In this beautiful Cassini photograph perfectly lined up along Saturn's ringplane, it's possible to see three of the planet's moons: Dione is at the left, Prometheus is in the centre, and Epimetheus is on the right. This image was taken on January 2, 2006, when Cassini was 2.8 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Saturn.

Japan's recently launched Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) has sent back its first pictures of Earth - Mt Fuji and its surrounding towns. The satellite was launched on January 24, 2006, and it contains three onboard instruments for Earth observation. One instrument is called the Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM). It's capable of taking many 3-D images quickly and accurately.

If humans are going to be spending longer periods in space, on the Moon, or even on Mars, it's just a matter of time before they'll need surgery. Can delicate surgery even be done in the weightlessness? Doctors from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency think so. They're working out a series of experiments where surgeons will attempt procedures in weightless situations, like underwater or in a special aircraft that simulates weightlessness. They believe that future missions will have at least one surgeon and several of the crew will be trained in surgical techniques as well.

At first glance, this hazy view of Saturn seems largely featureless, but if you look closely, you can see great oval-shaped storms churning through the planet's clouds. The lines extending away from the storms indicate that there isn't much horizontal mixing between layers. This photograph was taken on January 2, 2006 when Cassini was 2.8 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Saturn.

Spitzer has uncovered an unusual pair of colliding galaxies whose hearts are surrounded by tiny crystals that resemble crushed glass. These crystals look like sand, and were probably shed from massive stars before and while they exploded as supernovae. Although these crystals have been seen in the Milky Way, this is the first time they've been found outside our galaxy. They won't last long, however. Scientists think the crystals will get heated up again and again by multiple supernova blasts and eventually melt back into a shapeless form.

Astronomers have used the light from a distant quasar to discover a metal-rich hydrogen cloud that would have otherwise been invisible; the quasar is 9 billion light-years away, but the cloud is only 6.3 billion light-years away. By analyzing the spectrum of this galaxy, astronomers have discovered that it contains 4 times more metal than what's contained in our Sun. If more of these clouds are discovered, it might help account for why the Universe seems to contain less metal that cosmologists have predicted it should.

When NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory took this photograph of the supernova remnant Puppis A, it revealed a how a cloud of nebula is being torn apart by the shockwave from the supernova explosion. The oval structure of the cloud with an empty region inside, closely matches experimental simulations done here on Earth, where a shockwave blasts past a cloud of vapourized copper. The cloud briefly compresses, and then rapidly expands leaving a cavity inside.

NASA astronomers have discovered an unusual solar system about 500 light-years away where the inner planets are going one direction, and the outer planets are going in the opposite direction. This newly forming system is quite different from our own Solar System, where the planets and the Sun all turn in the same direction. It's possible that the system formed from two different clouds of material, which were rotating in opposite directions.

Scientists are tracking a gigantic electrical storm raging on the surface of Saturn. This storm is the size of the United States, and the most powerful of its type ever seen. The origin of these storms is unknown, but researchers think it might have something to do with Saturn's warm interior. Cassini is expected to get much closer to Saturn in the next few weeks, so scientists will get a much better view.

A team of French scientists have successfully recreated the structure of primitive interstellar particles in their laboratory. This material is a silicate glass that contains embedded metal and suphides, and astronomers believe it's created in protostellar nebulae. The team heated up particles of olivine under high vacuum and temperatures ranging between 500 to 700ºC, and the resulting material closely matched this interstellar dust. This helps scientists understand some of the processes that occur in stellar nebulae.

Cassini was only 14,500 km (9,000 miles) from Saturn's moon Telesto when it took this photograph. Telesto is tiny, only 24 km (15 miles across), and it appears to be covered in fine, icy material that obscures ancient meteor strikes. This is quite different from many of Saturn's other moons, which look quite pockmarked in comparison.

Researchers at the University of St. Andrews and the Free University of Brussels think they have a solution that "fine-tunes" Einstein's groundbreaking theory of gravity to help account for the effect of dark matter. Dr Hong Sheng Zhao and Dr Benoit Famaey have created a new formula that allows the strength of gravity to vary over galactic distances, perfectly matching observations made by astronomers.

One of the best places to look for life on Mars might be underneath its surface, in vast underground fields of ice. A new mission is being considered that would smash a projectile at high speed into the Martian surface, to reveal the subsurface environment. The Tracing Habitability, Organics and Resources (THOR) project could launch in 2011, and would dig a crater 10 metres (30 feet) deep when it struck. An observer spacecraft would watch the debris plume, looking for any evidence of life.

This Cassini view of Saturn's moon Titan shows its hazy atmosphere. The photo was taken by combining red, blue, and green spectral filter photographs and has been greatly contrast-enhanced to show some subtle structures in the northern hemisphere. Cassini captured this image on December 26, 2005 when it was approximately 193,000 kilometers (120,000 miles) from Titan.

Scientists from Ohio State University think they know what created the famous "Man on the Moon" feature. They think that a large object impacted the Moon on the far side, which sent a shock wave through its core and fractured the opposite side. The team used gravity fluctuations measured by NASA's Clementine and Lunar Prospector spacecraft to map the Moon's interior. The data shows that the asteroid impact was so catastrophic, the resulting scar passes clear through the Moon's mantle and core.

ESA scientists are observing Earth from space using the Integral gamma ray observatory to find out how the continuous, high energy of cosmic radiation is originally produced. Earth itself isn't the main target of Integral; instead, it's looking at what can be seen as the Earth passes in front of these radiation sources. This diffuse, high-energy radiation is known as the 'cosmic X-ray background', and astronomers think it's produced by deep space supermassive black holes.

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The Full Snow Moon holds court as the week begins, making it a great time to spot some atmospheric phenomena. That won't stop us from seeing "double" as we meet the "twins" of Gemini and hitch a ride with the celestial charioteer - Auriga. Get out your scopes and binoculars. The sky is the limit and all you need to know is...

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