Earth in HD!

NASA just released it's latest "blue marble" photo of the entire earth. Since this is 2010, it was significantly more detailed than all the other "blue marble" photos of the planet they have released. If you're wondering what that means, I can't help you but I can only assume that means photos of the entire freakin' planet.

This is the latest photo released by NASA, put together through a montage of high detail photos.

Pretty cool eh? And it's a significant improvement over the world famous Apollo 17 photo of basically the same thing.

Yep things just look cooler in high def.

Chile earthquake shifted the Earth's Axis... yep we're screwed

Yep, that Chile earthquake was one of the most intense in human history. And it shifted the Earth's axis. Wow.

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update.

The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds). 

Anytime you can shift the Earth's axis by three inches... you just got to do it right? It looks like we're on pace for a 2012 end of the world scenario. Hooray!

Apparently we've avoided ecological disaster

According to NASA and their super-awesome computer simulations, had we not cut CFC gasses in air conditionals and spray cans 22 years ago, we'd be screwed as a human race.

NASA atmospheric scientist Paul Newman said the answer is a "bizarre world."

By 2065, two-thirds of the protective ozone layer would have vanished and "the ozone hole covers the Earth." And the CFCs, which are long-lived potent greenhouse gases, would have pushed the world's temperature up an extra 4 degrees.

In mid-latitudes like Washington, DNA-damaging ultraviolet radiation would have increased more than sixfold. Just 5 minutes in the summer sunshine would have caused a sunburn, instead of 15. Typical midsummer UV levels, now around 10 or 11, would have soared to 30. Summer thunderstorms in the Northern Hemisphere would have been much stronger.

"It is a real horrible place," Newman told The Associated Press.

No word yet on if getting rid of big hair bands helped any too, but I'm pretty sure that if they hadn't run Vanilla Ice out of the music scene we'd be all in hell right now.

Space Crap and the joy it brings

Apparently we've been pretty messy roommates in the universe. There are hundreds of satellites cruising around the Earth, along with 10,000 items of space debris.

Everytime we sent a ship up into space that had a stage-separation or retro-rocket or something that detached... well it's still up there floating around.

And now things are starting to hit one another.

A commercial satellite owned by a U.S. company was destroyed in a collision with a defunct Russian military satellite in what NASA said was the first such accident in orbit, raising new concerns about the dangers of space debris.

The crash, which happened Tuesday in low-earth orbit, involved one of the satellites owned by closely held Iridium Satellite LLC and a crippled Russian military satellite that apparently stopped functioning years ago, according to U.S. government and satellite-industry officials.

The collision created two large clouds of debris floating roughly 480 miles above Siberia, and prompted space scientists and engineers to assess the likelihood of further collisions.

Considering how much money it takes to get these satellites into orbit, we've got to be worried about the junk we have flying around here. This can officially be classified as our first "Space-accident." Apparently, the Russians forgot to signal.

And now keep in mind that these are two satellites, and the possibility of something important hitting space debris is much more possible because apparently we treat outer space like the front of our 1/8 acre trailerhouse parcel.

Also, orbits generally deteriorate over years and this stuff ends up falling out of orbit and into the atmosphere. However, there are probably items big enough to make it through re-entry. Not 10,000 but there's probably a large amount of junk that could fall back onto the planet.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to move my car so that a Stage 4 Saturn Booster doesn't land on my car.