Portal 2's space core is headed to space, courtesy of anonymous NASA engineer

This is a picture of a panel that, on Friday , will be bolted onto the Japanese HTV-3 resupply craft and hurled into space. The craft will ferry supplies to the International Space Station and launch a little bit of Portal 2 into the cosmos. A post on the Portal 2 blog spotted by VG247 mentions that an anonymous NASA tech managed to burn the tiny picture of Wheatley space core onto one of the craft's panels. "Please note that when we mentioned an "anonymous tech at NASA" we weren't kidding: NASA in no way officially endorses secretly laser-engraving characters from Portal onto their spacecraft," say Valve.

On which note, if you happen to be a NASA engineer with access to a laser-engraving machine, and you just happen to accidentally burn the PCG logo onto a panel and then send it into space then I'd like to say that we'd absolutely keep it a secret, and definitely wouldn't post it everywhere on the site and then look at it and burst out cheering every day forever. JUST SAYING.

Now, because space is brilliant, here's a video that Tom spotted over the weekend made up of pictures snapped from the International Space Station in low Earth orbit. Prepare to have the tingly awe receptors in your frontal lobe tickled ... NOW.

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo .

Update: Thanks to those who have pointed out that it's the space core. The Internet Error Police will be here shortly to perform a routine disintegration. My last request is for someone to laser-etch "I should have written SPACE COOOORE" onto my tombstone, and then fire it into space.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.