50,000 year-old 1200-meter squarish Meteor Crater in Arizona USA, created by the ~10 megaton blast of a ~300,000 ton meteor colliding at high speed

This is why sailors always carry a hatchet

The Solar Orbiter, launching is 2020.

The Solar Orbiter, launching is 2020.

The “flint” is ferrocerium, a pyrophoric alloy that spontaneously catches fire when fragmented in air.

The “flint” is ferrocerium, a pyrophoric alloy that spontaneously catches fire when fragmented in air.

NASA’s colorized visualization of supersonic shock waves

NASA’s colorized visualization of supersonic shock waves

Pics from the Juno probe at Jupiter

Pics from the Juno probe at Jupiter

Comparing size: dwarves, moons, and rocky planets.

Lightning! Notice the slow forking “leaders” before the main strike. Most lightning is intra- or inter-cloud; some is ground-to-cloud.

The Vostok “Sharik” descent capsule—a simple but effective cannonball design—that returned Yuri Gargarin and others from the earliest orbital spaceflights. The cosmonaut was ejected at 7,000 meters to parachute to earth; thus some have criticized the...

The Vostok “Sharik” descent capsule—a simple but effective cannonball design—that returned Yuri Gargarin and others from the earliest orbital spaceflights. The cosmonaut was ejected at 7,000 meters to parachute to earth; thus some have criticized the Soviet claim to first man—and woman, on the final flight, Vostok 6—in space.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will achieve a heliocentric velocity of 200 km/s (nearly 500,000 mph) and skim just 6.0 million km (3.7 million miles) above the Sun’s surface, far closer than Mercury. It will endure 1400° C behind an innovative...

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will achieve a heliocentric velocity of 200 km/s (nearly 500,000 mph) and skim just 6.0 million km (3.7 million miles) above the Sun’s surface, far closer than Mercury. It will endure 1400° C behind an innovative carbon-fiber heat shield. In the mission’s two dozen passes through 2025, flybys of Venus will decelerate it to bring its perihelion closer to the Sun. Scheduled for launch July 31, 2018 on a Delta IV Heavy. More details.

Human geometries viewed from space.