July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

For all the people who have fantasized of seeing the earth from outer space, UrtheCast is making that dream a reality.

UrtheCast is launching the world’s first high-definition video platform of Earth, streamed live from the International Space Station. Today, “Earth’s video camera” announced a $25 million financing agreement that will bring its vision closer to a reality.

The space tech startup is working with partners from the international aerospace community to build, launch, install, and operate two cameras on the Russian segment of the ISS. The data will be downlinked to ground stations and broadcasted in near real-time, to “change the way we view the world” and provide a view “only astronauts have experienced.”

“When you begin using the platform, it will feel much like you’re interacting with a mashup of Google Earth and YouTube. You will be able to scroll, pan, zoom, and search your way around the Earth video stream, which will reveal everything from natural wonders of the world to buzzing urban centers,” the company said on its site.

Vanounver-based UrtheCast previously raised over $4.5 million in August 2012 to accelerate development of cameras and the ground station network, as well as build strategic partnerships. Once the cameras go live later this year, UrtheCast will provide an interactive platform for consumers, app developers, educators, media outlets, government bodies, humanitarian relief organizations, and environmental monitoring services.

The $25 million is the result of a reverse take-over with Longford Energy Inc. Once the deal is completed, UrtheCast will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Longford. UrtheCast’s CEO and President Scott Larson said in a statement that the transaction will provide the capital needed to execute on the business plan, and also add expertise to the team.

The platform will be open source, allowing developers to create apps based on the video data. Like stars in the galaxy, the possibilities are endless. Now if only the company name didn’t immediately call to mind “urethra.”

You may have heard about the crazy meteor that shattered windows with its sonic boom this morning. Well, an asteroid’s passing Earth now, and NASA is livestreaming its progress.

The asteroid, known as 2012 DA14, is set to fly very close to Earth — it will come within 17,200 miles of us today. Experts say that while the asteroid will not hit Earth, it’s one of the first asteroids this big to come this close to our planet. It is a full 150 feet wide, about the size of a football field, as NASA notes.

The asteroid is set to fly by at its closest at 2:24 p.m. Eastern time.

Its arrival, however, was overshadowed this morning when a meteor flew through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking the sound barrier and causing a lot of commotion in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. It created a massive sonic boom that sent glass from windows flying and set off car alarms. Reuters is reporting that more than 500 people sought medical help due to the glass.

The two space rocks, however, seem to be unconnected. As Slate notes, DA14 is coming from south to north, where the Russian meteor came from another direction, many hours before DA14 is expected to hit.

Thumbnail image via NASA

Whatever you call them, they are fictional doorways to faraway places: another planet in the solar system … another star in the galaxy … another restaurant where the service doesn’t suck quite so bad.

But today they’re perhaps a little less fictional than yesterday. At least according to a Science@NASA post: Hidden Portals in Earth’s Magnetic Field, which says they are real, sort of. A NASA-funded researcher has discovered them surrounding the Earth at distances from 10,000 to 30,000 miles.

University of Iowa plasma physicist Jack Scudder is studying them.

Source: NASA

A view of one of NASA’s X-points

“We call them X-points or electron diffusion regions,” he says. “They’re places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun’s atmosphere 93 million miles away.”

NASA’s THEMIS spacecraft and Europe’s Cluster probes have been observing the portals, and NASA is sending a new mission, ”MMS”  (Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission) in 2014 to study them in more detail. MMS consists of not one but four spacecraft that will circle the earth, finding and studying the “X-points” where the Sun’s and the Earth’s magnetic fields connect and create portals.

What they are, exactly, is not yet entirely clear, but Scudder says that tons of magnetically charged particles flow through the openings, causing aurora and geomagnetic storms. Some are tiny and disappear almost instantly, while others are large and fairly stable.

According to NASA, Scudder has found shortcuts ”worthy of the best portals of fiction, only this time the portals are real.”

Some might beg to differ, pointing out that the best portals of fiction are actually usable by humans, go places that are interesting and somewhat safe (as opposed to the surface of the sun, which is doubtless very interesting but not exactly safe), and can be opened and closed at will.

However, there’s no doubt that this is a pretty cool announcement. Just not one that we can use to get to Tatooine or the Delta Quadrant.

Here’s the full video from NASA: