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Later this year, New Horizons will reach Pluto, Messenger will crash into Mercury, and the Air Force’s secret X-37B space plane will fly again. New science missions will study solar winds and magnetism, and a NASA probe may even find a liquid ocean in the asteroid belt. Check out this guide to the launches, fly-bys, and crashes that will make the news this year.February 11: Intermediate Experimental Vehicle Test FlightThe European Space Agency’s (ESA) unmanned, reusable space plane, which it calls the Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV), will launch from Kourou, French Guiana at 10 AM local time....

After multiple delays, SpaceX was finally able to achieve liftoff on its “hopper,” a prototype for its next-generation Starship reusable spacecraft on Thursday night. While the flight was a brief one, lasting between 15 and 20 seconds, it was a significant test for the Starship system. View full post on YoutubeView full post on TwitterView full post on TwitterView full post on TwitterThe Starhopper, so called because its quick launches resemble a series of hops, was powered by a single Raptor engine, which itself was successfully tested earlier this year....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere are six Hennessey Venom GTs in the world. Only one is a convertible. That makes the ridiculous Venom GT Spyder I’m about to climb into even rarer than the Bugatti Veyron, the cruise-missile measuring stick for all hyperexotics. The privilege of driving a Hennessey is limited to fewer than 20 people on the planet, six of whom have written seven-figure checks to have one in their garage....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the span of five minutes, I discovered the J/pitchfork TK meson, CP-violation, hired three Ph.D. students and one postdoc, and got some free beer. I was playing Particle Clicker, a deceptively simple game that turns the player into a particle physicist who works on the CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider.Unlike a real CERN physicist, I am not an expert in physics, spending my days processing data on multiple screens....

An experimental miniature nuclear reactor known as Kilopower, meant to power manned outposts beyond Earth, could be ready for an in-flight test as early as 2022, says a project lead project at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.In a recent NASA Future In-Space Operations (FISO) Working Group weekly teleconference, Kilopower lead Patrick McClure spoke for himself and not the government when he said, “I think we could do this in three years and be ready for flight....

Media Platforms Design TeamMedia Platforms Design Team(Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)In science, it’s exceedingly rare when the naked eye usurps modern technology–powerful telescopes offer humans unprecedented views of celestial phenomena, surgeons can send tiny cameras inside your intestinal tract and even iPhone apps can spot public restrooms before you can. However, for the paleontologists who routinely discover new dinosaurs, a good set of eyes, geological know-how and a little luck remain the best tools....

Oomo 3D 5.1 Virtual Surround Sound Bluetooth EarphonesOomo 3D 5.1 Virtual Surround Sound Bluetooth Earphones$103 at popularmechanics.comEarphones exist to pump tunes straight into our ear canals. But now they come in different varieties, and sometimes, high-quality audio gets compromised to make way for enhanced battery life, ergonomics, waterproof capability, and Bluetooth connectivity. This may frustrate music lovers who truly value highly accurate sound.For certified audiophiles, there is no better pair than the Oomo 3D 5....

Sailor Louis Jordan was just rescued after 66 days at sea. He says he survived for more than two months on captured fish, food rations, and rainwater before the Coast Guard spotted him atop his wrecked vessel.The South Carolina man had taken his boat, Angel, out into the Gulf Stream, hoping to catch some fish. One night while Jordan was sleeping, his boat capsized, leaving him stranded more than 500 miles from home....

You can play Pacman on a screen just a little bigger than your thumbnail thanks to this micro arcade cabinet built by the online hardware store Adafruit. They say it’s the world’s smallest arcade cabinet and though that might be hard to prove, it seems likely that their right. MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) cabinets are built by a subculture of video game geeks to house emulators that can hold a bunch of classic games....

Cutting-edge virtual reality can be a borderline magical experience. Once you pop on the headset and grab yourself a pair of handheld controllers, and it’s like you’ve been teleported to another planet. But one of the biggest downsides (other than the cost, and complicated setup) has been the nuisance of chaining yourself to a PC with a wire. Good news: The end is in sight. Today at CES, HTC announced a new version of its virtual reality headset, the Vive Pro, with a higher resolution screen and the ability to function in a larger 10-foot-by-10-foot play space, but the more exciting piece of kit is probably HTC’s new Wireless Adapter....

As renewable energy grows across the globe, we have to make the decision of what natural resources to exploit. Hydro plants can’t work without rivers, solar panels are limited in cloudy regions. But a new method attempts to use one of the most powerful and constant forces on the planet for energy—gravity. Energy Vault, a company headquartered in Switzerland with operations based out of California, has just announced its first client based on its gravity-centric energy-storage solution—the Indian power giant Tata....

Media Platforms Design TeamTeam: X-Tracer Team SwitzerlandCar: E-TracerClass: AlternativeDrivetrain: ElectricEnergy Storage: Lithium-ion batteriesPM Says: It’s a motorcycle that imitates a car when stopped. But are training wheels enough to make consumers consider it?Odds to Win: 20 to 1If there’s one vehicle in the competition that provoked controversy, it was the X-Tracer Team Switzerland’s E-Tracer. “It’s a motorcycle,” one competitor says, on condition of anonymity. “I don’t care that it has outriggers—it has to be ridden like a motorcycle....

CBS All AccessIn many ways, Star Trek: Discovery suffers most of all from the weight of its past. With hundreds of episodes defining what’s “trek,” the series hasn’t helped prepare fans react to a show that’s neatly tied up after 45 minutes. But with “The Wolf Inside,” some of the show’s longest planned seeds are bearing fruit, and it’s making Discovery all the sweeter.A Ship Full of PsychosView full post on YoutubeOf course it’s a strange irony that Discovery found itself only when it left its own universe....

Media Platforms Design Team1. Turn Your Toy Guitar into a Real InstrumentLast year, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock became the first edition of the game available on the Nintendo Wii, allowing hackers to take advantage of the system’s unusual features. Shortly after the game’s release, Josh Breckman unveiled a YouTube video of himself turning the Wii Guitar Hero controller into a real musical instrument able to play 45 different pitches....

About eight months ago, the Planetary Society’s first LightSail unfurled in orbit to test the viability of using the technology to accelerate future spacecraft. The company, headed by Bill Nye, has now released a video of the LightSail 2, a bigger solar sail housed in a loaf-of-bread-sized CubeSat. A light sail uses the energy from photons—in this case those in the form of sunlight—to propel a large reflective surface. As the photons bounce off the surface, they transfer some of their momentum into a small push on the sail....

A few years ago, I needed a small pocket notebook for keeping notes in the workshop and found one I liked in a drugstore that was just the right size for the pockets of my work shirts. The little book was American-made with sturdy paper and secure spiral wire binding. And man did it last. During a two-year remodeling job on my house, I filled every page of the book with notes about sizes to cut and parts I’d need from the store....

Media Platforms Design TeamAnthony Easton/FlickrSmall, medium, or super-sized? The New York Times and the Miami Herald offer two varying opinions about the size of the typical house of the future. As I mentioned in a recent post, a Times assessment of data from the American Institute of Architects concludes that big is coming back. However, the Herald published an article about a week later sharing the virtues of small-space living, and seemed of the opinion that smaller homes would be a lasting trend....

Media Platforms Design TeamLike many a great invention, Jake Zien’s power strip was born of frustration. After completing his junior year of high school, the Milwaukee native was taking a summer course in industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design when the surge protector beneath his desk, overwhelmed by outsize adapters, invoked his ire one too many times. “I threw my hands in the air and said, damn, I wish I could just stretch this thing out and make ’em all fit,” he says....

The way water comes in and goes out of the home is one of those processes we take for granted–until we can’t take a shower or make the toilet flush properly. A call to a licensed plumber can mean an expensive hourly fee, but the science of plumbing is fairly straightforward, and most problems are simpler to solve than you might think. So grab a mop and then turn the page–you might just be able to fix that dripping faucet on your own more quickly and with less effort than it takes to find a pro....

Media Platforms Design TeamPhoto Courtesy of Mike Danneman/Getty ImagesAround 7 p.m. last Friday, Mickayla Friend and her boyfriend were walking along train tracks while traveling to their high school’s Sadie Hawkins dance in Marysville, Calif., a town north of Sacramento. The couple was walking southbound, unaware what was coming up behind them. A train sounded its horn and applied emergency brakes, but it was too late. At the last moment, the boyfriend, whose name has yet to be released, pushed Friend off the tracks and was killed....