The ESA's Mars Express has confirmed that water ice exists at Mars' southern pole. Astronomers have known for years that the northern cap contained water ice, but the chemical analysis of the south pole only showed carbon dioxide. Observations from the spacecraft's OMEGA instrument showed that both carbon dioxide and water ice are present in the southern cap. Mars Express will use another instrument, MARSIS, to determine how thick the ice caps are to help calculate just how much water ice is present.

The closest asteroid ever recorded to pass by the Earth was discovered on Monday evening by NASA's LINEAR asteroid survey. Asteroid 2004 FH, which is only 30 metres across, will fly past the Earth at a distance of only 43,000 km - well within the orbit of the Moon. Objects of this size are believed to pass the Earth once every two years or so, but they're usually undetected. 2004 FH will make its closest approach at 2208 UTC (5:08 pm EST), and should be visible to areas of Europe and Asia with binoculars.

When NASA's Stardust spacecraft flew through the tail of Comet Wild-2, it took some of the most detailed images ever seen of a comet. Analysts have taken a short exposure of the comet's surface and overlaid it onto a longer exposure that showed the comet's jets. This combined image allows scientists to understand which surface features are creating the jets, to better understand why Wild-2 is so incredibly pockmarked with craters, rifts and holes. Stardust will return to Earth in 2006 with its precious cargo of cometary particles.

The ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory has resolved the diffuse glow from the heart of the Milky Way into hundreds of individual sources, solving a mystery that has stumped astronomers for more than 30 years. Astronomers believed that the gamma ray glow came from the interactions of atoms, but this couldn't explain why the glow was so strong. Integral was able to see the individual celestial objects, and the data suggests that they might be binary systems, where a black hole or neutron star is orbiting another star.

Space tourism company Space Adventures announced this week that they're shopping around for a potential spaceport location. They're considering sites around the world, and the facility would include a launch pad (or runway) for sub-orbital flights, a spaceflight training centre, and other activities. Space Adventures has already taken over 100 reservations for sub-orbital flights; they just need a vehicle.

New research funded by NASA indicates that some models of climate change might be overestimating what impact water vapour will have in raising average temperatures. This new study, based on data gathered by the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), verified that water vapour increases in the atmosphere as surface temperatures rise, but not as much as previously theorized. Water vapour is a significant greenhouse gas, so this new research will help scientists make much better predictions about future climate changes.

The NASA/ESA Ulysses spacecraft's power is starting to run down, and soon it won't have enough to keep itself warm. When the spacecraft was first launched in 1990 to study the Sun, its reactor produced 285 watts of power, but now almost 14 years later, it's down to 207 watts. If it gets too much lower, the spacecraft won't be able to operate the heaters that keep the fuel flowing. Without this fuel, it won't be able to orient its main antenna towards the Earth to transfer data.

Oxygen is one of the most important elements on Earth to life, and it comprises a fifth of our atmosphere. It's a volatile element, so it can't exist in large quantities unless something, like life, is continually producing it. The mainstream view is that plants evolved oxygen photosynthesis early on, and then produced large amounts of oxygen. Another view, tested under laboratory conditions, is that when volcanic rocks weather, they release oxygen into the atmosphere. Perhaps it's a combination of these factors that built up our oxygen.

NASA's Spirit rover has taken a beautiful panoramic image of the Bonneville crater. Here's a 1024x768 wallpaper of the crater. The original image was quite wide, covering 180-degrees, so it doesn't quite fit a computer screen normally - this image has been cropped a bit. Spirit recorded this photo on March 12, 2004, using its panoramic camera. By taking such a detailed image, scientists can get a good idea about the surface material at the crater.

A Russian Proton rocket successfully launched the Eutelsat W3A satellite into orbit Monday evening. The Proton lifted off at 2306 UTC (6:06 pm EST), and the Breeze M upper stage separated 10 minutes later, placing the satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit 9 hours later. The W3A satellite will provide broadband, direct-to-home, and other communications services to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft took a beautiful picture of an enormous prominence, 700,000 kilometres across, ejected from the surface of the Sun. An "eruptive prominence" is a mass of relatively cool plasma - only 80,000 C, instead of 1-2 million C in the upper atmosphere of the Sun. These are usually associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and can affect the Earth's magnetosphere when they come our way.

One of the largest astronomy catalogs ever created was released to the public today by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The released data contains six terabytes of images and catalogs, containing 88 million celestial objects and detailed spectra on 350,000 objects. Many discoveries have been made with previously released SDSS data, including the most distant quasars, coolest stars, properties of galaxies, and the locations of many asteroids. The photographs were taken using the SDSS' 2.5 metre telescope, which records images digitally using 5 filters.

More than a million people die from malaria every year, a disease spread by mosquitoes. Epidemics happen when environmental conditions, like rainfall, temperature and vegetation are perfect for the disease carrying insects. By tracking these changes with satellites, NASA scientists hope to be able to predict when and where disease outbreaks will happen to give people some warning. This would help relief agencies know where conditions are going to be the worst so they can direct their efforts.

A new object has been discovered in the Solar System; it's nearly as large as Pluto, but 13 billion kilometres away. Tentatively named Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the Sea, it's approximately 1,700 km in diameter, which makes it the largest Solar System object found since Pluto was located in 1930. Sedna is located in the Kuiper Belt, and follows a highly ecliptic orbit that takes 10,500 years to complete. The object was first discovered using the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and then confirmed with several other instruments, including the Spitzer Space Telescope.

One of the most innovative aspects of the Mars Pathfinder and Exploration Rover missions were the durable airbags which helped the spacecraft survive a hard landing on the surface of Mars. Instead of having to slow their descent from parachute speed, they could carry much less fuel... and bounce. But developing the airbags was a significant engineering challenge. How to create a fabric that could survive a long fall, across sharp rocks, which wouldn't clog up the lander when it deflated. Engineer Tommaso Rivellini explains the journey to create the airbag system which became so successful.

A Lockheed Martin-built Atlas III rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Saturday, lofting the MBSAT communications satellite into orbit - the rocket lifted off at 0540 UTC (12:40am EST). MBSAT will provide a range of telecommunications services to countries in Asia. This was the second Atlas flight this year, and 70th consecutive success for the family of rockets.

Still more than 100 days before it enters Saturn's orbit, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is delivering great data back to Earth. This week's images released from the spacecraft show clumps embedded within its narrow, outermost F ring. Two images were taken roughly two hours apart when the spacecraft was 62.9 million kilometres away. Clumps like this were seen when the Voyager spacecraft flew past Saturn, but scientists haven't had the chance to watch them for a long time - now they'll have years to keep an eye on them.

NASA's Spirit rover took the first ever image of the Earth from the surface of another planet (other than the Moon). The photo was taken one hour before sunrise on Spirit's 63rd day on the surface of Mars. The image was built up from a series of images that Spirit took of the sky, as well as a panoramic image directly of Earth. The contrast was doubled to make the Earth easier to see; although, it's still a little hard to make out.