geekosystem

NASA has a plan to wrangle an asteroid and park it in lunar orbit, or as we've come to know it -- the plan to to give the Moon a moon. One step in that plan is to send astronauts into space to visit the Moon's moon, and to do that, they'll need the Orion space capsule. To kickstart the mission, NASA has set an inaugural launch date for the Orion of September 2014, and they've been working double shifts to meet that goal. Why the rush? It might be that the whole plan could get scrapped if the proposed NASA budget doesn't get approved.

We're probably the last people that you'd expect to be excited for a film set in the universe of World of Warcraft, but that's the position we find ourselves in now. The movie, Warcraft, is supposed to be a live-action version that takes on Blizzard's franchise, but video game movies are notoriously awful. We've been burned before. That's not to mention the fact that the Warcraft mythos is sprawling and any slight miscalculation on the film's part will be seen as a travesty. Even so, it's been revealed that Duncan Jones, director of sci-fi darling Moon, will be at the helm, and that's left us cautiously optimistic.

One of 2012's oddest and most interesting ideas in space exploration may be getting a renewed lease on life in 2013. According to New Scientist, NASA is "mulling over" a proposal by researchers at the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) to give the moon a moon of its own. The idea, which would see NASA snag an asteroid from deeper in space and tow it back to the moon, where it would take up orbit around the Earth's only natural satellite, has apparently made it far enough to be considered for funding in NASA's next round of budgeting, and all we can say is "Oh, my yes."

The twin probes that gave us that detailed map of the Moon's gravity have precious few hours left to live. Tomorrow at approximately 5:28pm (EST) the two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar probes known as Ebb and Flow will crash into the side of a mountain near the Moon's north pole. NASA scientists will be livestreaming and carefully monitoring the event, presumably so they can make sure the impact near the lunar north pole doesn't hurt Moon Santa.

A pair of twin spacecraft from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission have completed a new map showing the Moon's gravity in unprecedented details. The new map is now the most detailed map of the gravity of any celestial body. The new data could help scientists understand how the Earth and other planets form. If we're lucky, it could also lead to revolutionary new moon bounces at parties, or at least safer moon bounces. Okay, maybe not, but it's still neat.

Cross country road trips and voyages to outer space have at least one thing in common -- bringing along baggage is a hassle. Researchers working to minimize the cargo that space travelers will need to carry in the future are, quite naturally, looking to 3D printing as a solution. After all, why bring a tool box along when you can just print the contents of one as needed? A team of materials scientists at Washington State University is taking that tactic a step further, though, using material found in moon rocks in a 3D printer -- an advance that could one day mean that if you need a screwdriver on the moon, you can scoop up a handful of dust and print one at a moment's notice.

The Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA has released a new animation of the Moon going through its phases for the year 2013. New data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has made it possible to render the simulation with a new level of detail, and the result is just gorgeous. NASA set the video to Rossini's "String Sonata No. 3 in C Major," but we've found syncing it up to Dark Side of the Moon works nicely, too.

Set your alarms, because this is something for which it is worth waking up early. The Leonid Meteor Shower is making its annual return appearance this weekend. The shower has actually already started, but the best time to see it is tomorrow morning in the hours before dawn. With an average of 15 to 20 meteors per hour,the Leonids are always an impressive site. We'd say they're worth standing outside in the chilly morn with your pajamas on.

Earth's unusually large, close moon is pretty key to life on the planet, governing the regular tide cycles that may have been necessary to set the stage for the first life in the planet's oceans, but its origin has been the subject of a number of competing theories. The leading explanation also happens to be the most awesome one -- that a planetoid about the size of Mars smashed into the Earth some four and a half billion years ago, dashing off a chunk of the still developing planet that hung around as the natural satellite we know and love. That theory moved a long way toward validation today with the finding that Moon rocks show chemical signatures consistent with being exposed to an explosion that was literally Earth-shattering.

Researchers from the University of Tennessee have found proof for the theory that water present on the surface of the Moon is the product of solar winds. This work not only shows that other teams have been on the right track, but suggests that large, planet like bodies such as asteroids could also house water created by the same process, in which solar winds carry charged hydrogen particles millions of miles to bond with oxygen particles, producing water molecules in unexpected places.

Ignoring the conspiracy theories about whether we landed on the Moon at all, the team behind the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, received the most questions prior to launch about the Apollo landing sites. What would we be able to see? Would we be able to see the American flags? As it turns out, yes. Detailed analysis of the images returned from the LROC has confirmed that the flags planted by most of Apollo missions are still standing where they were erected.

That's right, folks! Everyone's favorite trans-Neptunian object has a new moon! I'm not talking about the Stephenie Meyer book, here; I'm talking about a newly-discovered moon known as P5 orbiting that icy far away ex-planet. Chalk another one up to the Hubble Space Telescope for the discovery of Pluto's fifth moon.

From Sebastian Errazuriz, these bowls are designed with detailed depictions of the Moon and Earth. They don't come with the cute little astronaut and ship, but then they wouldn't be very efficient bowls. Rather than just unobtainable art, you can purchase these bowls for $25 a pop over at Kikkerland Design. Check out the Earth bowl and another angle of the Moon bowl, after the break.

For $99, Sky & Telescope is offering what they're calling the "first entirely new globe of the Moon's surface in over 40 years." The globe has a 12-inch diameter, and sports 850 labeled locations. What makes this globe special is that it is derived from over 15,000 pictures taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera from November 2009 to February 2011, whereas other Moon globes are created via the Air Force's Lunar Astronautical Charts. There was a lot Adobe Illustrator involved in piecing the 15,000 LROC pictures into place.

NASA's GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), which we've been following, has provided its first video of the far side of the moon. You know, the part we can't normally see and Hollywood blockbusters like to sling spaceships around when they need a boost. This isn't the first video of that side of the moon, but GRAIL's first, so keep in mind you're not witnessing impressive history, but you're witnessing something pretty cool in its own right regardless. The video, taken with the GRAIL's MoonKAM, shows the North Pole to the South Pole, and shows us that all of the secret alien bases hidden on the other side of the moon aren't there, or at the very least, packed up and went below the moon's surface until the MoonKAM stopped trying to record them.