Death Star was an inside job: a Loose Change parody

Death Star was an inside job: a Loose Change parody:

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Spocko sez, "Brilliant, and well made parody of the 9/11 video 'Loose Change.'
It points out all the 'coincidences' in the destruction of the Death Star. Was it an inside job?"

An examination of some questionable events and circumstances leading up to the destruction of the Death Star, through the eyes of an amateur investigative journalist within the Star Wars galaxy. The focus is mainly on the connections between the people who created and operated the Death Star and those responsible for destroying it.

Luke's Change: an Inside Job



(Thanks, Spocko!)

Thieves Steal Entire Bridge, The Whole Bridge, For Scrap Metal

Thieves Steal Entire Bridge, The Whole Bridge, For Scrap Metal:

The days of casually crossing a creek are over if you live in the Gölçük district of Kocaeli province in western Turkey. Which maybe you don't. But the point is that someone stole a 22-ton, 82-foot-long bridge from there. It's just gone. More »

Morning star of Saturn: Cassini views Venus

Morning star of Saturn: Cassini views Venus:
Dawn on Saturn is greeted across the vastness of interplanetary space by the morning star, Venus, in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.


Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team Leader and director of CICLOPS, writes:

Every so often, our cameras on Cassini digitally record, either intentionally or incidentally, other celestial bodies besides those found around Saturn. The Cassini Imaging Team is releasing a pair of images that did just that. Venus, a lovely shining beacon of light and Earth's `twin' planet, was recently sighted amidst the glories of Saturn and its rings.

Along with Mercury, Earth, and Mars, Venus is one of the rocky "terrestrial" planets in the solar system that orbit relatively close to the sun. It has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide that reaches nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius), a surface pressure 100 times that of Earth's, and is covered in thick, white sulfuric acid clouds, making it very bright. Despite a thoroughly hellish environment that would melt lead, Venus is considered a twin of our planet because of their similar sizes, masses, rocky compositions and close orbits.

Think about Venus the next time you find yourself reveling in the thriving flora, balmy breezes, and temperate climate of a lovely day on Earth, and remember: you could be somewhere else!

View the images here.

This Lego Fortress of Solitude Should Be a Set

This Lego Fortress of Solitude Should Be a Set:

We all want to be Superman, but sadly can't be—so maybe the nearest we can get is building his pad out of Lego. At least that's what Chris Melby thought when he constructed this sensational model of the Fortress of Solitude from scratch. More »

Looking for life may be easier near dead stars

Looking for life may be easier near dead stars:

Artist's impression of an Earthlike planet orbiting around a white dwarf: the remains of a star like our Sun that has shed most of its mass.

David A. Aguilar (CfA)

When looking for signatures of life outside of the Solar System, we're hampered by a number of problems. Earth is the only place in the Universe where we know life exists, so our current best hope of success lies in looking for Earth-like worlds. However, Earth is a relatively small planet, and it's inherently difficult to locate similarly sized worlds orbiting at ideal distances from their host stars. Even if we find such a planet, we have an additional challenge: determining its atmospheric composition to see if its compatible with life as we know it.
One possible resolution: look for exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs, the remnants of stars like our Sun. The advantages of these systems would be manifold: a white dwarf is much smaller than a star, so if a planet passes between it and us, far more light is blocked. And Avi Loeb and Dan Maoz proposed that at least some signs of life might have survived the deaths of these stars. The light emitted by the white dwarf could highlight any oxygen in the exoplanet's atmosphere, which would be seen as a strong hint of life.
Individual living organisms, or even massive populations like forests and cities, will remain too small to see for the foreseeable future. However, life as we know it leaves chemical evidence. The signatures of some of these chemicals, like chlorophyll (used by plants and some bacteria in photosynthesis), are obvious; others, like methane, can be either biological or non-biological in origin.

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