grey or blue. Earth is also available in rug form.

We’re used to seeing our solar system illustrated in concentric rings. This helps us to understand their positions, but this animation by Dr. James O’Donoghue provides a different perspective, showing the relative sizes, rotational speeds, and axial tilts of everything from the dwarf planet Ceres to our mighty Sun.

Add a little space to your desk with this playful astronaut lamp from Paladone. The tiny moon man takes his spacewalk at the end of an adjustable gooseneck, as he floats above the lunar textured base below. Runs on USB or 3 AAA batteries, so it’s definitely just an accent light.

NASA scientists took images captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other telescopes and turned them into music. The soothing sounds you will hear represent the brightness and positions of the stars as the cursor moves across the image using a technique known as “data sonification.” Learn more about the proect here.

Science education channel Kurzgesagt teamed up with storytellers Wait But Why to create their first official mobile app, an interactive plaything that lets you view the relative size of things in the universe. Swipe left to zoom in. Swipe right to zoom out. Then tap on objects for fun facts about them. Available on iOS and Android.

If you think our galaxy’s sun is big, wait ’til you get a load of Kurzgesagt’s latest science video, which explores the universe in search of the biggest, brightest, densest, and most energetic stars. Along the way, you’ll learn how a star’s age can influence its size dramatically.

SpaceX shared this sped-up footage of its Falcon 9 rocket as it took its SAOCOM 1B satellite payload into polar orbit, then returned its first stage safely to Earth. It’s worth watching if only for the rhythmic sounds that the thrusters make as they pulse on and off.

Inspired by the planet with the strongest magnetic field in our solar system, ZIIRO’s Jupiter watch displays hours and minutes on a pair of tiny ball bearings. They’re set into hydraulically-pressed trenches, set beneath a convex crystal. Its case is made from sandblasted stainless steel, accompanied by a Milanese mesh strap.

Nominal is a unique pen with a design inspired by the retractable legs on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Each pen is made from 34 individual components, and is available in aluminum or stainless steel. A magnetic “crew cabin” slides off to reveal a black mother of pearl end cap, which can be monogrammed for a small fee.

Many of the rarest and most precious materials used here on Earth comes from some form of mining. But might there be a better way to harvest these without depleting and polluting our home planet? Kurzgesagt explores the potential for mining a nearly endless supply of resources from lifeless asteroids.

Hillary Swank stars in this Netflix series about the first astronauts to journey from the Earth to Mars, and the impact it has on their personal lives and families during their 3-year mission. From the creator of “Friday Night Lights.” Premieres 9.4.2020.

Despite its two tragic missions, with 135 launches to its credit, the Space Shuttle was arguably the most successful space program of all time. 3D animator Jared Owen explains how shuttle missions worked, along with an in-depth look at the orbiter, where astronauts spent their time throughout their journeys.

Among its projects, SpaceX is working on Starship, a rocket which may someday help colonize Mars. In this test of Starship’s can-shaped SN5 test vehicle, the rocket launched from one pad, hovered at 500 feet, then landed on another, a process which could allow for quick exploration of distant sites across the red planet.