However, it’s important to note that this is a NASA record. The world record for the longest driving distance on another planet goes to the Soviet Union, who piloted a Lunokhod 2 rover in 1973, which traveled 23 miles on the Moon. Opportunity has been traveling Mars for over nine years now, and its still collecting rock samples and conducting experiences, even if Curiosity’s fame is overshadowing it all.

Opportunity broke the NASA record on its 3,309th Martian day by traveling 263 feet along the western rim of the Endeavour Crater. The rover first landed on Mars in January 2004 and has so far traveled 22.22 miles, meaning that the rover averaged a speed of 0.00028 miles per hour (roughly). Of course, 22 miles isn’t long at all for us humans, but it’s quite the trek for a robot.

Based on these numbers, Curiosity hasn’t even left the driveway yet. The new rover is just over a year old, but if NASA really puts it to work, Curiosity could break Opportunity’s record at a quicker pace, as well as the possibility of breaking the world record and taking the honor away from the Soviet Lunokhod 2.

Of course, Curiosity has already been the victim of a couple mishaps. One of its onboard computers ended up failing, resulting in a pause of operations that would delay experiments for a couple of weeks. While the rover eventually got back on its feet, it lost precious time that could’ve been used for collecting samples and taking images of the red planet.

VIA: CNET

SOURCE: NASA

Previously, McLaren held the world record for the fastest pit stop at 2.31 seconds, but Red Bull Racing says that they broke that record five times during the race, setting a new world record of 2.05 seconds during Mark Webber’s second pit stop on lap 19. In fact, the slowest pit stop for the team during the race was an insane 2.26 seconds.

Red Bull says they get these times from the car’s own data logs. Essentially, these data logs provide a more accurate account of pit stop times than TV stations estimates, and while the team sometimes uses those rough calculations, the more-accurate times come straight out of the race car’s data logs.

However, the sub-2-second pit stop is on every Formula One team’s mind right now, and as Red Bull puts it, there’s no “perfect” pit stop, and any racing team can do better. There’s always a quicker pit stop to be made, and Red Bull says that “it’s possible this season we’ll see the magical two-second barrier breached at some point.”

It’s pretty incredible how fast pit crews can change the tires on Formula One cars, but it makes sense. A Formula 1 pit crew consists of a lot of crew members, and usually there’s three crew members to a tire, meaning that one person is in charge of taking off and putting back on the tire nut with an air wrench, while another crew member takes the tire off and the other puts a new tire on. Teams practice pit stops religiously, to the point where changing tires is a science that requires ultimate precision and timing.

Now some of you may be confused because the Veyron Super Sport was able to achieve 267.8 mph during its tests. While it was able to, its company, Bugatti, limited its actual production vehicles to only 258 mph. Hennessey Performance CEO, John Hennessey, stated that as impressive as the Venom GT’s 265.7 mph performance was, the 2.9 mile runway they were testing on was “far too short for the Venom GT to reach it’s true top speed.”

The Venom GT is truly an impressive work of art. It has a 7.0-liter V8 engine powered by twin Precision turbochargers that can push out 1,244 horsepower and 1,155 pound-ft of torque at 19 psi of boost pressure. The Venom GT is able to go from 0-60 mph in just 3.05 seconds, and 0-100 mph in just 5.88 seconds. It had even set a new Guinness World Record by being able to achieve 0-300 km/h in 13.63 seconds, making it the quickest accelerating production vehicle in the world.

There will only be 29 Venom GTs produced. Each of these 2,743-pound vehicles will sell for $1.2 million each for the basic configuration, meaning that most of us won’t be able to afford it unfortunately. After ordering, each vehicle will take about 6 months to customize before its completed. Hennessey states that 33% of the 29 Venom GTs have already been sold.

[via Venom GT]

According to DragTimes, the The Model S Performance edition managed a 12.371 quarter mile at 110.84 mph, going 0 to 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds, winning handsomely over a Dodge Viper SRT10 without any problem. Granted, the 12.371-second run was the best out of several runs, and the car was on a full charge. Still though, even without a full battery, the Model S ran 12-second runs regardless.

Even after a 78-mile trip driving at 70 mph, the Model S ran back-to-back 12.6-second runs at 108 mph. The car as roughly a 350-mile range on a full charge, so the battery wasn’t low by any means, but after a quick road trip, the car can still pump out torque like it’s nothing, which is impressive to say the least.

The Tesla Model S features a 416HP engine, and the entire car weighs in at 4,700 lbs., so it’s fairly surprising that it was able to go from 0 to 60 mph in less than four seconds. Back in November, the car was named Motor Trend’s 2013 Car of the Year, beating out the Cadillac ATS, Toyota Avalon, Porsche 911, BMW 3 Series, Ford Fusion, and the Subaru BRZ.

[via DragTimes]

Honestly, we can’t even begin to fathom how much of an impact PSY has made in pop culture. Huge flash mobs have been conducted, and thousands of parody music videos of the song have also been posted on YouTube. The service notes that fan tributes to “Gangnam Style” alone are now being viewed 20 million times every single day.

The most-watched YouTube video previously was Justin Bieber’s “Baby” music video, and comparing it to PSY’s “Gangnam Style”, it took “Baby” over two years to reach over 750 million views, while “Gangnam Style” only took less than seven months to reach the same view count. If that’s not amazing, we don’t know what is, frankly.

PSY is actually quite the stand-up guy. In the middle of his superstardom, he put on an entirely free concert in Seoul, South Korea, where over 80,000 fans attended, but from the amazing video above, it looked like there were a lot more than that. We have to say that Korea loves their PSY, and PSY loves them back.

The news was announced on 4Cabling’s Facebook account, where they state that Kaya finished the marathon “with a mad career ranking of 29 of 5 million players.” Kaya, a 28-year-old Sydney native, was allowed one 10-minute break every hour by Guinness, and any unused breaks could be accumulated and used at a later time.

This allowed Kaya to fit in some sleep time over the course of the seven days. However, according to Kaya, his record isn’t official just yet. He’s in the process of gathering the evidence for submission to Guinness, but he says that he’s confident that his new world record will be approved without any problems.

Luckily, Kaya is still alive, considering how gaming marathons haven’t gone so well in the past. Back in July, a Taiwanese man died following a 40-hour Diablo III marathon at an internet cafe, and last year, a gamer in the US suffered a pulmonary embolism during a 20-hour gaming session. However, Kaya’s marathon was closely monitored and supervised by a group of volunteers who acted as witnesses and supporters.

[via Yahoo]

Baumgartner will be carried to 23 miles above the surface of the earth using a massive helium-filled balloon attached to a pressurized capsule. When Baumgartner steps out of his capsule and plummets through the thin atmosphere at 120,000 feet his record setting skydive attempt will begin from higher than anyone else has ever traveled during a manned balloon flight.

It will take Baumgartner approximately two hours to reach 120,000 feet. The special pressure suit that Baumgartner will wear is packed with sensors that will log relevant data allowing the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the organization that governs air sports in aviation records, to determine whether Baumgartner has set a new record. In addition to the required sensors, the custom pressure suit will protect Baumgartner from the frigid air temperatures and the lack of oxygen.

Baumgartner also has five cameras attached to the suit, a GPS tracking device, a voice transmitter, and receiver allowing him to communicate with the team. Baumgartner will be jumping near Roswell New Mexico with the festivities starting at about 5:30 AM Pacific today. Baumgartner and his team believe that he will need to reach about 690 mph while at high altitude to break the speed of sound.

Live skydive video:

[via CNET]

Though Yates had flown gasoline-powered aircraft before this record-setting week, he only started to fly electric powered aircraft here and now. The unit Yates used to break the record is a Long-ESA, closely related to the model Long-EZ, a machine designed by previous record-holder Burt Rutlan. The machine that up until this week held the record for electric aircraft clocked at the fastest speed was a tiny electric Cri-Cri.

Yates made his flight after several test runs and after capturing the record, a failure of a cell inside the machine killed propulsion and the pilot was forced to make a dead-stick landing. No worries, though, he’s fine, and quite a bit more than just fine as he struts around this planet with a “fastest man alive” sticker on his chest.

The next mission Yates is planning on is a flight across the Atlantic ocean with a new aircraft system based on the development platform he flew this week.

[via Wired]

McNamara was urged to send the video and still shots of him riding the wave to the Guinness Book of World Records and it was confirmed that the wave beat the previous record by a foot. Surfers can’t simply paddle out and stand up on waves of this magnitude, they’re generally towed out using a jet ski. McNamara says that riding the giant wave was a fluke.

He didn’t intend to ride that day after numerous wipeouts the previous day left him beaten and battered. The monstrous wave was ridden off the coast of Portugal where the waves grow into gigantic beasts due to an undersea canyon. McNamara also landed $15,000 for riding the massive wave from the Billabong XXL Global Big wave awards in California.

[via Washington Post]

The record-setting attempt by a guy named Scott used a Wicked Lasers Spyder III Krypton of 750 mW to 1000 mW variety and set up a long line of 100 air filled red balloons. The laser was mounted on a little tripod, and the laser beam was fired through a burning lens. That burning lens looks a lot like a magnifying glass to me.

The laser pops the first 20 or so balloons quickly and then slows is the laser beam intensity declines further down the line. The balloons were placed in special cups filled with water to hold them in place to prevent one balloon that pops from forcing the other balloons out of place. The final balloon took a while to pop, but laser was able to pop all 100 balloons surprisingly quickly.