American and Australian researchers are working on a method to develop a 3-dimensional map that will show how the Universe evolved during its first billion years. Unlike the map of cosmic background radiation, which is our current first look at the Universe, their method uses the radiation from early clouds of neutral hydrogen atoms. The first stars to ignite should have blown out bubbles of open space inside these clouds, and it's these bubbles that the astronomers should be able to see in the radio spectrum.

Researchers have used the Cassini spacecraft to make observations of Saturn's rings with tremendous clarity, resolving images down to the size of a football field. A team from the University of Colorado at Boulder have used a technique called "stellar occultation" to look through the rings at a distant star, and then watch how the ring particles obscure it. The ring material bunches up into denser areas, with gaps between them as small as 50 metres (160 feet). This is unusual, because they should be spreading out in the vacuum of space - this means that small objects, like moons, are stirring up the material in the rings like ripples in a pond.

Is Pluto a planet or just a really large Kuiper Belt Object (KBO)? Those arguing that it doesn't deserve planetary status will have to reconsider because of new research from the Spitzer Space Telescope. It was previously believed that KBOs were fairly dark, with a similar reflectivity to comets. From the reflectivity, astronomers guessed that KBOs are quite large, some getting as big as 700 km (434 miles) across. But new observations from Spitzer show that they're probably more reflective than previously thought, and therefore much smaller. This means that Pluto is probably still significantly larger than other objects in the Kuiper Belt.

The countdown has begun for the launch of the Planetary Society's Cosmos 1 spacecraft; the first ever to be powered by a solar sail. The privately built spacecraft will be lofted into orbit atop a Volna rocket on March 1, 2005. Once Cosmos 1 is in orbit, it will unfurl 8 triangular solar sails, and then use the sails to propel the spacecraft through the pressure of light from the Sun. Cosmos 1 wasn't designed for a long-term trip into space, so it's likely not to last too much longer than a few weeks, or months at the most, but it should serve as a working concept to help designers plan future spacecraft.

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory took this image of red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, our closest stellar neighbour (after the Sun, of course). The image shows that its surface is in a constant state of turmoil, with flares occurring almost continuously. Proxima Centauri has only 1/10th the mass of our own Sun, and the conversion of hydrogen to helium happens much more slowly. This creates turbulent, convective motion throughout its interior, which stores up magnetic energy - the energy is what creates all the flares.

New images released from the Spitzer space telescope are helping scientists understand how clouds of gas and dust come together to form new solar systems. One image shows a dim object at the heart of an icy cloud, which resembles our own early solar system. This object isn't a star... yet, but it could be a young failed star, a brown dwarf, a star which has yet to ignite, or something else entirely. In another image, Spitzer looked at the centre of a dusty disc around a young star and found icy building blocks that will eventually form into planets - similar to how our planets looked when they were only a few hundred thousand years old.

Cassini's close flyby to Titan in October has only added to the mystery of what the Huygens probe will find on the moon's surface when it tries to land in January. It could land on a hard surface of rock and ice, or maybe it'll land with a squelch into a slurry of organic materials, or maybe it'll splash down into a hydrocarbon lake. Fortunately, the probe is designed to handle all three landing surfaces, and it should be able to transmit details about Titan as long as it survives.

Since supermassive black holes were first discovered, astronomers have been wondering if the hole was created first, and then the galaxy formed around it, or if these monsters tend to form at the heart of galaxies over time. Astronomers using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array have discovered a distant galaxy that's less than a billion years old, but seems to have a supermassive black hole - but no massive bulge of stars. The black hole is 1 billion solar masses, so it should be surrounded by several trillion solar masses in stars. This provides evidence that it's the black hole that forms first, then the galaxy.

A Soyuz 2-1a rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia yesterday, completing a test of this modernized version of the launcher. It was carrying a mock-up of an unspecified satellite called Oblik. The Soyuz 2 is more powerful that the earlier model, and equipped with a digital control system, requiring less people to oversee its launch and monitor its flight.

Greetings fellow skywatchers! We're in for more excitement this week as the Moon occults not one, not two, but three observable planets! But that's not all the action, while we're in a "planetary" frame of mind, we'll also study two planetary nebulae, the M57 and M27, as well as seek out a "planetary" located inside a globular cluster. Other studies for both telescopes and binoculars will include instructions for "visiting with Vesta" as we explore one of our Solar System's brightest asteroids. We'll learn about easily observed variable stars and double your pleasure - double your fun as we explore two open clusters instead of just one! This week will also include a minor meteor shower and things for the Southern Hemisphere skywatchers to do. There are challenges here, as well as a bit of history and a lot of fun! So mark your calendars - because here's "What's Up"!

The early explorers sailed into a void not knowing what beasts, storms or cliffs might await their travels. Their shear audacity and pluck carried them through their adventures. The Gemini program is the equivalent for space travel and David Harland gives a great recount in his book ,How NASA Learned to Fly in Space. He takes the reader on a rollicking good drama of the pilots and support crew as their space vessels sail through the uncharted realms toward the stars.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this image of Titan as it sped past the moon on Oct. 26, 2004. It was taken from an altitude of 2,500 km (1,553 miles) using the spacecraft's aperture radar, which can penetrate thick clouds and reveal the texture of the ground underneath. The dark regions are areas which are smooth, and the bright areas are more bumpy. It could be that the smooth areas are cryovolcanic flows, where water-rich liquid has welled up from inside Titan's warmer interior and spread out on the surface.

Futures: 50 Years in Space, The Challenge of the Stars, a superb new art book/astronomy guide by David A Hardy and Sir Patrick Moore was published in May 2004 (read the Universe Today review here). David took some time out of his busy schedule to talk with Richard Pearson about his passion for both art and space, and his long-lasting friendship and working relationship with Sir Patrick Moore.

It's been 10 months since the Mars Exploration Rovers arrived at the Red Planet, and their full suite of scientific tools are still working perfectly. Spirit is now discovering further evidence of past water on a slope of layered bedrock, which was once layers of volcanic ash altered by water over a long period. Opportunity is heading towards the base of "Burns Cliff", a tall exposure of layered rock in wall of Endurance Crater. The rover is taking advantage of a mysterious power boost that happened about a month ago to get more scientific work done.

A French/US team of astronomers have discovered a second black hole is lurking at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, completely separate from the supermassive black hole that we've known about for years. This new object, IRS 13E, contains only 1,400 stellar masses, which is much less that the 4 million stellar masses of our supermassive black hole. IRS 13E probably used to be located far away from the galactic centre, where a cluster of stars could safely form. All that's left now are a few massive stars whipping around the black hole as it spirals towards the centre of our galaxy.

The Hubble Space Telescope took this rare picture of a triple eclipse on Jupiter, an event that only happens once or twice a decade. Io is near the middle, Ganymede on the planet's left edge, and Callisto is near the right edge. Astronomers tested a new technique with Hubble when taking this picture. They sped up Hubble's tracking system so that Jupiter passed through its field of view more quickly than normal. This allowed them to take rapid-fire snapshots of the planet and its moons to build into a single image that shows more detail than one single image.

European astronomers have produced the first image of an object using high energy gamma rays - the most penetrating form of radiation known. The image is of a supernova remnant called RX J1713.7-3946, which exploded 1,000 years ago. Over time, a ring of material has expanded to twice the diameter of the Moon in the sky. If you had gamma ray eyes, you would be able to see a large ring in the sky every night. This also helps solve a 100 year mystery about the origin of cosmic rays; the remnant seems to be acting as a particle accelerator.

As the ESA's Huygens probe makes its descent into Titan's thick atmosphere in January, telescopes here on Earth will be watching carefully to help understand the global condition of the moon's atmosphere. Cassini's job will be to communicate with Huygens, so it won't actually be able to take pictures of the moon while it's performing this vital task, so it's up to the Earth-based telescopes. There's a remote possibility that Hubble or the giant 10-metre Keck observatory will see a tiny fireball as Huygens enters Titan's atmosphere.

The start of the winter season brings many unpleasant memories, but putting on a favourite, well worn glove helps diminish the spectre of the upcoming season. Andrew Chaikin's book Space - A History of Space Exploration in Photographs feels like one of these favourite gloves. Its many photographs engenders a warm, comforting feeling of the fantastic progression we've made. Just like a well worn glove, this book may not have many surprises but reading it can provide a warm feeling of what may be upcoming for humankind in space.