This is a nickel-iron meteorite, although not the one that was stolen. Or so we would have you believe.

Rogers Phillips is missing a meteorite. Phillips is the owner of The Dinosaur Place, a nature activity center and store in Oakdale, Connecticut. It looks like someone walked off with the 30 lb. nickel-iron meteorite, priced at $2,200.

Phillips says they’ve experienced shoplifting before, but typically the items are toys and other small items, rather than heavy chunks of minerals from outer space.

The question on everyone’s mind is: WTF? Why steal something like this? It’s valuable, but it’s going to be difficult to find a buyer. And it’s not like it’s a gold necklace or something. If you melt it down, you get a bunch of nickel and iron. While those elements aren’t worthless, they probably wouldn’t provide you with enough cash to justify the energy used in smuggling a 30 lb. rock out under your sweater.

Phillips has stated that he doesn’t believe it to be a case of employee theft. He’s got more valuable stuff on premises, like a a tusk valued at more than $20,000 and a 100-pound meteorite valued at $7,500.

The Spirit rover. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Mars rovers are still chugging along on the red planet. The missions, originally planned to be about 90 days, have in fact lasted longer than a single term presidency. To put it another way, Opportunity and Spirit have been on Mars longer than the subjective time one would experience watching a single Michael Bey movie.

Both of the rovers are showing the signs of age, but after five straight years trundling around an alien planet this is to be expected. New Frontier News owned a car built in the United States once, and it broke down in only three years.

Some sources say this breakdown occurred because of New Frontier News’ habit of feeding it candy by way of the gas tank, but we prefer to believe it was because the car had been designed and built by a short-sighted, profit driven American car company, rather than by NASA.

Could NASA build a better car than Detroit? According to prominent NASA scientist and nerd defender Melvin G. Punymeyer*, the answer is an emphatic and teutonically accented yes.

Melvin G. Punymeyer, prominent NASA scientist.

“Yah, we would totally ROCK at making cars,” said Dr. Punymeyer in an exclusive interview with New Frontier News.** “Each one would come equipped with detachable SRBs and a laser cannon. We at NASA have been waiting for the President to ask about them, but so far he’s been busy.”

For more information – oh, who are we kidding? For ANY information on the Mars Rovers, please visit nasa.gov/rovers.

*Please God, don’t let there be an actual NASA scientist named this or New Frontier News could be in real trouble. Thanking you in advance, despite never having worshipped or believed in you in anyway, your pal, New Frontier News.

**It’s difficult for other news outlets to get interviews with people we’ve made up. We bet this is how WorldNutDaily does it.

In addition to talking about the new Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) that will be going to the ISS aboard Discovery, Colbert also congratulated NASA on the organization’s many scientific achievements over the past year:

“Dramatic pictures of Cassini, finding water on mars, and your dramatic discovery of finding an administration that believes in science,” said the host of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. He also encouraged NASA to launch a probe to discover if there’s oil in heaven.

Stephen Colbert encouraged his viewers to submit his name as a write-in candidate after NASA asked members of the public to give their input into what the new module of the ISS would be named. Although denied the honor of having a module with his name on it, Colbert did have the aforementioned treadmill named after him, and also the nifty mission patch shown at right.

We have pieces on spacecraft, spectacular amateur imaging, talking to aliens, software used in space missions, light pollution, space elevators, asteroids, cosmology and space squirrels, just to name a few. There is something for everyone. So come on in…

Click here to read the whole awesome thing.

While you’re there, make sure to check out Mike Simonsen’s piece on Sex in Space. It’s not part of the Carnival, but it’s still a great article. Here’s a direct link.

Isn't this pretty? It may have killed a bunch of very nice aliens. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park et al.; Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS

As regular readers of New Frontier News know, outer space is essentially large stretches of nothing studded with beautiful things that are trying to kill you. This is especially true in the case of stars.

All forms of stellar phenomena are impressive, but for many of us the most mind boggling are supernovas. This is because regular novas are boring and hypernovas are trying too hard. Also, supernovas make gold. Really. All gold, anywhere, was born in the flaming heart of a supernova.

Below you’ll find some of the most dazzlingly beautiful (and deadly) pieces of eye candy humanity has ever found.

As always with astronomical images featured on New Frontier News, please click to embiggen.

Supernova Survivor

This artist’s depiction shows a double star system. The star on the left is a red supergiant that’s making boom boom, after having transferred about 10 solar masses of hydrogen to its blue companion. The blue star was the first supernova survivor ever found.

Image Credit: European Space Agency and Justyn R. Maund (University of Cambridge)

Kepler’s Remnant

This is a composite image compiled by three space telescopes; Chandra (X-rays), Hubble (visible light), and Spitzer (infrared). There’s actually some history behind this image. Four hundred years ago, astronomer Johannes Kepler got the living crap surprised out of him by a new star in the sky. The telescope hadn’t been invented yet, so Kepler and his astronomer buddies had to observe it with the naked eye, and were deprived of the awesome power and beauty we see below. In your face, Kepler! Telescopes were invented about four years later, but they still wouldn’t have shown Kepler anything like the image below.

Image Credit: R. Sankrit and W. Blair, ESA, NASA.

Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant

The Crab Nebula is all that’s left of a massive star that blew up about 7,500 years ago. The light from that explosion showed up on Earth in 1054 AD, and was noted by Chinese astronomers. They also didn’t have telescopes (please see above re: Kepler, getting in the face of).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Gehrz (University of Minnesota)

Stellar Debris in the Large Magellanic Cloud

This is a composite image of debris left by the explosion of a supernova remnant called N49. It’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the smaller galaxies that hang around our galaxy in the hopes that this will make them look cool. N49 has the distinction of being the brightest supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, at least as far as visible light is concerned.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/S.K ulkarni et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H. Chu & R.Williams et al.; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R.G ehrz et al.

Cygnus Loop Supernova Blast Wave

This shows a small part of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant. It’s essentially the leading edge of an expanding blast wave from a supernova that occurred about 15,000 years ago which marks the edge of a bubble-like, expanding blast wave.

Image Credit: NASA, J.J. Hester Arizona State University

The Big Ring

This is supernova remnant SNR0103-72.6, observed by the Chanda X-ray Observatory. That ring around the edge is about 150 light-years in diameter. This explosion occurred about 200,000 years ago, or 194,000 earlier than the date creationists give for the Garden of Eden’s Grand Opening.

Image Credit: NASA

Thanks for reading, and remember: Just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it isn’t deadly.

The new propellant also had its own TV show from 1976 to 1985.

NASA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) have announced that they have successfully launched a small rocket using a propellant made up of aluminum powder and water ice.

The fuel, called ALICE, is environmentally-friendly. According to the same NASA press release that we got that last bit from, it’s also safe. Presumably NASA means that it’s safe when  compared with other rocket fuels. You probably still shouldn’t try to eat it.

NASA’s Chief Engineer was quick to give part of the credit to crazy college kids.

“This collaboration has been an opportunity for graduate students to work on an environmentally-friendly propellant that can be used for flight on Earth and used in long distance space missions,” said NASA Chief Engineer Mike Ryschkewitsch at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These sorts of university-led experimental projects encourage a new generation of aerospace engineers to think outside of the box and look at new ways for NASA to meet our exploration goals.”

A nine-foot ALICE fueled rocket reached 1,300 feet over Purdue University’s Scholer farms in Indiana earlier this month. Not exactly orbital, but please remember that we’re talking about ground up aluminum and water here.

NASA says this propellant is generating excitement among researchers because it could potentially replace some liquid or solid propellants, and may even provide higher performance after additional development.

“By funding this collaborative research with NASA, Purdue University and the Pennsylvania State University, AFOSR continues to promote basic research breakthroughs for the future of the Air Force,” said Dr. Brendan Godfrey, director of AFOSR.

ALICE has a high burn rate and achieved a maximum thrust of 650 pounds during this test.

“A sustained collaborative research effort on the fundamentals of the combustion of nanoscale aluminum and water over the last few years led to the success of this flight,” said Dr. Steven F. Son, a research team member from Purdue. “ALICE can be improved with the addition of oxidizers and become a potential solid rocket propellant on Earth. Theoretically, ALICE can be manufactured in distant places like the moon or Mars, instead of being transported to distant locations at high cost.”

Manned missions must either carry fuel for the return journey, or use a previously prepared cache. So far, every manned mission has carried the needed fuel along for the ride. Space agencies generally consider it bad public relations to send highly-trained astronauts on suicide missions, although it wouldn’t surprise New Frontier News at all if China started doing it.

Could asteroidal space cows have played a role in the evolution of our solar system? The answer will shock and bore you!

Could asteroids in fact be giant space cows? The answer is yes, at least according to one solar physicist. This assumes that you take his words wildly out of context, which of course is exactly what New Frontier News has done.

Dr. Ian O’Neill produces Discovery Space for the Discovery Channel. In a recent post, he put forward the concept that groups of asteroids can in fact be compared to a herd of cattle. In Dr. O’Neill’s own words: “I’d call them a herd. Asteroids kinda look like overweight cattle.”

From Discovery Space:

Our understanding about how the planets in the Solar System evolved has just taken a huge leap forward with a new paper published in the journal, Icarus.

According to current theories, the dusty proto-planetary disk surrounding the sun during Solar System evolution spawned the accretion of small rocky bodies that gradually clumped together to form larger and larger asteroids. These asteroids then gradually swept up debris from the disk, eventually forming planetary bodies.

But there’s a problem, the accreting asteroids would have dropped out of solar orbit due to drag caused by the dust and gas in the sun’s accretion disk. So how did the material that makes up the asteroids and planets in our Solar System avoid being eaten by the sun?

You can read the rest at the link below. New Frontier News highly recommends that you do so. It’s really interesting stuff about how the solar system evolved into its current state.

Warning! This link leads to actual science information written by an actual scientist. Proceed only if you are prepared to run the horrible risk of learning something.

Despite appearances to the contrary, this is not a butt plug. It is an original Almaz awaiting renovation. Image Credit: Excalibur Almaz.

A new company, Excalibur Almaz, is planning to fly commercial passengers into space starting in 2013. The company plans to fly right to low earth orbit, putting the company way ahead of other services starting around the same time that will only carry passengers on sub-orbital flights.

This is good news for fans of private space exploration, but the really, really, REALLY good news for space fanatics involves the ships the company plans to use. The same craft originally formed the backbone of the Soviet Union’s secret orbiting death machine program. Seriously.

Excalibur Almaz has acquired several Reusable Return Vehicles that were initially designed to service the secret Almaz space stations in the 1970s.

These were military stations, and some reports state that at least one of them was armed with a high speed 23mm aviation cannon. Cosmonauts would aim the gun by rotating the entire station.

The cannon was apparently even fired once. Since the gun wasn’t aimed at anything in particular, the chances are the shell is still going. The shell isn’t experiencing atmospheric drag or friction (it’s in space, stupid) so presumably it won’t stop until it eventually hits something.

See? Big difference.

In other words, the former Soviet Union may have inadvertently fired the opening salvo in an interstellar war. Don’t be surprised if some very angry aliens show up in a few thousand years demanding to know why we’re shooting at them.

Excalibur Almaz won’t be arming its ships. This is a major disappointment to those people who are only interested in space exploration if something shoots lasers and then blows up. The vehicles will actually be used to further private space exploration efforts.

“With this announcement, the dream of private orbital space exploration may become a reality in the very near future,” said veteran Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov. Titov is one of several space veterans working as an advisor to Excalibur Almaz. Others include NASA’s Leroy Chiao and Franklin Chang-Diaz.

The ships themselves are pretty cool, despite looking perilously similar to enormous flying butt plugs. The vehicles carry three people or about 500 kilograms of cargo. They’re designed to stay in space for at least a week, and are reusable.

Paying your way into orbit currently costs about $30 million. Excalibur Almaz has not announced how much flights will cost once the service starts. The company has detailed plans to update the ships with modern technology.

The updates will likely help in lining up customers. Very few people want to fly around the hideously deadly environment of outer space in a vehicle that was almost old enough to vote around the time New Frontier News started high school.

Excalibur Almaz plans for its spacecraft to be compatible with a number of different launch vehicles. This will give the company the capability to launch from sites around the world. The ships consist of two parts; the reusable vehicle and an expendable service module.

Buzz Aldrin. Image Credit: NASA

Buzz Aldrin will accept an Emmy award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences this Saturday at the Emmy Engineering Awards.

Aldrin is famous as both the second man on the Moon and probably the gazillionth person to want to punch moon landing denier Bart Sibrel in the face. The difference is that Buzz Aldrin follows through.

Aldrin will be accepting the Philo T. Farnsworth award on behalf of NASA. The award recognizes an agency, company or institution whose contributions affected the state of TV technology and engineering.

The award itself is named for the man who invented television, and was rewarded with neither fame nor money.

Philo T. Farnsworth

The award is going to NASA for innovations that allowed the Apollo crew’s live TV broadcast from the moon.

For those of you who are moon landing conspiracy theorists, please assume that the award is being given for convincing millions of people to lie consistently for 40 straight years.

News of the planned launch has angered neighboring North Korea, ruled by local supervillain Kim Jong Il, whose own recent rocket launch drew denunciations and sanctions from the United Nations.

North Korea’s official news agency (motto: If You Didn’t Hear it Here, You Will Be Shot) released a statement via Twitter saying that launch would be closely watched to see if it draws the same sanctions as North Korea.

That’s right, not only does North Korea’s official news service use Twitter, it uses it to unleash sour grapes.

Experts (in the case, expert can be defined as anyone with two or more functioning brain cells) agree that South Korea is unlikely to receive the same sanctions as North Korea, for the following reasons:

1.    South Korea’s space program has been developed in an open and transparent way, under codified international agreements.

2.    North Korea doesn’t roll that way.

North Korea’s launch involved a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, which puts the country in violation of previous strictures laid down by the United Nations.

The official line from supervillain controlled North Korea is that this rocket worked just fine, and there is now a North Korean communications satellite in orbit.

The official line in the rest of the world is that North Korea is blatantly lying, and the rocket and payload are currently resting comfortably on the bottom of the ocean.