Last month I made a taxing decision. To patch up one of the many holes in my pocket, I cancelled my Netflix account, throwing a wrench in my habitual late night ipad streaming sessions. The night owl in me hasn’t been too thrilled of the decision, but fortunately I found a great way to use Trapit to reel in fresh, fascinating videos at no cost. As my brain steadily powers down for the night, here’s what I’ve been learning in my brand new “Time-Lapse” technology Trap.

When I initially plugged in the keywords “Time-Lapse” I had the epic Planet Earth series in mind. I wanted to see how today’s photographers and filmmakers were toying with the techniques of capturing a delicately slow process in nature and speeding it up for viewers to watch scenery transform at a warp speed pace. Right off the bat, the Trap was digging up gold—I even went on a few Google Street road trips for starters. Picture rugged New Zealand landscapes with tangerine sunsets bleeding away, “polar spirits” dancing amongst the Northern Lights in Norway/Finland/Sweden, and my personal favorite, London artist Toby Lockerbie’s passion to film in the dark.

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Image credit: SpaceX.

It used to be that going to outer space was only possible if you either devoted decades of your life going through the ranks at NASA, or were willing to use your science-fiction-filled imagination. But with the advent of private, commercial ventures into human spaceflight, including the recent successful launch of the SpaceX Dragon to the International Space Station, what was once exclusively in the domain of large governments may suddenly become accessible to anyone!

Today, private resupplying and ferrying of astronauts is a reality, and now we stand on the brink of a new era of human spaceflight, where Mars may be just over the horizon. In perhaps the biggest surprise of all, it may even turn out to be profitable! Follow the Human Spaceflight trap for all the latest news on our exploration of outer space, only at Trapit, and I’ll see you in the skies!

-Ethan 

(Image credit: NASA / Ames / JPL-Caltech.)

Orbiting high above the Earth’s atmosphere, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is the most sophisticated planet-finding satellite ever constructed.  Planets outside of our Solar System, mind you: exoplanets.  Having not only found over 1,000 new exoplanets since launched, Kepler has also greatly expanded our catalog of potentially habitable planets!

But the recent discovery of Kepler-22b, a rocky planet in an almost identical orbit to Earth’s around a Sun-like star, is one of the top discoveries in recent times!

With many more worlds just waiting to be found, Kepler has the world abuzz waiting for Tuesday’s big announcement: what, exactly, did they find?  Is it a world even more like our own?  (Remember, Kepler-22b isn’t our only hope, it’s just our best hope so far!)  I don’t know what you’re waiting for; check and adopt the Exoplanets Trap for yourself and find out!

-Ethan