The European Space Agency (ESA) just released their satellite Gaia's "First Sky Map" showing our entire Milky Way Galaxy in one single image, the first of it's kind, from long-awaited space science technology.
According to Digg, "when Gaia completes its mission, humanity will have the most accurate and complete catalog of celestial bodies in the Milky Way."
space
Via: Rotating Corpse
The Russians secretly detected sounds out of deep space on May 15, 2015 at the Russian Academy of Science-operated RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, Russia and ONLY NOW told the world about it.
The sounds--signal spikes--emitted from a 6.3-billion-year-old star in the constellation Hercules that is 95 light years away from Earth.
The Constellation Hercules
According to all the scientists, what's most notable about the sounds were how they fit the profile for being a PURPOSEFUL event sent by an extraterrestrial life in a civilization far more advanced than our own; like someone was specifically trying to reach out and talk to us.
The signal is so provocative that the Russian and at least two international teams of scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) are calling for permanent monitoring to be put on this target. The SETI Institute is using the Allen Telescope Array in northern California, while METI International is looking to the Boquete Optical SETI Observatory in Panama.
Space people, nerd out here.
The signal could also be radio interference or a gravitational event, but we're gonna be watching and hoping it's these little guys...
...and not THESE guys:
Via: NASA
According to NASA's article on the test, this is a big step toward sending a manned mission to Mars:
NASA successfully tested the first deep space RS-25 rocket engine for 500 seconds March 10, clearing a major milestone toward the next great era of space exploration. The next time rocket engine No. 2059 fires for that length of time, it will be carrying humans on their first deep-space mission in more than 45 years.
This is all part of a plan to send humans to Mars by 2030, which NASA has laid out in this beautifully illustrated image:
Via: VideoFromSpace
NASA released images of the recent solar eclipse. When seen from the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) it's just the shadow of the moon traveling across Earth.
This is a first, according to Adam Szabo, NASA’s project scientist for DSCOVR:
What is unique for us is that being near the Sun-Earth line, we follow the complete passage of the lunar shadow from one edge of the Earth to the other. A geosynchronous satellite would have to be lucky to have the middle of an eclipse at noon local time for it. I am not aware of anybody ever capturing the full eclipse in one set of images or video.
via earthobservatory
Via: Mark Rademaker
NASA engineer and physicist Harold White is working on using the theory of relativity to travel at warp speed. The ship will be called IXS Enterprise, while he's still working on the math to prove it can be done, the concept art has already been completed by designer Mark Rademaker. In an interview with The Washington Post Rademaker explained the purpose behind the designs:
"We wanted to have a decent image of a theory conforming Warp ship to motivate young people to pursue a STEM career," Rademaker said in an e-mail interview. "It does have some Sci-Fi features that might never transfer to a possible final design, unless we really want to."
Via: NASA.gov Video
The galaxy in question looks a little fuzzy, but that's probably because it's so far away. A lot of the things we see from space are actually past versions of themselves because the light from the object took several years to get here. According to the video description, the light from this galaxy, blurry as it may be, took a very, very long time to get to the Hubble space telescope:
This animation shows the location of galaxy GN-z11, which is the farthest galaxy ever seen. The video begins by locating the Big Dipper, then showing the constellation Ursa Major. It then zooms into the GOODS North field of galaxies, and ends with a Hubble image of the young galaxy. GN-z11 is shown as it existed 13.4 billion years in the past, just 400 million years after the big bang, when the universe was only three percent of its present age.
This new development is record breaking and astronomers don't expect to beat it anytime soon until the launch of a new, larger observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope. 
via NASA
Astronaut Scott Kelly was brought safely home last night after spending nearly a year in space. He was primarily in space to study himself to learn about how human bodies change in space. He even has an identical twin who stayed back on Earth to compare results. But what else was he doing for so long up on the International Space Station? He actually kept a pretty good record on Twitter.
