Astronomers have tracked a fast moving binary pair of objects back to the original stellar nursery that they were ejected from 1.7 million years ago. The binary is classified as a microquasar, where a regular star 17 times the mass of our Sun is orbiting a neutron star or black hole. The regular star in this pairing exactly matches several other stars in a nearby cluster of stars, so the astronomers are fairly certain that's where they originated. It's believed that that black hole or neutron star was much more massive than the companion star, but it exploded as a supernova millions of years ago.

Scaled Composites has announced that they will make an attempt win the $10 million X Prize with SpaceShipOne on September 30, 2004. In order to win the prize, the spacecraft will need to be carrying the equivalent of 3 people, reach an altitude of 100 km (62.5 miles), and then do it again by October 13th. SpaceShipOne will launch from the Mojave airport again, and Scaled Composites will attempt to complete a second flight within just 5 days. Designer Burt Rutan said that he's fixed the problems that hampered the previous flight, so they shouldn't be a factor.

NASA engineers have approved the design for a new way to attach the space shuttle to the external fuel tank; one of the key milestones required to get the shuttles flying again. The accident that caused the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia happened because the previous attachment was covered in foam to prevent ice building up - foam fell off and struck the shuttle's wing during launch. The new design uses heaters to keep it free of ice, so no foam is required. This new design will be retrofitted to all 11 external fuel tanks, and be used when the first space shuttle flies again in early 2005.

This image of Saturn's moon Titan, taken by Cassini, was taken July 3; one day after the spacecraft made its relatively close flyby. This natural colour image was taken when Cassini was 790,000 km (491,000 miles) away from the foggy moon.

Researchers from the University of Washington have developed a theory which links together Dark Energy - the mysterious force that's accelerating the Universe - with the recent discovery that neutrinos have mass. They believe the link comes from the interaction between neutrinos and undiscovered subatomic particles called "accelerons". Dark energy results when the Universe tries to pull the neutrinos and accelerons apart. One interesting prediction from this theory is that the acceleration of the Universe will slow down as the neutrinos get further apart.

Halfway through their 6-month mission, the crew of Expedition 9 are preparing for their third spacewalk outside the International Space Station. On August 3, Gennady Padalka and Mike Fincke will exit the station and install retroreflectors and communications equipment. This will be used by the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle which will make its first flight next year to deliver supplies to the station.

It's mostly empty, but space can still be a dangerous place for spacecraft. They're usually filled with delicate and sensitive scientific equipment, and the first major risk comes with launch. A typical rocket launch is so loud and violent that spacecraft can be shaken apart. Once in space, they need to deal with the temperature extremes, which can range hundreds of degrees above and below freezing. They're blasted by radiation from the Sun and cosmic rays which come from deep space. And the tiny dust in meteor showers can punch holes in the spacecraft because of their tremendous speed. Engineers need to account for all of these when designing them to survive.

This perspective image of a fractured crater near the Valles Marineris was taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft during its 61st orbit in January, 2004. The image was obtained using its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), which enables scientists to build a realistic 3D model of the surface of Mars which can then be tilted and rotated to examine from different angles. Scientists aren't sure why the floor of this crater is broken up like this, but it could be from cooled lava, dried clay, or frozen ground.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this image of Saturn's moon Titan on July 2, 2004, when it was only 347,000 km (216,000 miles) away. This closer image and better resolution is an improvement over Cassini's previous images of the enshrouded moon by a factor of four. It's a natural colour image, built by merging photographs taken through the spacecraft's red, blue and green filters.

The European Space Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft took this snapshot of the Middle East and Africa from its vantage point of 100,000 km (63,000 miles) from Earth. SMART-1 is continuing its long journey to the Moon by using its efficient ion engine to slowly raise its altitude. Operation of the engine has been so efficient, in fact, that the spacecraft will probably be able to save 25% of its fuel by the time it reaches the Moon. This will allow it to get much closer to the Moon than originally planned, and take much higher resolution images of its surface.

If you've got some dark skies, look up for a few minutes, and you're bound to see a meteor go by. That's because the annual Perseid meteor shower has begun, and it's only going to get better. The Earth began passing through the dust trail left behind Comet Swift-Tuttle on July 23rd, and we'll stay in it until August 22. The shower reaches its peak on August 12, however, when skywatchers should be able to see 80-100 meteors an hour. This is a good year for the Perseids because the Moon won't be too bright, and the Earth might be passing through an extra filament of dust for the first time on August 11.

The second of the Double Star science satellites was successfully launched on board a Chinese-built Long March 2C rocket on Sunday. In an usual move, launch controllers decided to launch the Earth observation satellite a day early to avoid bad weather. Double Star is a collaboration between the European Space Agency and China to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. The spacecraft reached its expected altitude, deployed the booms carrying its magnetometers, and seems to be functioning normally.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe made an impassioned plea to the chairman of the US House Committee on Appropriations to restore $1 billion in funding for the new space exploration initiative, announced earlier this year. In his short letter, he asked the committee to consider how the budget cuts will affect the agency's science programs, and delay the development of new technologies to support the Vision for Space Exploration.

Using data gathered by NASA's SORCE satellite, scientists noticed that the light from the Sun reaching the Earth decreased by 0.1% during the Venus transit earlier this year. This is similar to what happens when large sunspots obscure the face of the Sun. In October 2003, three large sunspot groups moving across the Sun dimmed it by 0.3%. These large sunspots are surrounded by bright areas called "faculae", which actually compensate for the dimmer spots, and provide a net increase in sunlight when measured over a period of a few weeks.

Cassini took this image of Saturn's moon Enceladus on July 3, 2004, when the spacecraft was 1.6 million km (990,000 miles) away. Enceladus is fairly small, only 499 km (310 miles) across, but it's covered in water ice - it's the most reflective object in the solar system, reflecting 90% of light that strikes it. The moon has smooth and lightly cratered terrain, and many features which are similar to Jupiter's Ganymede and Europa. Cassini will make its first close flyby on February 17, 2005.

While the Hubble Space Telescope infrared camera was imaging a piece of the sky as part of a scientific survey, operators decided to take a snapshot using its Advanced Camera for Surveys on an adjacent region - they weren't really looking at anything in particular. The image contains a jumble of unrelated galaxies, including a yellow spiral stretched by a galactic collision, a young blue galaxy with regions of starbirth, and some other small red galaxies. The blue arc in the middle of the image is actually a red galaxy which is serving as a gravitational lens to magnify a more distant blue galaxy.

A brand new nebula was discovered in the constellation of Orion by Jay McNeil back in January, 2004, and astronomers have been turning every instrument they have on this new object to better understand it. It turns out that "McNeil's Nebula" has been there for a long time, but it's only been recently illuminated by the young star that formed it. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has seen X-ray outbursts from the star which have helped to show that its magnetic field is probably interacting with an orbiting disk of gas, causing it to periodically flare up.

Here's a beautiful 1024x768 desktop wallpaper of Saturn's rings, taken in full colour by Cassini on June 21, when it was still over a week away from the planet - this photo was taken at a distance of 6.4 million km (4 million miles). The rings are mainly made of water ice, and the colour variations depend on the amount of rock or carbon compounds which make them look dirtier.

Researchers have found a new meteorite which they believe originated from Mars. The 715 gram (1.6 pound) black rock was discovered during a meteorite search in Antarctica. A total of 1358 meteorites were discovered during the search last year, but this one is unmistakably Martian in origin, according to scientists classifying the meteorites. Scientists from around the world are invited to request samples of the rock, dubbed MIL 03346, for their research. Perhaps it will be able to help clear up the controversy about whether life was found in that other rock from Mars.