thedailywhat: In Case You Missed It of the Day: The Curiosity Rover made it to Mars late Sunday night, and so far all we’ve got is this single high-res photo. But it was more than enough to send NASA engineers into ecstasy, since the Curiosity’s landing sequence — coined The Seven Minutes of Terror – requires six vehicle configurations, 76 pyrotechnic devices, the largest supersonic parachute ever built, and more than 500,000 lines of code.

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Gold medal for NASA in the 563 billion meters. Ben Dolman (via miraluna)

thedailywhat: **Look At These Showering Penguins of the Day: **Rockhopper penguins in the Falkland Islands look like they’ve had it with this group shower situation. Don’t miss the rest of the pics — they’re a kick. [22words] I freaking love penguins.

nickholmes: That’s settled.

n-a-s-a: Eclipse on the Beach Credit & Copyright: Guillaume Blanchard

ilovecharts: The Planets To Scale

sciencesoup: What does space smell like? It’s strange to think that the near-vacuum of space could have a smell, and stranger still that humans—atmospheric creatures—can actually experience it. Astronauts have consistently reported the same strange odour after lengthy space walks, bringing it back in on their suits, helmets, gloves and tools. It’s bitter, smoky, metallic smell—like seared steak, hot metal and arc welding smoke all rolled into one. NASA have asked a chemist, Steve Pearce, to reproduce the smell to use during acclimatization training, mapping out the likely chemistry using natural materials to mimic the odor for accuracy.

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On Religion and Ignorance

I recently read a post by a student at a Christian university regarding philosophy. There were some statements made about learning about “opposing viewpoints such as the Big Bang theory.” The author went on to make erroneous comments about molecules evolving and “the universe, the sun, and everything in it would have already died” by the time life had evolved. Here are some issues I have with the post:

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