This LEGO Death Star comes with 24 minifigs, including 6 which are exclusive to this set. This Death Star measures 16 inches tall by 16½ inches wide, and inside you’ll find many of the classic Empire rooms, from the Imperial conference chamber to the TIE Advanced hanger bay. There’s even a trash compactor, complete with Dianoga, the trash compactor monster. Bet you didn’t know that he had a name.

Despite all the pieces, this is one build that shouldn’t be too hard to put together, as you’ll have some nice photos an instructions to go along with it. The LEGO Death Star kit isn’t cheap though – it sells for $399.99 (USD) over at LEGO’s online shop and Amazon.

[via GeekAlerts]

The planet could have entire mountains made from diamonds. The planet was discovered using the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. According to Dr. Marek Kukula of London’s Royal Greenwich Observatory, “The planet is thousands of times fainter than the star it orbits. So the scientists have to perform an amazing feat of precision measurement to extract anything at all. The fact that they are able to tell us something about the composition of this particular planet is quite literally out of this world.”

The planet is known as Wasp 12b and the thought is that water ice may not have been abundant when the planet formed, leading to high concentrations of carbon. We may never know for sure since the planet is so far away – unless we find a Stargate.

[via BBC]

Designer Markus Duevel is the mind behind the Urban Fidelity Planet Speakers. Duevel has been responsible for the design of acclaimed high-end speakers with which cost as much as $25,000. So it’s a pleasant surprise that the Planet speakers cost between $1295 and $1395 a pair.

On paper, the speakers sound as impressive as they look. The high-efficiency horn loaded tweeter, combined with the chrome reflection sphere should produce a massive sound image. While the 5.9″ woofer may not substitute for a standalone subwoofer, the speakers are designed to produce exceptional bass with extremely low distortion.

Each speaker cabinet has a pair of floor acoustic ports, which should help optimize low frequencies, even though the woofers are relatively small. The maker also claims that by mounting the speakers on top of the cabinet, they reduce distortion that can occur in typical side-mounted speaker configurations.

But lets face it — even if they didn’t sound good, they look amazing, and would surely be a conversation piece in any room.

[via MoCo LoCo]

As each hour passes, the globe gradually rotates around the North Pole, making a full revolution every 24 hours. A tiny indicator on the edge of the globe tells you what hour it is, and a little dot rotates around the globe to indicate minutes.

Think The Earth’s WN-1 Earth Watch is made from a titanium body with a tough Hardlex crystal dome to protect the earth’s fragile ecosystem. The watch features a black band made from Sophista, a lightweight, durable synthetic material designed to wick the sweat away from your wrist.

Keep in mind that the globe is really made from a dome, and only shows the Northern hemisphere. So if you live South of the equator, maybe this isn’t for you.

The limited-edition watch retails for about $800, but the guys over at Wrist Dreams managed to find some on sale over on Amazon for $594.

These Fuwarito lamps look like the earth and the moon, but are just simple helium-filled mylar balloons with an LED built into the bottom. Each light comes with a two cans of helium gas and weighted base to keep them from floating away. Turn the lights off, and you’ll feel like you’re floating around the galaxy with these hovering planetary bodies. They can be found at Japanese retailer ASCII for ¥3,343 each (about $27 USD.)

All you need to do is add one of those laser star projectors to complete the effect.

If you can make out the cryptic diagrams above, little metal planets orbit a larger central planet at the middle of the “universe.” One planet signifies hours, another minutes, and the last tiny planet is the second hand. You can really only tell what time it is by viewing the clock from above, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. When viewed from the side, it still looks cool.

The clock is made out of aluminum and has an acrylic resin case to protect its mechanism. It’s just ¥3,990, which works out to be about $35 bucks, if you can manage to get one shipped overseas.

[UPDATE 4/24/2007: It looks like ThinkGeek has managed to import a handful of these from Japan, retailing for $49.99 each]