GeekwithEnvy

Technology

White Xbox One for Employees

by Leave a Comment

whiteXboxOne
Rumored Employee Only White Xbox One (Click for Larger Image)

There has been some buzz going around the internet about an all white Xbox One console that will be exclusively for Microsoft employees. We haven’t seen any pictures of the mythical white Xbox until now. The picture we stumbled upon was sourced back to Reddit and as near as we can tell, it looks to be legit. It’s also rumored that on the disc drive of the console “I Made This” is engraved on it.

Of course there’s no real way to know until the console comes out or if Microsoft confirms it but I sure hope that this becomes an option that the rest of us can purchase at a later date. This is by far the best version of the next-gen console I’ve seen, at least in my opinion.

Watch a Rocket Launch Headed Toward Moon

by Leave a Comment

LADEE Launch Viewing Map - Elevation
LADEE Launch Viewing Map – Elevation (Image Credit: Orbital.com)

On September 6, 2013 at the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in Virginia, the Minotaur V rocket will launch NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment (LADEE) into a lunar transfer orbit. The rocket will take LADEE in a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth that will continue for 23 days.

During that time period the spacecraft will orbit the Earth 3.5 times, as time progresses the Moon’s gravitational field will increase the perigee of the orbit and the spacecraft will fire its thrusters to enter an orbit around the Moon. LADEE is on a 100 day mission to examine the atmosphere of the Moon from 50km above its surface.

The targeted launch window is on September 6, 2013 from 11:27 – 11:31 PM EDT. The map above shows the locations at which you will likely be able to see the launch. As you get further from the launch site, the rocket will appear lower and lower on the horizon and anything below 5º will likely be too low to see. For more information on this project and a link to a Google Earth (KMZ) file to help you find out where to see the launch, head to Orbital’s mission update page.

 

Area 51 Officially Confirmed by US Government

by Leave a Comment

Area-51-map
Official US Government Map of Area 51 (Image Source:National Security Archive)

Newly declassified information actually contains the first official acknowledgement of Area 51 by the government along with information on just exactly what was going on behind closed doors. Area 51 is mentioned many times in the documentation and is also shown in a declassified map (shown above).

The primary use of Area 51 according the the newly released history was, no surprise here, to test out secret US government projects, but more interestingly, the declassified history points out the secretive development of the U-2, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft used by the CIA and USAF to gather intelligence. The documents go into great detail and include information like the names of pilots, code names, locations, inter-govermental co-operation details, cryptonyms and more.Alien Sign

Unfortunately, for those who are awaiting acknowledgement of extraterrestrial life, you will have to wait a little longer. There are clearly no references to knowledge of alien life forms, but there is a ton of awesome, once highly secretive and classified information that’s now available to the public.

You can read the history of the U-2 project at the official National Security Archive website. The site contains many images, maps, videos and even offers up some highlights from the documentation, it’s definitely worth a look.

The Science of Bullets Underwater in Slow Motion

by Leave a Comment

I saw this video trending on Youtube and had to share it with you guys. In a great two part video by the theslowmoguys and smartereveryday, we get to see some amazing and unexpected things happen when a gun is fired underwater. Not only is this awesome to watch but there’s a lot of really cool science going on here.

The first video really focuses on the high speed footage while the second part explains the science in a little more detail, so it’s well worth watching both parts. Both of these channels are on my subscribe list for sure and I’m sure you’ve seen videos from one of these channels before as well, but in the odd chance you haven’t, you can get your geek fix and check out some of their most popular videos.

Earth and Moon As Seen From Saturn

by Leave a Comment

EarthFromSaturn
Earth as seen From Saturn, PhotoTaken by Cassini on July 19th 2013. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

It’s not too often that we see our world from afar but when we do it’s truly an amazing and humbling experience. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was able to get into position next to the great planet of Saturn and take a look back at Earth from 900 million miles away. The image is in color and in high resolution, Earth is nothing but a blue dot with a small white dot next to it, that white dot is the Moon of course. Saturn’s rings reflect sunlight towards the camera and against the black backdrop of outer space, it looks truly beautiful.

Cassini’s picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space, and also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to study Saturn and take a look-back photo of Earth.” Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

As NASA points out, pictures like these are very rare because Earth appears very close to the sun at that distance and trying to take a picture could ruin the camera’s sensitive electronics with that much sunlight hitting it. This is just one section of an image that will become a mosaic of Saturn’s rings. You can read the original article and see a full-resolution version of this image from NASA.