NASA has two new Earth Observation satellites in the final stages of preparation before their launch: CloudSat and Calipso. The two satellites will be launched together by a Boeing Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. They will be launched into a polar orbit, and maintain a close formation. CloudSat has an extremely powerful cloud-profiling radar, which can distinguish between cloud particles and precipitation. Calipso will be able to detect aerosol particles in the air, and can tell the difference between these particles and clouds to measure the amount of air pollution. They may launch as soon as October 26.

Since it's in my neighbourhood, globally speaking, I thought I'd mention that the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, which is located in Southeast British Columbia, will be having an open house on Saturday, September 24. They've got a 26-metre radio dish, and many other instruments. It would be a great opportunity to see the equipment and meet radio astronomers, so if you live nearby, put this on your calendar. (Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend... maybe next year).

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft arrived at Asteroid Itokawa earlier this week, and now it's sending back beautiful images. This image is a composite colour image of the asteroid taken on September 12 using red, green and blue filters. It's also possible to see its irregular shape. Hayabusa will eventually land on the surface of Itokawa, collect samples to be sent back to Earth. The probe's sample return capsule is expected to return to Earth in June 2007.

A team of Canadian engineers have developed a tiny 3.5 kg satellite that could unleash a whole new industry of microsatellites. The Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) is about the size of a shoebox, but it packs a mini-spectrometer that will measure greenhouse gasses - for only $1 million in development costs. Future missions will hope to demonstrate how fleets of inexpensive microsatellites might be able to serve the same function as satellites that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to design and manufacture.

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a supermassive black hole without a surrounding galaxy. These black holes and their galaxies are usually linked, so it's an unusual discovery. One possibility is that the host galaxy was stripped away during a collision with another galaxy. Another possibility is that the black hole is surrounded by a large amount of material, it's just dark matter, so Hubble couldn't detect it.

In preparation for its arrival at Mars next year, NASA has begun putting the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter through its paces. Controllers pointed its three cameras at the Moon and the stars, They also tested the spacecraft's onboard Context Camera and Optical Navigation Camera, and also its high-gain antenna for transmitting back to Earth. MRO was able to send back 75 gigabits of data in less than 24 hours, which is a new record for communicating with a spacecraft. It will enter Mars orbit on March 10, 2006.

A recent conversation on the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum got me thinking. Member "parallaxicity" wanted to know where the next generation of unmanned probes should be sent. Should we investigate Europa, and dig through its icy skin? Or what about building a blimp that could float in Titan's thick atmosphere analyzing the surface in incredible detail? Let me just wipe the drool from my chin; some of these missions would be so cool. But you know, I'll have to take a pass. Right now, I think we need to focus on one thing...

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have used primitive meteorites called chondrites to develop a model of the Earth's early atmosphere. And it looked nothing like what we have today. Instead of the familiar oxygen and nitrogen, our early atmosphere would have been a toxic mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapour. Simulating this early environment was actually quite difficult to calculate because the minerals of the early Earth reacted to the hot environment in hard-to-predict ways.

Cassini scientists have assembled this mosaic image of a region on Titan called Fensal-Aztlan. The northern part of the region, "Fensal", has small islands which range in size from 5 to 40 km (3 to 25 miles) across, while the southern "Aztlan" region mostly lacks these islands. The "islands" are thought to be raised areas of water ice, surrounded by dark particulate material which came out of the atmosphere.

The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on board the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft malfunctioned a few months ago, and the agency wants to know why. The instrument was working perfectly for two years, and made the surprising discovery of methane in Mars' atmosphere. It might be malfunctioning because of spacecraft vibration, but the source of the problem is still under investigation. Even if engineers can't get the instrument working again, the spacecraft still has another 6 which are working fine.

Although astronomers have discovered plenty of comets, they've always thought it was just a fraction (less than 3%) of the number of comets out there - and one of them might have our names on it. Fortunately, this scenario doesn't seem so likely, according to new research from scientists at the Australian National University, astronomers have probably found more like 20% of comets. That means that small comets, capable of destroying a city, probably only hit the Earth once every 40 million years, and big continent-busting comets probably only hit us once every 150 million years.

The Hubble Space Telescope used its Advanced Camera for Surveys to capture this beautiful photograph of the Boomerang Nebula. This cloud of dust and gas has two nearly symmetric cones of material coming out of it. It was created through a process called bipolar outflow, where a dying star ejects material as it spins. It could be that the star is surrounded by a disk of dust, so only the top and bottom material can escape, or a powerful magnetic field is shaping it as it escapes.

Down here on Earth we're protected by our planet's magnetic field from harmful radiation, but out in space, it gets a lot more dangerous. One particularly dangerous region are the Earth's Van Allen belts which astronauts have to pass through to get to the Moon and beyond. Researchers working in Antarctica have observed two rare space storms which drained electrons out of the Van Allen belt, and reformed it closer to Earth in a region that was thought to be free of radiation. This research will help scientists predict what kinds of solar storms will move this radiation around, and give astronauts time to prepare if they're caught in the open.

An unpiloted Progress cargo ship docked to the Zvezda module of the International Space Station on Saturday, delivering supplies to the crew of Expedition 11. The supplies include food, water, fuel, oxygen, air, clothing and experimental hardware. Also on board are spare parts for the Russian Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system and the Elektron oxygen generator. The astronaut will try and repair the Elektron next week to bring it back into service.

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! This week is a sure sign of the Fall season as we welcome back the "Harvest Moon". While Selene will be the major focus of our studies this week, we can still take the opportunity to enjoy double star Gamma Delphini, find out why Vega is so "hot", and have a look at variable Beta Lyrae. So, head out under the moonlit skies, because ...

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What is your computer doing when you're not using it? If your answer is "nothing", then you need to put it to work in the name of science - finding aliens, detecting gravity waves, or predicting asteroid paths. Join the Universe Today and Bad Astronomy team, and compete with other teams worldwide to see who can help crunch the most data. We'd love to get your help.

September arrives and with it come all the sweet memories of anticipation, trepidation and expectation of new school years. These days, I relive these feelings through my children but many of my own emotions still lie close to the surface. There won't be any astronomy texts yet for my two young ones, but others may find on their list the introductory text by Andrew Fraknoi, David Morrison, and SidneyWolff entitled Voyages to the Stars and Galaxies. For those so fortunate, a good memory may be more practical than a sweet memory, for this book is chalkfull of pertinent astronomical information.