The Week In Numbers: Fire In Space, The First Cloned Human Embryo, And More
Grains of interstellar dust stretching across a segment of the Orion Nebula ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 1,350 light-years: the distance to a "fiery ribbon" stretching across the Orion Nebula, captured recently by a submillimeter-wavelength camera inside Chile's Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope. The ribbon is actually a glow given off by cold interstellar dust at wavelengths too long for human eyes to see. 4: the number of toes you need on each foot 8 weeks: the time it took a team of nerds to create real-life Mario Kart, complete with bananas, shells, and mushrooms 2016: the launch year of a NASA spacecraft that will land on the asteroid Bennu, scoop up two ounces of its soil, and then fly the sample back to Earth. Scientists hope the soil will offer clues to the birth of the solar system and life on Earth. 11:18 a.m. ET: the time on May 14, 2013, at which the X-47B...