A team of astronomers led by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy have found evidence that asteroids change colour as they get older. The team used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which has accurate colour measurements on 100,000 asteroids. They found that asteroids turn redder over time because of the constant bombardment of radiation from the Sun and cosmic rays. With more research, astronomers should soon be able to judge the age of an asteroid just by its colour.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) MUSES-C spacecraft snapped pictures of the Earth and Moon as it made a flyby past our planet. The maneuver is called a gravity assist, which uses the Earth's gravity to give the spacecraft a boost in speed. The ion engine powered spacecraft skimmed past our planet at an altitude of only 3700 km before continuing on towards its final target: Asteroid Itokawa (1998SF36). It will reach the asteroid in summer 2005, and then spend 5 months orbiting and collecting samples from its surface. It will then leave the asteroid and return the samples to Earth in 2007.

An Atlas IIAS placed an SES Americom television broadcast satellite into orbit on Wednesday, marking the 72nd consecutive flight for the Atlas family. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 2222 UTC (6:22 pm EDT), and placed the AMC-11 satellite into a transfer orbit 28 minutes later. This was the second to last launch for the Atlas 2 family of boosters. The final launch will carry a military payload in July.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft turned its gaze on Saturn's mysterious moon Titan again, taking another early look at its haze-obscured surface. The spacecraft was 29.3 million kilometres (18.2 million miles) when it took this picture with its narrow angle camera. Cassini's pictures of Titan are now better than anything that can be taken with Earth-based telescopes. Scientists will get an even better view of Titan when the spacecraft reaches Saturn and its moons in July 2004.

NASA has been working for the past several months to implement the changes requested by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. The Stafford-Covey Task Group released their second interim report today, which tracks the status of the Return to Flight effort. Three of the fifteen recommendations have been completed, and they expect to wrap up several more by the summer. One of the most difficult tasks so far has been to eliminate falling debris during launch - it was a piece of foam that fell off the fuel tank that critically damaged Columbia - engineers are worried that the only way to test if the problem has been fixed is by actually launching the shuttle.

Space tourism company Space Adventures announced on Wednesday that they've completed a deal to send an unnamed Japanese celebrity to the International Space Station. The deal was negotiated with Dentsu, the world's largest advertising agency, which had previously organized a commercial filmed on board the station for Pocari Sweat (a sport drink). Space Adventures has now filled two of its four allocated seats on Soyuz launches over the next few years. The other seat will go to Greg Olsen, who's currently training at Russia's Star City in preparation for his launch as early as October.

When you lock a bunch of humans in a small space for a long time, they can go a little crazy. So researchers from the Australian National University are trying to understand the dynamics that might afflict a long-term space mission, and offer some solutions to make things easier. Volunteers from the Mars Society will travel to the Australian desert, and attempt to mimic some of the conditions experienced by long-duration space travelers. The researchers will test them daily, and watch for detachment, disagreements, and see if the larger group will splinter off into smaller subgroups.

A mysterious force, which astronomers call "Dark Energy", seems to be speeding up the expansion of the Universe. New observations from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have independently confirmed this expansion by measuring the distances to galaxy clusters. It seems that the expansion of the Universe was slowing down after the Big Bang until 6 billion years ago; at that point the force of this dark energy took over and expansion began to speed up. The big mystery still remains... what is dark energy?

If you've ever sat back on a summer's day and wondered, really wondered, what it's all about, then you've likely wandered a bit through time. Perhaps you've thought back to seminal days like the first launch of a rocket, the definition of gravity or perhaps the beginnings of human civilization. Peter Ward in his book Gorgon extends this timeline further, in particular to the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period. Though occurring more than 250 million years ago, Peter brings his investigation and personal events into a warm, thoughtful prose that can add great spice to many a wonder.

NASA is gearing up to launch its next satellite that will monitor the health of the Earth's atmosphere. Aura, which is currently scheduled to lift off on June 19, will carry four instruments designed to survey different aspects of the atmosphere, from the troposphere (where we live) to the high stratosphere. It will help determine the rate at which the ozone layer is recovering, and track the sources and processes that determine global air quality.

Researchers from the University of Arizona have recreated some of the chemicals thought to be in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It's unique in the Solar System, with a thick haze of hydrocarbons; some scientists believe it's a similar environment to our own planet's early history. They created these chemicals by bombarding an analog of Titan's atmosphere with electrons, which produces "tholins" (organic polymers). These have been detected from Earth-based telescopes. By dissolving these tholins in liquid water creates amino acids, which are the building blocks for life.

On Tuesday, June 8, observers in Europe, Asia and Africa will be treated to a very rare event in astronomy: a transit of Venus across the surface of the Sun. The transit will begin at approximately 0520 UTC, and wrap up approximately 6 hours later. Don't look directly at the Sun, or through a telescope without a proper filter, as you can severely damage your eyes. The last transit happened on December 6, 1882, and the next will occur in 8 years; it will be visible from the Americas.

NASA's Opportunity rover is hard at work analyzing the rock that was blasted out of the "Endurance" crater. One rock, dubbed "Lion Stone" is unlike any of the others in the region. It was likely formed under wet conditions, like the exposed rock in Eagle Crater (where Opportunity landed), but it's a little different in mineralogy and colour. It might give researchers more conditions about the environment previous to the Eagle Crater rocks. NASA is still deciding whether or not to send the rover into the crater, as it might not be able to climb back out again.

Approximately 250 million years ago, something nearly wiped out life on Earth; 90% of marine animals and 80% of land animals were snuffed out in the geologic blink of an eye. Researchers now believe they've found the culprit: an 8 to 11 km (5 to 7 mile) asteroid that stuck the Earth off the coast of Australia. The impact happened so long ago, there isn't a crater, but geologists have found several clues that lead to this spot, including deposits of "shocked quartz" which can only be formed in a violent event like an asteroid strike.

One of the big goals of astronomy is to answer the question: are we alone? In order to find out the answer, NASA is planning to launch two separate space observatories within the next 10-15 years which will be capable of finding Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Terrestrial Planet Finder-C will be a moderately sized optical telescope launched by 2014 capable of blocking the glare from a star in order to be able to see planets orbiting it. Planet Finder-I will launch by 2020, and comprise multiple spacecraft flying in formation which will simulate a much larger observatory.

Orbital Recovery has signed a long term contract with Arianespace to launch five of its space tugs as secondary payloads on future Ariane 5 launches. The ConeXpress Orbital Life Extension Vehicles (CX OLEV) will dock with satellites in geostationary orbit which are running out of fuel and take over the process of station keeping, which keeps the satellite in position and pointed at the same spot on the Earth. This will allow satellite operators to continue getting revenue from an otherwise perfectly functioning spacecraft.

European astronomers have found a large disc of dust and gas in nebula M 17, which seems to be forming a huge star, 30-40 times larger than our Sun. Astronomers have long known that low mass stars (like our own Sun) form from discs, but it wasn't clear if huge stars do this too. The disc has 110 times the mass of our Sun, and was seen as a dark silhouette against a hot region of the nebula. The disc has a diameter of 0.31 light-years, which is 500 times larger than the orbit of Pluto.