December 2013

The crater Antonia on the giant asteroid Vesta (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAMPS/DLR/IDA)

The mission of the Dawn spacecraft, which spent about a year to examine the giant asteroid Vesta, provided an enormous amount of information that are extremely interesting from a scientific point of view. However, Vesta is grayish and studded with craters of various sizes, not the most spectacular sight. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, have changed that reworking the images of Vesta giving them spectacular colors.

Doctor Who - Planet of the Spiders

“Planet of the Spiders” is an adventure of the eleventh season of “Doctor Who” classic series, which aired in 1974 featuring the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It follows “The Monster of Peladon” and it’s a six parts adventure written by Robert Sloman and directed by Barry Letts.

Alfred Bester was born on December 18, 1913 in Manhattan, New York City, USA. He’s been a writer and screenwriter. He’s particularly famous for his science fiction novels “The Demolished Man” and “The Stars My Destination”, also known as “Tiger, Tiger”.

The Atlas robot designed by Robot Dynamics

Google has confirmed that it has acquired Boston Dynamics, a company specializing in building robots for civilian use but also for the U.S. military. The company also develops the human simulation software DI- Guy. The robots designed by the company are generally quadrupeds but it recently developed Petman, another project funded by DARPA that is bipedal instead.