A Fantastic Educational Game

Super Planet Crash

Here is an extremely addictive game: Super Planet Crash, a free online game designed by Stefano Meschiari, a researcher associated with the W. J. McDonald Observatory and the University of Chicago.

The objective is to build a planetary system resembling a solar system. The game accurately applies Newton's laws of gravity to the interactions between the central star and the bodies you place in orbit around it. Those bodies can include low-mass planets like Earth, massive planets like Jupiter, or even another companion star, such as a dwarf star.

Your goal is to fill the region within 2 astronomical units^* of the central star with as many planets or stars as possible. The challenge is that your system must remain stable for 500 years: gravitational interactions must not destabilize any body and eject it beyond the two-AU boundary.

NASA Congratulates the Success of the Film Gravity

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) congratulated everyone involved in producing the film Gravity, particularly director Alfonso Cuarón, after the film won several Academy Awards at that year's ceremony, including the Oscar for Best Director.

Michael Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)—all three astronauts then living aboard the International Space Station—also congratulated the crew and actors of Gravity on their Academy Award wins.

The Warner Bros. film Gravity tells the story of two astronauts struggling to survive after losing their shuttle following a collision with space debris.