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NASA's Orion crew vehicle successfully completes moon flyby
The flyby was one of two maneuvers needed for Orion to enter its retrograde orbit around the Moon, with the second one scheduled for Friday.
Watch NASA's Orion capsule pass 80 miles from the moon starting at 7:15 AM
NASA's Artemis I mission will hit a key milestone today as the Orion capsule makes its "outbound powered flyby" of the Moon, getting as close as 80 miles to the surface.
European astronauts plan to take pics of a comet from the dawn of time
The European Space Agency (ESA) hopes to photograph a yet-to-be-discovered comet as it approaches Earth's orbit for the first time. To do so, it's developing "Comet Interceptor," a composite made of three individual spacecraft, which will separate to snap photos of the comet from multiple perspectives. The photos will be used to create a 3D model, and ESA hopes to spot material from the dawn of the Solar System.
ICYMI: The best space, drone and car tech of the year
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-377507{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-377507, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-377507{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-377507").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: We are rounding up our very favorite transportation stories since launching ICYMI in June and it wouldn't be us if we didn't talk about NASA taking applications for astronauts again. Couple that with NASA's Pluto fly-by this year and it's clear that the space agency is on the upswing.
Asteroid making surprise flyby at an 'unusually high' velocity
A newly discovered asteroid (not pictured) will make Halloween more thrilling by passing within 1.3 lunar distances (310,000 miles) of Earth. The object, which measures between 300 and 600 meters (1,000 and 2,000 feet) across, was discovered last week by the asteroid-hunting Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii, according to NASA. It'll streak by on October 31st at an "unusually" high encounter velocity of 35 km/s, or around 78,000 mph. By contrast, the Russian meteorite caught by vehicle cameras in 2013 was 17 meters (55 feet) across and traveled at a top speed of 19 km/s, while the one that flattened a Russian forest in 1908 measured 40 meters (130 feet).
Cassini takes close-up pictures of Saturnian moon's north pole
Yes, the image above shows the cratered surface of a moon, but it's not ours -- it's Saturn's ice-covered satellite, Enceladus. NASA has received the first batch of photos Cassini captured during its flyby close to the celestial body's north pole on October 14th. This is the first time we've seen that part of Enceladus up close, as it always seemed to be engulfed in wintry darkness those previous times the spacecraft passed by. Apparently, NASA expected its surface to be heavily cratered based on the low-res images taken by Voyager decades ago. While it turns out that it is indeed cratered, we now know that it's also covered in cobwebby cracks. "These thin cracks are ubiquitous on Enceladus," Cassini imaging team member Paul Helfenstein said, "and now we see that they extend across the northern terrains as well."
App lets you attach digital messages to real-world objects... for fun?
For those who don't know, Project Tango is a Google-built prototype smartphone jam packed with Kinect-like 3D sensors and components. One of Mountain View's software partners involved in the project, FlyBy Media, has built what it's calling the first consumer app capable of utilizing Tango's image recognition skills to... chat with friends. Dubbed FlyBy, the app allows users to share text and videos messages by attaching them to a real-world object; like a menu at your favorite restaurant or collectible from your honeymoon. Recipients are notified once they're in close proximity, then they need only to scan said object and voila, message received. While the concept isn't new -- or popular... yet -- the company believes that this time people will catch on. Just think of it as geocaching your conversations. That could be fun, right?
Creature Feature: The Tiny Twister, ruiner of the bench
Not all wild battle pets spawn by the same rules. Finding the pet you want may be more involved than making a cursory flyover of a zone while watching your minimap. Some wild pets only spawn during certain weather conditions. Some wild pets share spawns with full-fledged mobs. Today's pet, the Tiny Twister, is the latter sort ... maybe. The Tiny Twister is an Elemental-type pet that can be found in the Arathi Highlands. The curious thing about this pet is that players aren't completely sure how its spawn works. There are three different common beliefs about its spawning: It shares its spawn with the Thundering Exiles in the area, so you must kill them for a chance at a Tiny Twister spawn It shares its spawn with any other type of wild pet in the area, so you must eliminate those for a chance at a Tiny Twister spawn Only X number of Tiny Twisters can spawn in a given length of time, so all you can do is wait There is more evidence for that second option than any other, but without the ability to see the coding behind its spawns, we can't be too sure in any direction. In any case, killing the Thundering Exiles and eliminating other wild pets in the area would be a good way to pass the time while waiting for a Tiny Twister to spawn, so it doesn't matter which theory is correct, in any case. Engaging in all of the above applies in one way or another. All of that being said, if you rush out to Arathi Highlands immediately after a server reset, you'll find the place absolutely littered with these little guys and will have no problem catching one whatsoever.
