After showing you a solar tsunami as it occurs, we bring you this horse-shaped image from your left. See it? That's the Horsehead Nebula from the Orion constellation. Using only a small telescope, the Star Shadows Remote Observatory from New Mexico, USA was able to photograph its entire surroundings. Head over the full article to see the Horsehead Nebula in its fullest majesty.

Does seeing numbers and operation symbols bore you out of your wits? Perhaps if you lived as an Aztec, things would be more to your liking. These ancient Americans had a complex system all their own, and they used hearts, arrows, bones, and other indigenous representations to denote expressions. Learn more math after the jump!

 

People may soon have to trade in their conventional travel passports for something a little more in the near future. The construction of Spaceport America, the world's first commercial spaceport, in New Mexico is already being planned out.

The design was provided by engineering enterprise URS Corporation teamed and Foster + Partners which  is based in the United Kingdom. The 100,000 square-foot facility will serve as the primary airbase for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceliner, as well as the headquarters for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority.

Spaceport America's hanger can support two White Knight Two carrier aircraft and five SpaceShipTwo spaceliners. Both vessel types now under construction at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California. The design for the terminal incorporates the natural earth as a berm while relying on passive energy for heating an cooling, with photovoltaic panels for electricity and water recycling capabilities.

A concrete roof will be built with massive window openings with a view of the runway and spacecraft. The construction of the spaceport will begin in 2008 with a projected completion date in late 2009 or early 2010. Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic explains the company's purpose and goal:

The deal between New Mexico and URS working with Sir Norman Foster will produce a spectacular, but very environmentally efficient landmark for the new era of space travel. The design for Spaceport America is not only breathtaking but also practical which is also what I believe SpaceShipTwo and its launch aircraft WhiteKnight Two will be regarded as when their respective designs are unveiled next January.

Whitehorn added that Virgin Galactic is dubbing 2008 as "The Year of the Spaceship" to hail the advent of their plans to make private space travel available for everyone.

We don't know what exactly happened to the company Skywalker Jets and its promise last year to make jet packs commercially available, but here's a heads up to all of you who really want one and have the money to fund their desires: two companies are currently selling jet packs and promising to keep you afloat for at least 30 seconds.

Mexico-based Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana (TAM) is currently offering TAM Rocket Belts for US$ 250,000 each. This package includes the gadget itself plus flight and maintenance training modules. It's being fueled by hydrogen peroxide and on a full tank, the jet pack weighs 124 to 139 pounds - all depending on the size of the pilot. TAM promises 30 seconds of flight.

On the other hand, Colorado-based company Jetpack Inter­national is offering Jet Pack H202 for US$ 155,000. Needless to say, we haven't had the opportunity to try any of these yet but it seems that H202 is more worth your money. It weighs 139 pounds and is capable of carrying you around for 33 seconds.

Any takers?

This new uber-telescope, called the Great Canary Telescope (Gran Telescopio Canarias or GTC), was built on the peak of a mountain in La Palma in the Canary Islands to take advantage of the unusually clear weather in the area.

The mountain is 2,400 meters (7,900 feet) high which helps setting the telescope's sights to heaven. Unfortunately it didn't help any in constructing the monster telescope. Construction took seven years and more than 1,000 people to build. The mirror used in the telescope is made of 36 hexagonal mirror segments and measures 10.4 meters (34.1 feet) in diameter.

Based at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, the telescope was funded by Spain's Education and Science Ministry, the regional government of the Canary Islands and several overseas partners, including astronomical institutes in Mexico and the University of Florida. Lead guitarist of Queen, Brian May, is to grace the opening of the telescope, who studied Astrophysics as part of his doctorate at the Canary Island Institute. He is currently organizing the musical score to be played at the inauguration next summer.

What sets it apart from the other uber-telescopes is the advantage of having the largest optical infrared mirror. With this, scientists will be able to characterize planet atmospheres instead of just speculating, and be able to "reach the weakest and most distant celestial objects of the universe."

"We'll actually be able to take a much better look at them. We'll be able to throw back the curtains that shroud the early Universe, revealing many of its mysteries," said project director Pedro Alvarez.

Last year, three much much smaller telescopes have worked together to find a planet 500 light years away. We can be sure to expect a lot from a super telescope on top of a mountain. One of the hopes of the observatory is to find a planet much like ours.

A giant squid was discovered on the shores of Ocean Beach in Strahan, Tasmania, last July 10. When we say giant, we mean it. It weighs in at a whopping 550 pounds and was measured one meter (3 feet) across at its widest point and eight meters (26 feet) from end to end.

It is expected that the giant squid will be taken to the museum where DNA and other related tests can be conducted on it before it's eventual preservation.

Those who are planning to have a giant squid meal might be a bit disappointed though. A zoologist who studies invertebrates at the Tasmanian Museum Genefor Walker-Smith spoke about the find, saying that these creatures have a high concentration of Ammonia to help it become more buoyant. This pretty much means that the squid wouldn't taste as good as the regular-sized squids we eat. That's too bad considering that the people in Mexico just found a giant mushroom that would have been a perfect siding to this Cephalopod.

If you've played New Super Mario Brothers on the DS, then you've seen the giant mushroom which transforms Mario into giant Mario. Well, that mushroom doesn't have anything on this 41 pound giant mushroom that was discovered in a coffee farm of Chiapas state, Mexico, near the border with Guatemala.

The white mushroom, which is known by the scientific name macrocybe titans, measures 70 cm (27 in) and could probably feed a family of four for a day.

This is a pretty big discovery considering that this family of mushrooms "only" (and I use the term loosely) grows an average of about 15 inches across and 11 inches tall. The image was taken from Colegio de la Frontera Sur(CFS) features a man holding this enormous fungi.

Perhaps the big question that is going through the minds of those who discovered it, is how they're going to prepare the mushroom. If they still haven't cooked it yet, may I suggest making a few mushroom burgers with a siding of mushroom ala Lyonnaise?

Montgomery "Scotty" Scott of the Star Trek fame has finally taken his place among the stars after his death. His cremated remains were shot into orbit from Spaceport America, a launch site south of the New Mexico desert.

Scotty is James Doohan in real life and had his ashes honored along with those of Colonel Gordon Cooper, a real-life astronaut. A medium-sized crowd of fans, family, and friends were there to cheer the rocket that carried the two luminaries 70 miles above the surface.

Doohan and Cooper's wives were there to "press the launch button" after the countdown. Both women expressed their appreciation and sense of honor that their great husbands shared the same vessel for a very emotional event.

Space America is a commercial establishment which seeks to pioneer space tourism in the U.S. A gram of ashes aboard the small pod that the service launches is charged US$ 500. The remains won't remain in space, though. A capsule containing the remains will detach in the late stages of the flight and float back to the ground with parachutes. Those who want the ashes of loved ones aboard a one-way trip to deep space will have to wait until 2009 for the option.

Scotty was most famous for the immortal line "Beam me aboard, Scotty." Strangely enough, the line was never uttered in the series. The closest was "Scotty, beam me up" by Captain Kirk in the fourth movie. It's essentially an urban legend of a line comparable to stories of crocodiles in sewers and The Ultimate Warrior dying of a heart attack after he lifted Andre the Giant.

In 2000, two miners for the Industrias Peñoles mining company were excavating a tunnel when they came upon what turned out to be the greatest display of underground treasure. The Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) or "The Sistine Chapel of crystals", as fondly called by geologist Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz, was discovered 300 meters (1,000 feet) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico.

Home to some of the largest natural crystals ever found, the cave hides in its refuge translucent gypsum beams that reach up to 36 feet (11 meters) long, weighing in up to 55 tons. It truly was a natural marvel inasmuch as it was a mystery.

   

Fast track to 2007, and the mystery has been solved. Garcia-Ruiz of the University of Granada, Spain, has claimed that he has finally unlocked the mystery beneath all those shiny, shimmery, splendid gigantic crystals. Studying tiny pockets of fluid trapped inside, Garcia-Ruiz found out that the crystals zoomed up to that size because of the mineral-rich water,which engulfed the crystals at a constant temperate range of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius).

What this combo does is to dissolve the mineral anhydrite into the gypsum, that soft mineral which can be held responsible for the formation of crystals in the cave. Another factor adding in to the equation is the volcanic activity that started out some 26 million years ago, creating Naica mountain and stacking it to the brim with high-temperature anhydrite (anyhydrous: lacking water) form of gypsum.

  

As the magma cooled down, so did the temperature to 58 degrees Celsius. Because of this, the anhydrite started to dissolve and gradually mixed in sulfate and calcium molecules to the water. These lay deposited for millions of years within the cave as huge selenite gypsum crystals.

Incredibly, "There is no limit to the size a crystal can reach," says Garcia-Ruiz. We suggest you click on the thumbnails to better appreciate these beauties.

Don't stock up on food and batteries just yet. This storm is unlike any other most in our age groups have ever seen. The storm isn't even on the Earth, it's on the sun.

Astronomer Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric research has predicted that come 2012, the Earth will experience a solar maximum, a phenomenon that last happened in 1958. This happens as a sunspot, a huge mass of violent magnetism, intensifies an area of the sun as it causes weird things to happen.

More than a heat storm, the solar max unleashes a barrage of magnetism that can be felt even in the Earth. Dikpati says he won't be surprised if modern electronics such as GPS and mobile phones will be affected.

That's not the only strange thing that can happen. As the sun spot drags on for years and prompts the solar max to rage on, atmospheric and astronomic frills can be seen on Earth. During the last solar max, Aurora Borealis was seen in Mexico.

Dikpati's prediction is bold in the sense that no scientists before him have come close to being able to accurately predict the cycle of sunspots. Once thought of as a semi=random occurrence, Dikpati asserts that there exists such a thing as a "solar conveyor belt" made of magnetism which drags sun spots along a path.

The National Space Science & Technology Center agreed with Dikpati. Solar Physicist David Hathaway said that Dikpati made all the points clear and true. However, he says that the solar max should come in 2011, not 2012. "History shows that big sunspot cycles 'ramp up' faster than small ones," he says.