Picture of the Day: from the good people at Nasa

Via: nasa.gov

This photo shows the power of image post-processing. It also shows that we are a tiny speck of nothingness in the middle of a very fiery cosmic fluff. Enjoy the famous M-51 galaxy, like you have never seen it before.



Click on the image to see it in high definition.

Scientists have digitally reprocessed data from the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys to get this new view of the NGC 5194—the 51st object in Charles Messier's catalog—which is considered "the original spiral nebula." According to NASA, "the processing has further sharpened details and enhanced color and contrast in otherwise faint areas, bringing out dust lanes and extended streams that cross the small companion, along with features in the surroundings and core of M51 itself." The results are amazing, and the battle between 60,000-light-year-wide NGC 5194 and its companion NGC 5195 have never been so crisp and beautiful before.

Nasa: world will not end in 2012

Via: telegraph.co.uk



A Nasa scientist has condemned film producers over a viral marketing campaign that suggests the world will come to an end in 2012. Sony Pictures set up a website for an organisation called the Institute for Human Continuity which predicts a cataclysmic denouement for Earth three years from now. It suggests that "after two decades of rigorous research from the world's top astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, physicists, engineers, futurists, we know that in 2012 a series of cataclysmic forces will wreak havoc on our planet".

In fact, the website is a vehicle for promoting 2012 - a disaster movie about the end of the world based on predictions in the Mayan calendar. It stars John Cusack and is directed by Roland Emmerich, who was behind the blockbusters Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. The film will include scenes of a tsunami washing an aircraft carrier into the White House and Los Angeles falling into the sea.

According to the website scientists have been tracking a previously unknown Planet X which is on the edge of the solar system and on a collision course with Earth. But the site has been so successful that hundreds of people have been convinced that something terrible is about to befall the planet. Dr David Morrison, a senior scientist at Nasa's Astrobiology Institute, said he had received more than 1,000 inquiries from worried members of the public.

That included teenagers saying they would rather commit suicide than witness the world end. Dr Morrison said the website was "ethically wrong". But Vikki Luya, Sony's publicity director said: "It is very clear that this site is connected to a fictional movie. This can readily be seen in the logos on the site."

Astronauts Drink Urine, and they love every drop (Eww)

These are the happy faces of three urine-guzzling Astronauts...

Via: MSNBC



At the international space station, it was one small sip for man and a giant gulp of recycled urine for mankind. Astronauts aboard the space station celebrated a space first on Wednesday by drinking water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water that condenses from exhaled air. They said "cheers," clicked drinking bags and toasted NASA workers on the ground who were sipping their own version of recycled drinking water.

"The taste is great," American astronaut Michael Barratt said. Russian Gennady Padalka tried to catch little bubbles of the clear water floating in front of him, Mr. Barratt called the taste "worth chasing."