The moon may seem barren and boring, but each of those craters has a story, the story of an awesome space collision. Over its 4.5 billion year life, the moon has had an awful lot of those, turning it into the pockmarked celestial body we know and love today. Fortunately for you NASA’s Goddard Multimedia team has comprised this lovely little video that gives you the quick version. At a quick but impressive 2:42, it’s definitely worth a watch and sure beats staring at the sky, slack-jawed, for 4.5 billion years.

Steve Hornsby lives in Bournemouth, England, and as a former aircraft engineer he’s probably not the type to get swept up in weirdo speculation. Which is good, because after a freak hailstorm he discovered a bunch of blue, gelatinous spheres in his yard. The balls, which were little more than an inch wide, have no smell, do not dissolve in water, and aren’t particularly sticky. The one thing people don’t seem to know about them is what exactly they are, or how they got in Hornsby’s yard.

The Russian Phobos-Grunt space probe has really had a rough run of things. The craft was originally intended to land on the Martian moon Phobos and return a soil sample by 2014. Instead, Phobos-Grunt has been stuck in orbit since it was launched in early November. Today, the probe made an uncontrolled re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean just before 1:00 P.M. E.S.T..

After days of waiting, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite has finally plummeted back to Earth. Initially it seemed that the craft would complete its re-entry sometime on Friday, but new information indicated that the craft had re-orientated itself and begun to slow down. Early this morning, the space agency announced via their Twitter feed that the satellite had come down 11:23 PM and 1:09 AM today.

As with the time of re-entry, the exact location of the crash site is unknown. However, NASA believes that the craft touched down somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. That is, however, a pretty big target.

One of the biggest questions of this entire event has been where debris from the satellite may have fallen, if any came down at all. There are no reports of any space-junk finds this morning but NASA says in the unlikely event some survived the fall, it would have come down over Canada. Any Canadians in the audience with some smoldering metal debris they can’t explain?

(via @NASA, UARS Tracking)

In their ongoing effort to keep the public informed about the 6.5 ton spacecraft falling to Earth today, NASA announced via their Twitter stream that the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) probably won’t be touching down in North America. Earlier today it was reported that the spacecraft would miss North America entirely, though NASA is now saying that a change in orientation and unexpected deceleration means that it’s still a possibility, albeit a slim one.

Where the spacecraft will touch down is still an open question, though NASA is tracking the vehicle and providing frequent updates. In a series of recent tweets, the space agency dispelled some of the concerns about the falling satellite. First off, they reiterated that the odds of being struck by a piece of debris are one in several trillion. Second, NASA stated that any debris that lands is unlikely to be on fire, as objects entering the atmosphere generally stop heating 20 miles up and cool for the rest of their fall. In fact, by the time debris reaches the ground, they could be moving as slow as 30 mph. NASA also asks that if you do find a chunk of space debris that you leave it be, and contact local authorities.

With those reassurances and useful science factoids now in place, we can all sit back and wait for the UARS to make its spectacular return to Earth — expected late tonight or early tomorrow.

Updated with new information from NASA at 11:00AM.

(via @NASA, UARS tracking)

NASA’s 6.5 ton, 35-foot long Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is beginning the process of making an uncontrolled re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere. Trouble is, the space agency isn’t sure exactly where or when the satellite is coming down, but they are sure that it won’t all burn up before it hits ground.

Now, to follow up that provocative lede, it’s important to note that NASA does have some very good guesses about what the spacecraft is going to do. They’re best guess is that it should begin re-entry on September 23, give or take a day, probably over the ocean. It’s important to note that no injury has ever been caused by orbital debris under NASA’s half-century watch, but the Universe Today quotes NASA orbital debris scientist Nick Johnson as giving it 1 in 3,200 odds that any one person in the world will get hit by debris. That sounds scary until you remember to multiply that figure by a total world population of 7 billion, pushing the odds safely into the astronomical territory.

Not too long ago, United Airlines decided it would be prudent to equip its pilots with iPads. Now it seems that the Marines are following their lead. Currently, when marines call in for air-strikes, they radio coordinates to pilots who look them up. Sounds simple enough, but at the moment, these pilots usually have somewhere between 60 to 80 pounds of maps they have to go through. With the use of iPads in the field however, pilots can have less map-mass to deal with and troops on the ground can have much more map-data.

The idea has been in the works for a while now. Initially pilot, Capt. Jim Carlson, unhappy with the state of map-affairs, started messing with his personal iPad and found out that connecting pilots with ground troops was exceedingly easy. At first, higher-ups were not entirely ready to trust intel to commercial devices — despite the fact that the maps were not classified — but considering the recent purchase of $20,000 of tablets and tablet accessories, they seemed to have come around.

A Japanese study has revealed that a whopping 15% of the tiny land snail Tornatellides boeningi can survive being eaten by local birds. Great, wonderful. Lucky snails only have to endure the horrors of soaking in acid and then the indignity of being pooped out of a bird, but live to fight another day, huh? There’s more.

Scientists have wondered how micronsnails are able to spread over such huge expanses. But this study has shown the tiny critter’s ability to pass through a bird’s digestive system alive has likely played a role in spreading the snails’ population. Researcher Shinichiro Wada explains, as quoted by BBC Nature:

Biogeography of wingless terrestrial invertebrates, in particular snails, is often faced with mysterious long distance dispersal patterns that can only be explained by hand waving arguments involving birds’ feet or guts or cyclones, [...] This is the first study showing that birds can indeed transport a substantial [number of] micro land snails in their gut alive.

While dust storms might not be a new occurrence for Arizona natives, a massive one that recently descended on Phoenix has been captured in amazing video footage. The above video of the storm was captured by Mike Olbinski, who says that despite living in Phoenix for 35 years, he has never seen anything like this storm. The storm halted flights and knocked out power for more than 8,000 people as it rolled through. This type of dust storm is being described as a “haboob“, which aside from being fun to say (we’re adults, we swear), is a word of Arabic origins that means a violent and oppressive wind blowing in summer, particularly with regard to bringing sand from the desert.

(Mike Olbinski via Gizmodo)

First things first: Earth is in no danger from mass extinction, or any Holly-wood style destruction. That said, the 90 foot wide Asteroid 2011 MD will pass within 7,430 miles of our home planet. For reference, that distance is about half the diameter of the Earth, and will be the fifth-closest observed approach an asteroid has made to the Earth.

In terms of speed and orbit, 2011 MD is actually quite similar to Earth. Because of this, the space rock intercepts our planet’s orbit every 13 years or so. The close fly-by and similar speeds mean that it would be an ideal candidate for ground-based viewing, but that won’t be so likely this time around. Unfortunately, the asteroid will pass on the sunlit side of the Earth, and likely be best observed with radio telescopes.

Though tomorrow’s close encounter will lack some drama, future encounters with 2011 MD could be far more interesting.  The swing by with Earth is going to put a crimp in the asteroid’s orbit, perhaps bringing it even closer next time around. Which wouldn’t be so bad considering that the diminutive asteroid would fizzle up in the atmosphere, making for quite a spectacular show.

(via Bad Astronomy)