$4.5 trillion
An upper estimate by the United Nations Environment Programme of the damage done to the natural world by human activity in 2008

700,000 metres cubed
The amount of toxic sludge that spilled from a reservoir in Hungary in October, killing at least seven people and injuring many more

140,000 miles
Distance Google’s self-driving cards have travelled over the past year. Google revealed it had been running a secret fleet of automated cars since 2009

42
The equivalent binary code number for the date 10/10/10 – a once-in-a-century day for calendar and number enthusiasts

10 years
Three new astronauts on the International Space Station marked the tenth anniversary of the first crew arriving on the ISS, which has now been continuously manned since 2000

1
Lie Xiaobo became the first person from China to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was given the award for his human rights campaign, for which he is currently in jail in China

The Ares 1 and Orion are part of NASA’s Constellation program, which upon the termination of its outgoing Space Shuttle fleet (currently scheduled for September 2010), will take over as the main spacecraft for human spaceflight. The Ares 1-X, which can be seen modeled in this video, was the prototype for the project and was launched on October the 28th, 2009.