NASA SDO: Powerful Solar Flare recorded

An M9-class eruption lofted a faint coronal mass ejection towards Earth on Oct. 24th, 2013. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the fireworks.

Credit: NASA / SDO

The Christmas Tune, Written By An Astronaut and Recorded in the ISS

Commander Chris Hadfield controls the Canadarm from the Space Shuttle Atlantic.

Photo: Col. Chris Hadfield

Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut, arrived at the International Space Station on December 19 for a planned five month stint aboard the orbiting platform.

The trip is Hadfield’s third and longest jaunt into space, and as a way to kill some downtime, says the Canadian Space Agency, Hadfield—an accomplished musician—has plans to record himself strumming and singing away.

The first fruits of that labour are now ready, says Rebecca Rosen, marking “the first original song written for and performed on the International Space Station."

Christmas may be over, but Hadfield’s first performance, an original song released on December 24 and dubbed “Jewel in the Night,” could be a good way to hold on the season’s spirit a little longer.

“Listen closely,” says Nancy Atkinson, “and you can hear the slight buzz of the [international space] station’s fans in the background.”

The song was not the first to ever be recorded in space, says Rosen, but rather the first to be written specifically for a zero-gravity performance.

CERN LHC: First Proton Particle Collision recorded

A CERN LHC animation of one of the first 7 TeV collisions recorded by ATLAS. A high resolution version.

An historical event for European science and physics!

After the initial collision the scientists at CERN LHC stabalised the beams to ensure further collisions would occur and managed to sustain the stability for more than 3 hours. Whereby, the experiments team have recorded a half million events from the stable and colliding beams. WOW!

A spectacular day indeed, and the culmination of at least 17 years of work and effort from scientists and physicists across the world.

If you want to see into the CERN LHC Atlas control room in Switzerland, here is the live link.