Lifeboat Foundation

A moderate geomagnetic storm kicked up in Earth’s skies Friday morning (April 20), bringing green and rare electric-blue auroras that stretched as far south as Indiana.

The space-weather news site Spaceweather.com reported that an “interplanetary shock wave” hit Earth’s magnetic field at about 3:50 a.m. EDT (2350 on April 19 GMT), quadrupling the intensity of the flow of particles streaming from the sun toward Earth, called the solar wind. The incoming wave of material resulted in a G2-level, or moderate, geomagnetic storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). These types of storms can cause power grid fluctuations and have some impact on radio communications. [See Spectacular Photos of Auroras from Space]

And they also cause enhanced auroras. This storm led to auroras possibly reaching through Canada and as far south as New York, Wisconsin and Washington state in the U.S., the SWPC said.

Continue reading “‘Interplanetary Shock Wave’ Spawns Electric-Blue Auroras” »

The new results obtained with GIRAFFE on the VLT seem to show that collisions and merging are important in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Here, such a collision is shown in this artist’s impression.

Tour the ISS to catch up with the astronauts and hear their testimonials about what it feels like to watch Earth from space every day.

The National Geographic Channel has one major treat coming up for its viewers, reports Space.com.

Continue reading “See The First-Ever 3D Virtual Reality Film Shot In Space, Courtesy Of National Geographic [Video]” »

Meet the startup hoping to colonise the final frontier, one zero-gravity 3D printer at a time.

Olivia Solon

The Senate just made a non-scientist head of NASA.

And, in addition to these heavy hitters, there are quite a few other companies offering tourists a chance to reach space, too. Some are farther along in development than others, and there are always reasons to be skeptical when talking about space tourism. We’ve seen plenty of similar ventures come and go over the years without making it to space. But we choose to remain optimistic. Here are the most recent commercial space programs that would love to take you out of this world—for a price.

An illustration of what the interior of Orion Span’s Aurora Station might look like.

UNSW scientists in collaboration with European scientists demonstrated that the “DNA”, or spectra, of more than 340,000 stars in the Milky Way could aid them to search the siblings of the Sun, now scattered across the sky.

Scientists actually are working on project GALAH, the survey observations for the ambitious galactic archaeology project- which launched in late 2013 as part of a quest to uncover the formulation and evolution of galaxies. Scientists gathered the data from HERMES spectrograph at the Australian Astronomical Observatory’s (AAO) 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope near Coonabarabran in NSW to collect spectra for the 340,000 stars.

The data shows that how the Universe went from having just hydrogen and helium soon after the Big Bang to being loaded with every one of the components show now on Earth that is fundamental forever.

Y Combinator announces the first wave of support for biotech startups working on aging.

Earlier this year, the Y Combinator (YC) community showed interest in supporting biotechnology focused on healthspan and age-related disease. The YC community is an influential part of the Bay Area technology-focused industry in California. It was great to hear that it was planning to support biotech startups working on aging through its YC Bio program.

The first area we’re going to focus on is healthspan and age-related disease—we think there’s an enormous opportunity to help people live healthier for longer, and that it could be one of the best ways to address our healthcare crisis.

Continue reading “YC Bio Providing Lab Space for Biotech Startups Working on Aging” »

In the new Netflix series ‘Lost in Space’, the Robinson family land on an unknown planet described as a ‘Goldilocks planet’ by both Maureen Robinson and one of the show’s writers, Burk Sharpless. The term ‘Goldilocks planet’ refers to planets in the ‘habitable zone’ of their solar system.