geekosystem

"Merger" is usually such a dull word. Companies merge. Lanes of traffic merge. But it's not all bland and boring, because large galaxies can also merge with one another to form what is scientifically referred to as a "super-giant elliptical galaxy," according to NASA -- and apparently it's happening right now. Or it did 11 billion years ago, at least. Light-years are weird, guys.

People are using 3D printing technology for all kinds of things -- even guns! Anjan Contractor thinks 3D printing can solve the world's hunger problem, and NASA is backing him with a $125,000 grant to build his food printer. Since 3D printing food requires that food to be built in layers, what better food to start with than pizza?

NASA released this image today. It shows the storm that produced the devastating F4 tornado that hit Oklahoma yesterday minutes before the tornado touched down south of Oklahoma City. The image was taken with NASA's MODIS instrument on one of their Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites. You can donate $10 to the victims of the tornado by texting REDCROSS to 90999.

If you weren't already aware, the Sun's been seeing a whole lot of action of late. Like, it's still being the Sun, but it's also putting out incredible X-class solar flares, complete with coronal mass ejections. The latter doesn't necessarily require the former, though, and that's where we find ourselves at currently. Thanks to a couple of coronal mass ejections yesterday, there's a good chance we're going to get some geomagnetic storm activity over the next few days.

With all the hubbub surrounding the landing of the Curiosity rover, folks tend to forget that it's not the only device operating on the planet. The Opportunity rover's still kicking up there, for example, and it's hauling butt to get the job done. It's been hauling so much butt, in fact, that on Thursday it broke NASA's 40-year-old record for total distance traveled on a world other than Earth.

Today at 12:00 PM EDT J.J. Abrams and the cast of Star Trek Into Darkness will have a Google Hangout with astronauts, including Chris Cassidy, one of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station who recently went on a space walk to fix an ammonia leak on the station. You can watch the whole thing right here, and we even have the details on how you can try to get a question in.

NASA had a press conference earlier today where they announced that the planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has gone into safe mode. It doesn't look great for the mission at the moment, because when engineers brought the craft back to normal mode they found one of its reaction wheels is dead. It's the second of the craft's four wheels to die, which is bad because it needs a minimum of three.

The Sun is ramping up towards its peak activity in its 11-year-cycle, and it's doing so in a big way. In one 24-hour period, the Sun has erupted with three progressively more intense X-class solar flares from the same region, each with its own coronal mass ejection. The CMEs are not heading in the direction of Earth, but could affect some spacecraft.

This week Explore Mars, Inc. has been hosting the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington D.C. and you can watch the final day of the event live right here. Agencies from around the world have come together to discuss what it would take to put humans on Mars, and today they'll be discussing how to inspire people around their goal, the policy changes that would be needed, and Buzz Aldrin will be talking about his new book on Mars at 2:00 PM EDT. The full schedule of the days events are below.

The original Star Trek shuttlecraft Galileo has found a forever home that couldn't be more fitting. After being restored by fans, the shuttle is on its way to Space Center Houston, where it will retire in the company of NASA spacecraft like the Apollo 17 command module welcoming visitors to the Johnson Space Center.

A Chinese national the government suspected of trying to smuggle NASA secrets out of the United States and back to his home country has been brought up on charges, and it's looking like things are going to go easier than anticipated for him. That's because former NASA researcher Bo Jiang's laptop wasn't full of the sensitive material that authorities thought they would find. Instead, it was full of the same things you'd expect to find on pretty much anyone's laptop -- pirated movies and pornography.

Most of us will never go to space, but that doesn't mean we can't send our names there. As part of NASA's MAVEN mission to Mars, they're asking the people of Earth to include their names on a DVD that will orbit Mars. They're also taking poetry submissions in haiku form. Go ahead and let the Universe know you exist. It's free and takes about two minutes.

1.3 billion kilometers is a great distance, but tonight consider it relatively close. That's how far away close Saturn will be to the Earth tonight. What does that mean for you? It means that with a telescope -- even a cheap one -- you can get a beautiful view of another planet that's more than 800 million miles away. Oh, you don't have a telescope? Go buy a telescope. There's still time.

The Golden Age of space exploration could get a lot sexier if the minds behind Mad Men have anything to say about it. Reports surfaced this week that writers from the acclaimed AMC drama are scouting locations along Florida's Space Coast for a show centered around NASA during the 1960s, the glory days of the Apollo program.

We love photos from space as much as the next guy, but there are some pictures we probably never need to see. Like when one of NASA's Mars rovers leaves a distinctly phallic line of tracks in the dirt, inscribing what looks for all the world like the sort of crude drawing of a penis you can see on men's room walls the world over on the face of another planet.