Maybe it is just a statement of our times that one person's life can span the complete maturation of a technology. As John Glenn said, 'it was hard to imagine that virtually the entire history of space travel had occurred between my first flight and my second'. With so many stunning achievements and horrific failures, the history of humanity's space program, though short, was eventful. The collection of narrations prepared by Richard Russell Lawrence and presented in the book entitled Space Exploration and Disasters gives an emotional, often first hand account of many dramatic moments of our space program.

Researchers at the University of Arizona think that future robotic explorers should have the ability to survey their targets at many different levels: from orbit, in the air, and on the ground. These next generation missions would be able to arrive in orbit and then deploy a blimp or balloon that could create a more detailed map of a planet or moon's surface. The balloon could help coordinate ground rovers to analyze the most interesting targets. The rovers and balloons would relay their data up to the orbiter which could then give new targets to explore.

On October 11, 2005, Cassini flew within 500 km (310 miles) of the surface of Dione; one of Saturn's moons. Like many of Saturn's moons, Dione shows a heavily cratered surface, and unusual streaks in the terrain that dominates one whole hemisphere of the moon. Cassini found evidence that Dione's surface is covered by fractures, which run in roughly parallel lines; these are interrupted by larger bright features. Scientists are working with the data to compositional maps of Dione's surface.

Gary Hatfield took this beautiful image of NGC7000/Gamma Cygni using a Nikon FE2 camera. Gary used a 105mm f2.5 lens @ f4, Kodak Elite Chrome 200, and a Hutech IDAS LPS filter. He manually guided the exposure for 90 minutes.

Do you have photos you'd like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them to me directly, and I might feature one in Universe Today.

I'd just like to take a moment and congratulate Tammy Plotner on wrapping up a full year's worth of What's Up This Week articles. Woohoo! She's never missed a week and never been late. Anyway, if you've appreciated her column, take a moment and drop her an email. I'm sure she'll really appreciate it (and curse me for filling up her email box). Hah! Check out the full archive here.

Here's to many more years of Tammy's wonderful, weekly columns.

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

P.S. I just did an interview with UK psychic debunker Tony Youens for the Skepticality podcast. I figured I'd pitch in to help out Derek and Swoopy while Derek continues his recovery. Check it out. Don't worry, I'll be updating my Podcast shortly too.

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The time for Mars is now as even small telescopes can see a wealth of details. Mid-week will offer some viewers the chance to see a very rare eclipse of a bright star by an asteroid! We'll explore bright stars, open clusters, watch occultations and welcome back the children of Comet Halley. So turn your eyes to the skies, because....

Here's what's up!

New high-resolution images of Mars have revealed several glaciers in the planet's mid-latitudes, far away from its polar ice caps. Scientists had speculated that many of Mars' mid-latitude features looked like they had been formed by shifting ice, but there wasn't any sign of the actual glaciers. New images from Mars Odyssey show features, such as debris lines on valley floor, which are amazingly similar to Earth glaciers.

The Japanese Subaru telescope took this high resolution image of spiral galaxy NGC 2403, located 10 million light years away. NGC 2403 is an Sc type galaxy with open spiral arms and a small nucleus. It's approximately half the mass of our own Milky Way galaxy and has large quantities of neutral hydrogen gas. Edwin Hubble used NGC 2403 as evidence to help prove that galaxies move faster away from us the further they get.

Although NASA engineers are working on radical new kinds of propulsion, like ion engines, nuclear rockets, and even solar sails, they're still tuning up the old standby liquid-fueled rocket. Current rockets burn a small amount of fuel into preburners which power pumps that force the rest of the fuel into the combustion chamber. A new strategy will be to run all the fuel through the preburners which will create higher pressures, and should give better performance from the rocket.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope took this amazing photograph of our neighbour galaxy, Andromeda. The image was made by stitching together 11,000 separate images of the galaxy taken over the course of 18 hours of observations by Spitzer. Under Spitzer's infrared gaze, Andromeda reveals an off centre ring of star formation and a spot where it looks like another galaxy punched a hole as it passed through the galactic plane.

An Ariane 5GS rocket lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana today. On board were two satellites: a Syracuse 3A defense satellite, built by Alcatel Alenia Space and a Galaxy 15 communications satellite built by Orbital Sciences Corporation. The satellites were released into their geostationary transfer orbits about 30 minutes after launch. This was the 23rd Ariane 5 launch.

Here's a complilation photo of last week's annular eclipse taken by Martin Whipp. The series of images were taken using a Sony VX-2100 3CCD camcorder and Thousand Oaks solar filter from York, England.

Do you have photos you'd like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them to me directly, and I might feature one in Universe Today.

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory has released detailed new photographs of the region surrounding the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. Chandra has confirmed that there is a mysterious group of newborn stars orbiting less than a light-year away from this black hole. Previous models predict that these stars should be torn apart by tidal forces from the black hole. It's possible that there's dense enough disk of material around the black hole that it has enough gravity of its own to hold these stars together. It's also possible the stars formed somewhere else and migrated to this current location.

Aaron Price from Slacker Astronomy has set up a new fund to help the hurricane ravaged observatories and astronomical societies along the US Gulf Coast. If you'd like to help some fellow astronomers get back on their feet, check the site out and see how you can get involved.

Fraser Cain
Publisher, Universe Today

P.S. Aaron also wanted me to remind you to listen to Slacker Astronomy #29: Carrying the 1?s Along Gravitational Highways. He's particularly proud of it. :-) Give it a listen!

Tom Davis delivers another amazing photograph from his backyard observatory in Idaho of the Flaming Star nebula - IC405. The photo was taken using an Astro-Physics 155EDF f/7, STL-11000M.

Do you have photos you'd like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them to me directly, and I might feature one in Universe Today.

Great scientists don't necessarily make for great people. One reportedly never took a bath in his long life. Many were so anti-social as to have their mental stability questioned. Sordid character traits often set them well apart from peers and students. Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder explore this avenue in their book Heavenly Intrigue. In it, they bring to life the olden times of Europe and two great astronomers, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Then, step by step, they lead the reader onto a great scientific undertaking that might have its roots in a less than great murder.

A Northrop Grumman/Boeing team has unveiled new details about the successor to the space shuttle: the Crew Exploration Vehicle. This new spacecraft, reminiscent of the original Apollo capsule, is expected to carry humans to the International Space Station by 2012 and return them to the Moon by 2018. Unlike Apollo, however, the CEV will carry four astronauts to the Moon and back. It will orbit the Moon autonomously, allowing all four astronauts to descend to the surface.

John Bunyan took this picture of the Orion Nebula at the California Star Party using an Orion Atlas GoTo mount and 80mm reflector.

Do you have photos you'd like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them to me directly, and I might feature one in Universe Today.