Topic: =/\= lots of space and NASA news today!

[stoneyface]

wow, so just a ton of space science news today. not even sure where to start!

i guess the sensational first! remember the near miss from an asteroid last month? well on november 8th, a 400meter asteroid called "2005 YU55" will pass close to earth. so close that it is inside the moons orbit! wow! read here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/yu55-20111025.html

next! on october 29, the progress module of the ISS was released and fell into the atmosphere and burned up taking with it lots of ISS trash. there is a video of the streaking end of the module. now that is some garbage disposal. anything that was left of the module fell into the pacific so no chance of someone being nailed on the head from nasa trash (altho what a funny way to go eh?) video and article here: http://news.discovery.com/space/a-progress-cargo-modules-fiery-re-entry-111103.html

another NASA story here. a study was released today from NASA that states that if there was life on mars in the past, it was most likely underground. it is a short article but it has links. read here:  http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/nasa-if-there-was-life-mars-it-was-likely-und

the chinese has completed their first docking of space vehicles in orbit. in a docking test with their space lab Tiangong-1 and the unmanned Shenzhou 8 craft, there were able to dock them together in orbit for the first time. docking is one of the most important and absolutely necessary tasks that is needed for a space station. not much substance here but the article is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-15568320

this next article blows my mind, on the heels of the last physics surprise that the speed of light may be broken by special and specific particles called neutrinos (still being verified) there is another physics "universal law" that may be broken and no longer a "law". unless you are into physics in any capacity (quantum physics, quantum mechanics, relativity theory, etc...) you may not even be aware of the "fine structure constant". this constant deals with the strength of electromagnetic interactions. a new very controversial  study seems to indicate that the laws of physics may be different depending where you are in the universe! as you can imagine this study has caused and uproar. how bad is the controversy? it took a year for publication! read about it here: http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2011/11/another-law-of-physics-broken.html

todays final story really struck me as funny. NASA (again with the nasa! lol) has decided to set up a very unique "app store". (yes they are calling it that. sigh...lol) this "cloud marketplace" is modeled after the apple store and android equivalent. the cloud infrastructure is already in place so NASA thinks that a cloud store geared towards scientists with help with the task of determining and acquiring the hardware and software every budding researcher needs! although it makes me giggle, it does sort of make sense. read about this here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/231902249