Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died. He was 82.

Considered a hero to many the world over, Armstrong was granted honors from 17 countries, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Born in Ohio in 1930, Armstrong served as a naval pilot at 19 -- the beginning of a long, impressive aerospace career that changed history as we know it. Upon his moon landing, he stated, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

A statement from Armstrong's family suggests his death was caused by complications of recent heart surgery. The family also left the world with this advice:

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.

[breakingnews / cbs]

Director Duncan Jones' debut film, the 2009 sci-fi suspense flick Moon, starring Sam Rockwell, is currently streaming for free on YouTube, for some reason.

Moon is the story of an astronaut nearing the end of his three-year mining contract on the far side of the moon when the isolation finally starts to get to him, and things just get stranger from there.

The film rated a respectable 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's a solid way to kill an hour and a half on YouTube.

[unreality.]

The U.S. Geologic Survey has released the first-ever complete geologic map of Jupiter's moon Io, created using images from Voyager fly-bys and the Galileo Jupiter mission.

The high-resolution map reveals that Io's rapidly churning surface (which renews itself at a rate of 1 cm/yr) and active volcanism have prevented impact craters from forming on the planet, making it the only known object in the solar system without them.

The scale of the map is 1 kilometer per pixel, and the dark spots on Io's surface are the moon's hundreds of volcanic "hotspots," as seen by Galileo's Solid-State Imager SSI. Geologic features including lava flows, volcanic domes, calderas and sulfur plains are also visible.

You can download the map and the accompanying report at the USGS website.

[popsci]

Scientists have found a new explanation for the crash of the Titanic. The position of the moon relative to the Earth and the Sun in January 1912 may have drastically raised tides, causing icebergs from Greenland to drift further south than expected and wind up in the shipping lane the Titanic was using.

Donald Olson, a Texas State University physicist, said that on the day of the crash, the moon was as close to the Earth as it had been in 1,400 years. And, on top of that, it was lined up with the sun in a configuration that increased both their gravitation pulls -- a "once-in-many-lifetimes" event.

"This configuration maximized the moon's tide-raising forces on the Earth's oceans," Olson said. "That's remarkable."

Olson believes this combination of factors may have played a role in moving an unusual number of icebergs southward. By the time of the Titanic disaster in April, they would have drifted into shipping lanes that had already been relocated due to ice warnings.

He says the information may vindicate Titanic captain Edward Smith, who would have had no reason to expect the ice to be that far south, even with warnings in place.

[stuffnz]