Mercury's surface looks similar to our Moon's. Each is heavily cratered and made of rock. Mercury's diameter is about 4800 km, while the Moon's is slightly less at about 3500 km (compared with about 12,700 km for the Earth). But Mercury is unique in many ways. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, orbiting at about 1/3 the radius of the Earth's orbit. As Mercury slowly rotates, its surface temperature varies from an unbearably cold -180 degrees Celsius to an unbearably hot 400 degrees Celsius. The place nearest the Sun in Mercury's orbit changes slightly each orbit - a fact used by Albert Einstein to help verify the correctness of his then newly discovered theory of gravity: General Relativity. The above picture was taken by the only sp ...

Two days ago, I streamed history being made for the first time ever online, and witnessed the Philae lander's touchdown on Rosetta's comet. The journey took 10 years, 6.4 billion kms away from here, and a 7 hour long landing.

Unfortunately, it was an awkward landing where Philae landed approximately 1km away from its intended landing site that currently, one of its 3 legs is not on the surface of the comet and it itself is oriented in a way that no sufficient sunlight is being recieved enough to charge its batteries ever 12 hour rotation.


At the moment, plans to try to "hop" the robot back into a position for enough sunlight are being studied, hopefully in time to execute them before Philae dies out sometime between next Friday and Saturday. ...

I'd like to share this mind-opening video. Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer. By far, one of the best...

This reminds me... Gotta go reverse these electrons

"The ISS is the largest man made object in space. Here's how it compares to other notable objects, both real and fictional, all drawn to scale."

The ISS isn't just the largest space craft ever built, it's also the world's most expensive object. According the Government Accountability Office, it cost upwards of 100 billion dollars to complete.

Engineers are building special drones that will deliver food to your table – or home. Besides the iTray, which brings customers sushi at a Japanese restaurant in London (above), researchers have developed a 'tacocopter' and 'pizzacopter' that can traverse six kilometers in ten minutes. But don’t get your hopes up yet, there are plenty of technological barriers to overcome before drones deliver pizzas to our homes.