Every year, NASA has a competition to create the best jack o' lanterns for Halloween. Just like you did as a child. However, NASA employees aren't the kind of people to do things halfheartedly, and their creations are about to put your childhood pumpkins to shame.
This year's entries must have taken an insane amount of time to create, but they're definitely worth every second spent on them. Among the entries are flying pumpkins (making stuff fly is sort of what NASA is famous for, after all...), tributes to the Mars Curiosity Rover and a pirate ship complete with storm simulator.
The pumpkins are going down a storm on social media, making our own efforts look like trash.
Take for example this creation. This looks like a slightly strange deconstruction of a pumpkin, stapled to a black ball. Press play, however, and see it blow up like a pufferfish to more than twice its size.
Or this pumpkin, posing next to a model of the Mars Curiosity Rover.
And this awesome pirate ship. Possibly our absolute favourite, even though it doesn't fly, it won the competition this year.
Not good enough? How about some space hamsters running a space pumpkin?
If you think all of this is cool, but not really very terrifying and Halloweeny, brace yourselves for some of the more sinister entries. This one was inspired by It. Click play, and brace yourself for an appearance from Pennywise the clown.
Or this horrific... pulsating... thing that should be killed with fire.
And for a more retro feel, there's this Ghostbusters-themed pumpkin tableau.
From a different angle, you can see that the marshmallow man is being taunted with a marshmallow. Which is meant to look like his innards.
And a War of the Worlds creation, that looks like it would be capable of taking over the Earth if it needed to. Or at least the world's pumpkin patches.
One of the best entries from this year, though, is this incredibly cool entry that hovers a pumpkin attached to a parachute. Just to remind you how cool NASA is.
A better view of this one can be seen on The Verge, which is well worth checking out.
All in all it was a pretty spectacular year. But just because we're here, here are some bonus awesome entries from previous years. In case you don't already feel bad enough about your own pumpkins.
Our favorite, though it's a low-tech entry, may just be this spectacular recreation of Jupiter.
Beautiful.
