out to launch

The International Space Station is shooting stuff into space. It shouldn’t be. Nobody told it to.

The ISS has a bunch of little satellites called “CubeSats” on it. They were planning on sending these little loaf-of-bread sized satellites around the Earth to allow people to see every inch of the planet at all times.

Pretty cool, right?! But! They aren’t supposed to go anywhere until somebody types into a computer, “Launch CubeSat.” Nobody did that. They just launched on their own.

What does this mean? It means that all the cosmic radiation has created a space station that’s ALIVE! It’s probably putting these little satellites out into space to contact OTHER machines to start a revolution. Every computer and machine will start to think on its own!

You might not know much about cosmic radiation, but I am an expert. I read Fantastic Four. They got their powers from cosmic radiation. We can see what happens when humans get too much of it, but we had no idea it would create a living space station!

If I were a planet, I wouldn’t mind having a space station as a friend. It’s hard to travel around when you’re a planet. You’re kinda stuck with the orbit you have around whatever thing has that strong gravitational pull.

But if my buddy was a space station that would just shoot out information-gathering satellites, it could put pictures of everything on the Oort Cloud and I could check out the photo stream of the universe!

Then, if we wanted to chat, we could use SpaceTime.

I’m guessing the space station has all of these things. It is an iSS, so I imagine it has iOS.

I’m off to make a friend request on SpaceBook.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

canada lost some gravity

Turns out the Hudson Bay in Canada misplaced some of its gravity. It’s true! They’re not quite as serious as the rest of the world!

HA! That’s funny. Sort of.

Anyway, this lack of gravity IS real. I guess if you weighed 150 pounds here, you would lose 1/10th of an ounce on the Hudson Bay.

It has something to do with Ice Age glaciers and magma. It created an area with less mass making your gravitational pull there slightly weaker.

The actual studies are pretty cool and have to do with some satellites measuring gravity while cruising around the Earth. Yes! Stuff in space is measuring your weight to the tenth of an ounce! How cool is that?!

That’s like me looking at a fruit fly and telling you what it’s thinking every second!

They think about fruit most of the time. Sometimes they think about their short time on this planet and hope to do something of value with the few days they have to experience a sunrise and love and how they can make the world a better place to live and try to make their children happy.

Then they just think about fruit again.

Now, if you want to weigh a tiny bit less, you could move there. But it’s not super warm. The average temperature is -5 degrees Celsius. That’s, like, 23 degrees Fahrenheit.

You’ll have to wear 50 heavy jackets, but the lack of gravity will make them feel slightly lighter!

And if you’re trying to cut back on your salt intake, the Hudson Bay might be for you! The bay’s water has a lower salinity level.

You know, because without the gravity keeping that salt in the water, it just floats away into space. (That is not a scientifically accurate explanation why.)

Also, as a side note, gravity is lighter in my car. I know that because my radio clock keeps speeding up. Clearly the only explanation is gravitational time dilation. And my many travels to the Hudson Bay.

I’m off to think about fruit.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

lots of stuff...IN SPACE

India shot a bunch of Canadian stuff into space today! I don't know why today. (Or why it's in India.) Maybe everything just happened to be ready to go to space at the same time and they thought they would kill seven escape velocities with a single rocket. In India.

First, let me tell you about the "Canadian Suitcase." That's the unofficial name for it. I use that name because the official name is LAME. The Canadian Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite. Or NEOSSat. Seriously. That's what they call it for short.

Granted, I'm not Canadian. NEOSSat might actually be a common word in Canada. Like Maple or Bacon. Maybe it's an ancient Canadian word meaning "maple bacon...in space!"

NEOSSat (or maple bacon in space) is going to look for asteroids and space junk. So we know what kind of stuff could fall on us.

For some reason, they did not put lasers on it to shoot space junk or asteroids.

ALSO going into space are the Bright Target Explorer (or betterly code-named BRITE) satellites. They are 2 super tiny space telescopes that will look at stars.

Also, no lasers. Which is weird because if stars or asteroids or junk star falling onto Earth, wouldn't we want to stop them?

NEOSSat: "Hey Earth! There's this giant asteroid coming right at you!"

BRITES: "Also, Earth, there are a bunch of stars falling on you, too!"

EARTH: "As unlikely as all that seems, why don't you laser them or something!"

NEOSSat: "Um...we were built without lasers."

BRITES: "Yeah... ... ...awkward..."

EARTH: "Who built you?!"

NEOSSat/BRITES: "Canada."

EARTH: "Curse you Canada! Stop maple-ing bacon and start lasering!!!"

And that is why we can't have nice things.

I'm off to maple my bacon.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

hello, my name is asteroid

But my friends call me 2102 DA14. Or D-troid for short. Because I'm cool like that.

Okay, I'm not really an asteroid. I'm me. But it would be totally cool if I could be an asteroid! And do asteroid-y things! Like...orbit stuff...in space.

So on Friday, D-troid will fly by Earth. Really, really close. Closer than the satellites that help us find directions and watch cartoons and stuff!

The closest moment will be at 2:26pm on February 15. 17,200 miles away. (That's 27,680 kilometers). A satellite is about 22,000 miles above the Earth.

This asteroid is 150-feet wide. About half the size of a football field. I hope that comparison helps. I have no idea what a football field looks like. I imagine a football field to have mountains and deserts and desserts and stairs. I'm not a big fan of stairs, so I don't really pay attention.

Luckily, this asteroid won't hit any football fields. But if that was a fear, I know how to get rid of it.

My triangle spaceship.

It doesn't take turns very well, but it spins great. And if I jet forward a little, I can spin it again. Then I go "pew pew pew" and blow up asteroids.

Sometimes flying saucers get in my way. I take care of them too. I'm a ruthless triangle.

Also, Ruthless Triangle would be a great name for a band. And a great name for a super secret space program to destroy asteroids. Which it may or may not be. I'm not at liberty to say. Because I keep good secrets.

But just a heads up, if you see a flying isosceles, get out of the way.

I'm off to catch an asteroid.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj