Cloud By Wanderer

Ghost vs. World

Feng Zhu

From the artist:

For more than 12 years, Feng Zhu has contributed to some of the highest profiled projects in the entertainment industry. His broad design skills allowed him to reach across into many fields from hit movies, to triple-A games, memorable TV commercials and toy designs. Founding his own design company, Feng Zhu Design (FZD), his client includes Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Sony, Activision, Industrial Light+Magic, NCSoft, Warner Brothers, Lucasfilm, Bay Films, Epic Games, and many other top studios. In Hollywood, he has worked closely with well established directors including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Michael Bay and Luc Besson.

In the spring of 2009, Feng founded the FZD School of Design in Singapore. This venture was established to train professionals and students who want to break into the entertainment design industry. This type of specialized education is rarely available in Asia. Today, Feng Zhu Design continues to create original content and provides designs for clients around the world.

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It’s pedal to the metal for driverless cars

by William Messner

When a May 2016 crash killed the person operating a Tesla Model S driving in Autopilot mode, advocates of autonomous vehicles feared a slowdown in development of self-driving cars.

Instead the opposite has occurred. In August, Ford publicly committed to field self-driving cars by 2021. In September, Uber began picking up passengers with self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, albeit with safety drivers ready to take over.

October saw Tesla itself undeterred by the fatality. The company began producing cars it said had all the hardware needed for autonomous operation; the software will be written and added later. In December, days after Michigan established regulations for testing autonomous vehicles in December, General Motors started doing just that with self-driving Chevy Bolts. And just one day before the end of his term, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx designated 10 research centers as official test sites for automated vehicle systems.

Three of the most significant developments in the industry happened earlier this month. The 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and the North American International Auto Show in Detroit saw automakers new and old (and their suppliers) show off their plans and innovations in this arena. And the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued its report on the Tesla fatality. Together, they suggest a future filled with driverless cars that are both safer than today’s vehicles and radically different in appearance and comfort.

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ART: “Opposing Forces” by Patrick Turner

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Celebrate with us as our Opportunity rover turns 13, view art from our fans and more!

1. All Grown Up

After exceeding her 90-day mission and design parameters many times over, our plucky little rover Opportunity turns 13 years old on the Red Planet. She’s officially a teenager!

2. People’s Space

The public contributes so much wonderful art that we decided to make a place to share it. Enjoy!

3. Ready for a Close Up

Our Juno spacecraft recently got a closer look at Jupiter’s Little Red Spot. The craft’s JunoCam imager snapped this shot of Jupiter’s northern latitudes on December 2016, as the spacecraft performed a close flyby of the gas giant. The spacecraft was at an altitude of 10,300 miles above Jupiter’s cloud tops.

4. A New Test for Life on Other Planets 

A simple chemistry method could vastly enhance how scientists search for signs of life on other planets. The test uses a liquid-based technique known as capillary electrophoresis to separate a mixture of organic molecules into its components. It was designed specifically to analyze for amino acids, the structural building blocks of all life on Earth.

5. Blurring the Line Between Asteroid and Comet  

Our NEOWISE mission recently discovered some celestial objects traveling through our neighborhood, including one on the blurry line between asteroid and comet. An object called 2016 WF9 was detected by the NEOWISE project in November 2016 and it’s in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of our solar system. A different object, discovered by NEOWISE a month earlier, is more clearly a comet, releasing dust as it nears the sun.

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Arctic Fox in Winter

Photo by Jason Paige

ART: “Refueling Spaceship (sketch)” by sparth .

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