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Movies Star Wars

Disney buys Lucasfilm, Episode VII in works

LucasfilmDisney announces the purchase of Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4,000,000,000, simultaneously announcing that work will commence on Star Wars Episode VII for a 2015 release. George Lucas, having already stepped down as Lucasfilm chairman earlier in the year, is suddenly even more of a billionaire than he already was, and Disney gets the keys to the Star Wars franchise with plans for new movies “every 2-3 years.”

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Atlantis Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

Atlantis retired

Space ShuttleStripped of critical working systems and engines after her final landing, Space Shuttle Atlantis is moved via a ground transport to a new shuttle museum exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors’ Center at Cape Canaveral. Having flown 33 times, Atlantis was the last shuttle to travel in space, having returned from orbit the final time in July 2011. Originally intended to be the last addition to the shuttle fleet, construction on Atlantis began in 1980, and was completed in time for Atlantis’ maiden voyage in 1985.

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Cassini / Huygens Uncrewed Spaceflight

The storm at the top of the world

SaturnMaking a close pass by the north pole of the planet Saturn – roughly the same distance as the average distance between Earth and its moon – NASA’s Cassini space probe captures unprecedented images of a hurricane-like storm vortex at the planet’s pole. With a diameter nearly as wide as the continental United States, the north polar vortex reveals vertical relief of various cloud features for the first time, and spins rapidly at the center of a hexagonal cloud feature nearly twice as wide as Earth itself.

See a more detailed animation in Scribblings

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Music

Star Trek Soundtrack Collection

Star Trek: The Original SeriesSoundtrack specialty label La-La Land Records releases a comprehensive 15-CD box set containing every note of music ever recorded for the three original seasons of Star Trek, a music collection long thought to be an impossibility due to decades of rumors of lost and damaged tapes. Over a year of work on restoration, remixing and remastering reveals that all of the show’s music – even tapes that, by musicians’ union regulations, should have been destroyed in the 1960s – still exists and can be licensed and released.

More about Star Trek soundtracks in Music Reviews

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Uncrewed Spaceflight X-37B

X-37B OTV-3

X-37BLoaded into an aerodynamic shroud atop an Atlas V rocket, the U.S. Air Force launches the X-37B unmanned spacecraft into Earth orbit. Originally scheduled for an October launch, the Boeing-built X-37B resembles a scaled-down Space Shuttle. Whereas this vehicle had previously stayed in space for several months in 2010 before returning, its second flight sees it remain in orbit for nearly two years, not coming in for an automated landing until October 2014. Details of the vehicle’s mission and payload remain classified; the flight is designated USA-240.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight

Chang’e 2 scans an asteroid

Asteroid 4179 ToutatisOriginally launched by China to orbit the moon in 2010, and later parked at a LaGrange point beyond the moon’s orbit, the unmanned Chang’e 2 space probe flies by asteroid 4179 Toutatis at a distance of under two miles, capturing the first close-up images of the asteroid as it passes Earth almost half a million miles away. Though 4179 Toutatis has been imaged by ground-based radar on several occasions during its semi-frequent visits to the inner solar system, this is the first space probe to visit it at close range. As of this encounter, Chang’e 2 is the most distant Chinese spacecraft from Earth.

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Crewed Spaceflight International Space Station Soyuz

Soyuz TMA-07M

Soyuz TMA-07MPart of the 34th full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-07M. Roman Romanenko, Chris Hadfield and Thomas Marshburn take up residence on the ISS for 145 days, becoming part of the Expedition 34/35 crews. All three return to Earth in May 2013 aboard the same vehicle, with Hadfield becoming an internet sensation at the end of the mission with a cover of David Bowie’s “A Space Oddity” recorded aboard the station.

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Deaths Matters of Life & Death

Gerry Anderson, UK SF TV legend, dies

Gerry AndersonLegendary UK television producer Gerry Anderson, responsible for a string of puppet-based hit shows such as Thunderbirds, Supercar, and Stingray, and such live-action cult classics as UFO, Space: 1999, and Space Precinct, dies at the age of 83. Additionally, the Century 21 comics magazine (an extension of his company, Century 21 Productions), had provided the first-ever Doctor-less comics featuring the Daleks in the 1960s, arguably the birth of Doctor Who’s “expanded universe.” At the time of his death, there have been numerous attempts by others to modernize his concepts, with wildly varying degrees of success.

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