When I was a kid, a friend of mine and I decided to build a raft out of Popsicle sticks and glue a LEGO guy to it. Then we set it free in a nearby creek. It was awesome. Now, many years later, two Canadian teenagers did basically the same thing, except they sent their LEGO minifig into the far reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere using only equipment found on Craigslist. To boot, they filmed the whole journey, POV-style. My Popsicle stick raft is suddenly even lamer than it was to begin with.

This all too brief time lapse video from the International Space Station shows our home planet with storms sparking over Africa. It’s a breathtaking, if humbling, view, made all the more so by the enormous Milky Way galaxy rising behind Earth. Just a little reminder of how staggeringly huge and beautiful the universe is and how small we are.

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..

Despite being one of the brightest objects in the night sky and one of the largest, most complex construction projects in the history of humanity, these pictures of the International Space Station crossing in front of the moon give a remarkable perspective. The photos, taken by a NASA photographer at the Johnson Spaceflight Center, are a sobering reminder that while we’ve come a long way with space travel, we’re still tiny specks compared to the big ol’ universe. See more pictures, after the break.

NASA’s Hubble captured this shot of the star-forming region, Sharpless 2-106, which happens to look pretty similar to a snow angel. NASA explains that twin lobes of super-hot gas stretch outward from the central star, creating what looks like snow angel wings. Even space is telling you to have a happy holiday season, so do it. You don’t want to let space down, do you?

NASA’s Kepler has found the first earth-sized planets orbiting a star outside of our solar system. Unfortunately for extraterrestrial life enthusiasts, the planets are too close to the star, so they are not in the star’s habitable zone. Dubbed Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, the planets are in located a distance from the star that liquid water could not exist on their respective surfaces, however, the planets set a record for being the smallest exoplanets found orbiting a star similar to our sun.

This spectacular view of Saturn’s moon Titan, and its little sister Dione, was captured this week by NASA’s Cassini probe. Assembled by photographer Jason Major, the image shows off the ethereal glow of Titan’s super-thick atmosphere. Space is so cool, guys.

A few months back, two fans of popular horse micturition beer Natural Light (aka Natty Light) realized that to date, no beer had been sent into space. After pitching their idea to the Natty Light brewery, the pair put together a weather balloon spacecraft that would carry a can of their favorite brew to new heights. Unfortunately, it worked and now Natty Light is the first beer in space. With thousands of years of brewing history, this is what we decide to send into space? People, this is like putting Andrew W.K. on the Voyager record. We can do better, I believe in us.

Astronomers have discovered a strange new “species,” so to speak, of galaxy. Using the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA astronomers discovered four of these ultra-red galaxies. Though they are able to describe the members of this type of galaxy, they are unable to explain what makes them so red in color.

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, called Curiosity, blasted off today from Cape Canaveral, FL atop an Atlas V rocket on its way to Mars. The ambitious mission will place the most advanced space rover yet conceived on the red planet, in hopes of discerning whether Mars has ever been home to microbial life. Following today’s successful 10 AM launch, the rover will cruise to Mars arriving in August 2012.

See video of this morning’s launch, after the break.