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The future of manned spaceflight is coming into focus. Whether it's through NASA's Orion program, its partnerships with private companies or in the form of the quick, space-immersion experiences that Virgin Galatic's SpaceshipTwo spaceships are soon to offer.

Billionaire Richard Branson recently placed a full-scale replica of his spaceship on the deck of the Intrepid Air and Space Museum in New York City. You can see it for yourself in the gallery above and Vine video below.

The distance from the surface of the Earth to its center is 3,959 miles. The thickness of the ocean lithosphere or the relatively solid skin of the earth under oceans is only 41 miles, which in relative terms is much thinner than the skin of an apple.

When a 7.1 earthquake explodes with the force of 2,000 kilotons of TNT across San Francisco, citizens become heroes to save lives.

Interesting video on earthquake locations around the world and connections to fracking.

An interactive map that shows the location of all the earthquakes that have happened in the last day. From the USGS survey.

Just how small are atoms? And what's inside them? The answers turn out to be astounding, even for those who think they know. This fast-paced animation uses spectacular metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to give a visceral sense of the building blocks that make our world.

Pollination: it's vital to life on Earth but largely unseen by the human eye. Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg shows us the intricate world of pollen and pollinators with gorgeous high-speed images from his film "Wings of Life," inspired by the vanishing of one of nature's primary pollinators, the honeybee.

Map of the tectonic plates that is easy to read.

National Geographic Channel is taking viewers around the world-literally-in this spectacular two-hour television event broadcasting LIVE from the International Space Station (ISS) and Mission Control in Houston, Texas. Made in collaboration with NASA, we'll go into orbit with astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata as they fly at 17,500 mph nearly 250 miles above the earth's surface on the International Space Station, while astronaut Mike Massimino joins host Soledad O'Brien on the ground at Mission Control in Houston. From space, Mastracchio and Wakata will give viewers a fully guided tour, showing us how they live for months in microgravity. They'll conduct never-before-broadcast experiments that demonstrate the real-world value of the science conducted on the floating laboratory. Plus get ready for stunning shots of Earth, from sunset and sunrise, to city lights and green aurora, to lightning storms and shooting stars. You've never seen our planet like this before.

Have you ever looked up at the stars and felt small? Have you ever looked at the Moon and thought, "Wow! It looks huge!"? This video gives us perspective on those questions.

Whether we cry during a sad movie, while chopping onions, or completely involuntarily, our eyes are constantly producing tears. Alex Gendler tracks a particularly watery day in the life of Iris (the iris) as she cycles through basal, reflex and emotional tears.

The atoms around you have existed for billions of years -- and most originated in the flaming, gaseous core of a star. Dennis Wildfogel tells the captivating tale of these atoms' long journeys from the Big Bang to the molecules they form today.

the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is designed for detecting infrared radiation. This animation explains what infrared light is, and how the JWST will use it. Please rate and comment, thanks!

This links to the online collection of resources connected to a National Geographic Brain Games episode on color and the way that our brains perceive color. There are lots of neat interactive games and tasks that users can view and complete.

Another video on infrared light.

Looking at water and ice with infrared light helps us understand how light and heat are related.

A quick video introduction to infrared light and how it is different from visible light.

February is a time when Americans reflect on the tremendous contributions of people of African descent. While names like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks are known, names of famous black scientists and inventors are not as common. Well, not until now. Let's examine some notable men and women who made great achievements in science, technology and engineering. Here are some examples of giants on whose shoulders we stand.