(Photo: Deep Space Industries)

Rocket scientists are cool--have you seen that NASA mohawk guy?--but with the growth of the commercial space industry, they were bound to get eclipsed by swashbuckling adventurers with a mind for intergalactic exploration. Enter the Asteroid Hunter, the newest position of badassery, second only to the child who came to our house dressed as "half unicorn, half rockstar" on Halloween.

Kurzweil AI reports that commercial asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries has announced a plan to launch ships into space to mine nearby asteroids for resources that could help accelerate Earth's development. It's the first mission of its kind, and bound to conjure Indiana-Jones-meets-Captain-Picard fantasies in anyone with a space hero complex.

"More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year," Deep Space CEO David Gump told Space.com. "They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century — a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy."

The first asteroid hunter spacecraft will be deployed by 2015. That gives us all two years to start training to become asteroid hunters startingggg ... NOW. Race you to Astrophysics 101 on Coursera!

NOPE, ALL BULLSHIT.

We're less than a month away from December 21, which some people genuinely still seem to believe will be the end of the world, as predicted by the Mayans. And so, NASA is spending the holiday season--a time when everyone ought to be sneaking nips of eggnog and picking out their ugliest season sweaters--making one last attempt to diffuse everyone's paranoia.

What, Neil deGrasse Tyson, super scientist, wasn't a respectable enough authority?

CNET reports that yesterday, the agency held a Google+ Hangout specifically to discuss rumor's of the earth's imminent demise. On the call were experts in asteroids and also an archaeoastronomer. All of them agreed: The world is not ending. There'll be no wandering planets or rogue asteroids or boiling seas or shifting tectonic plates before the end of the month, so go right ahead and wrap those presents.

And actually, it sounds like all this is really starting to upset the agency's resident astrobiologist:

"In particular I'm concerned about the young people who write to me and say that they are terribly afraid," Morrison said in response to a question during a Google+ Hangout NASA held yesterday specifically to address 2012 apocalyptic hoaxes. "They can't sleep, they can't eat, some of them say they are contemplating suicide."

Again: The world is not ending. Repeat: The world is not ending. Go back to your lives, citizens.

(Photo: Jeff Koterba, The Cagle Post)

If you live in the Bellevue, Wash. area and consider yourself Elon Musk Jr., boy do we have the internship of a lifetime for you. Planetary Resources, a budding startup backed by the likes of Google CEO Larry Page and famous Hollywood director James Cameron, posted a job listing for interns hoping to help the company mine near-earth asteroids. Non-space nuts need not apply.

According to the listing, spotted by the Wall Street Journal:

It may sound like science fiction, but it’s just science!

Planetary Resources, Inc (PRI), The Asteroid Mining Company, is seeking qualified and enthusiastic candidates for paid cooperative education positions to assist in the development of new systems and technologies for the commercial robotic exploration of near Earth asteroids in our Bellevue, WA location. Applicants should have an interest in space systems design and application and should expect a hands-on, intense and dynamic work environment.

Interested candidates must have a GPA of 3.2 or higher in a program like aerospace engineering or computer science. MFA students looking to use the experience as fodder for a future science fiction novel are shit out of luck.