The Voyager 1 probe has crossed the penultimate border between what is considered our solar system and what is considered interstellar space. This remarkable machine, which is still sending signals back to Earth after 33 years, is no longer detecting any effects of the Solar Wind. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/nasa-voyager-1-leaving-solar-system-101213.html The final barrier, the edge of the farthest reaches of the solar system is the heliopause, the border where the interstellar “winds” are stronger than the solar winds. 
Voyager should reach the Heliopause in approximately 4 more years, at which point it will be humanity’s first true interstellar space craft.
I for one reject it’s reclassification as a non-planetary body. I’m as entitled as the next person to classify heavenly bodies as I see fit. Pluto == planet. Done and Done. But for those people concerned with “official” designations…well read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/how-i-killed-pluto-and-why-it-had-it-coming/67242/ The press, and indeed the astronomers in Prague themselves, were quite amused by the fact that one of the most vocal supporters of demoting Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and Xena was the guy who had the most to personally gain from Xena being a planet: me. …and he mentions being in the town of “Eastsound” during the beginnings of the controversy. I wonder if that was Eastsound, Orcas Island?
The Moon NASA has assembled a panel of 4 experts to examine our national vision for space exploration, including the current plans to establish a permanent base on the moon, and then go on to Mars. Mars Opportunity has gotten the first glimpse of the rim of endeavor crater, still 12 km and just about 2 years away: 
Also, NASA is hosting a contest to name the new Mars rover (ie MSL) Deep space New Horizons is now 1/3 of the way to Pluto (by distance) DSR 2.5
Sorry Rich, but the promise of the liquid ocean of Europa beats out the promise of exotic methane based life forms on Titan. Search for Life Heads to the Outer Solar System "Does life require liquid water as the liquid medium, or are other liquids possible hosts for, if not life as we know it, some kind of organized chemistry?" asks Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona and a member of the team pushing for a Titan mission. "You'd be testing the limits of what the word 'life' really means in the cosmos." In any case, cool beans.
In the spirit of the new year, I have compiled a list of the 10 coolest topics covered last year in the Deep Space Report - 3 planets orbiting other stars were imaged, Fomalhaut, HR8799, and beta pictoris, in that order.
- The discovery of an ancient shoreline provided proof that Mars once had an ocean of liquid water in the northern hemisphere.
- Phoenix detected actual snow falling from the sky on Mars.
- Armadillo Aerospace wins Lunar Lander Challenge level 1, and also announces partnerships with the Rocket Racing League to provide rocket motors for their racers, and also work on a joint venture to provide commercial space tourism flights.
- India successfully sends Chandrayaan-1 to the moon.
- China send's it's first moon probe too, Chang'e-1
- Catalina Sky Survey program detected a meteorite before impact.
- A spectacular fireball meteorite was seen over Alberta, Canada.
- Cassinni makes 2 flybys of Encleadus, the first passing within just 16 miles of the tiny moon.
- NASA tests out several new lunar rover designs, including ATHLETE and PILOT
The top news this week is the golf ball astronaut Alan Shepard launched from the moon in 1971 has been located more than 200 million miles away, on Meridiani Planum 
Actually, this appears to be close to the largest, if not the largest example of a Martian "blueberry", or hematite spherule. They have been found in various sizes, usually 5 mm or less in diameter. But some extraordinarily specimens have been found in various pancam images, this one appears to be more or less the size of a golf ball. MSL delayed 2 years NASA has finally admitted defeat in getting MSL off the ground on time, the only alternative is to slip the schedule nearly 2 years to the next launch opportunity. That sucks, and it's going to add $400 million to the overall cost, just for the schedule slip. Possibility of Life on Mars? In a recent experiment, scientists have determined that certain organisms can survive in a sporified form for an indefinite period of time on Mars, provided they are buried under the surface by as little as 4 cm. In this form, life could survive for tens of thousands of years through Mars' climactic cycles, perhaps remaining dormant until the planet warms slightly, just enough to support thin films of liquid water for even a few years, and then go dormant again. The experiment exposed earth bacteria to accelerated martian conditions, including both the daily temperature fluctuations, near vaccum, and intense UV radiation. The martian soil simulant was sterilized down to a depth of 4cm, but sporified bacteria below 4cm were preserved. Some bacteria have been shown to survive for millions of years trapped inside salt crystals on earth. Sporified martian bacteria could survive just as long, waiting for climatic changes to bring water and life back to the long dormant planet. On much shorter timescales, sporified bacteria may remain dormant and become active seasonally. For example, some locations on Mars, such as areas of the Hellas basin, may support liquid surface water for a few days per year. Bacteria could survive under these conditions, remaining dormant in the soil for the rest of the year. Life in this form could follow annual cycles, not unlike desert life in places like Death Valley on earth. HiRISE releases new high res 3-D images More than 300 new high resolution stereo anaglyphs have been published on the HiRISE web site. These are the highest resolution stereo images of Mars ever released, and among the highest resolution images period. You need those goofy red blue glasses to see them properly, but the effect is impressive. They also have the stereo pairs as individual images. I have found a simple blink animation, alternating the left and right images at about a 500 ms time interval, works very well, better than 3-D glasses, and doesn't require the glasses. It takes a little time to do that, I'll see if I have time to publish some of the images in that format. 
Deep space Report 1.10
Mars Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Russian Space Agency have announced plans to develop a joint mission to Mars. The mission plans to land a spacecraft on Phobos and sample the surface material directly. This may confirm the presence of water ice on Phobos. Jupiter A sophisticated computer simulation has predicted that Jupiter may have solid core of water ice and other rocky materials. NASA and ESA have also announced plans to work on a joint mission to Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede, the Europa-Jupiter System Mission (EJSM). Saturn Measurements of Encleadus' mysterious plumes have shown the material is moving at 1360 mph. It is difficult to imagine how to achieve this velocity without liquid water near the surface of the tiny moon. Alberta Meteorite Update The spectacular fireball seen last week over Alberta, Canada has now been estimated to have been an approximately 10 ton asteroid which entered the atmosphere at approximately 14 km/s. This is relatively slow, compared to an average velocity of around 20 km/s. Several security cameras recorded the event. Dr. Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario hopes to find as many video recordings as possible, as this will help to determine the original orbit of the asteroid. Although no fragments of the actual meteorite have yet been recovered, it is likely that some will be found. Only 9 other meteorites have been associated with a known orbit prior to impact. With any luck this will be the tenth. Noting that meteorites have substantial commercial value, under Canadian law, meteorites are the property of the landowner of the property on which they are found. Deep Space Report 1.09
Luna Britain is now planning it's own moon mission, MoonLITE, focusing on studying moon quakes. Water on Mars There were two exciting discoveries this week related to water on mars. First, they have identified what seems to be an ancient shoreline, indicating an ocean once existed that would have been as large as the Mediterranean, and possibly even larger. The other, perhaps more exciting, discovery is buried glacial ice in Hellas basin, between 35 and 60 degrees latitude. The ice is buried by less than a meter of rock and debris, which acts as an insulating blanket, otherwise the ice would have sublimated long ago. The ice containing deposits, which appear as gently sloping aprons at the bases of taller features, have puzzled NASA scientists since they were first observed in the early 70s. Conclusive evidence from the ground penetrating radar from MRO show these aprons are in fact made of ice. Opportunity Continues on to Endeavour Hortonheardawho has posted some awesome new color panoramas from Oppy's journey to Endeavour. They've set several new daily records, But what's amazing is the consistent distance they are putting on. Sol 1704 
Sol 1707 
JPL has also published an updated an updated traverse map from sol 1713. Be sure to check it out at full res. This is a terrific example or MRO's MOC capabilities. Image resolution could easily pick out even smaller boulders or ejecta debris, although I haven't spotted any. I think the JPL page links to the source image from MRO. 
MSL site list narrowed NASA has narrowed down the list of candidates for the MSL landing site to 4: 
- Holden Crater - another crater, similar to Gusev Crater, with and outflow channel, containing alluvial fans, flood deposits, possible lake beds and clay-rich deposits.
- Mawrth Vallis - contains exposed layers containing at least two types of clay.
Deep space The Dawn spacecraft has shut down its ion motor and will cruise unpowered until February next year, when it will have an encounter with Mars. Dawn is on schedule for an encounter with Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015. French astronomers have used the ESO' Very Large Telescope to image yet another extra solar planet, beta pictoris. Beta Pictoris is a very young star, about 12 million years old, about 70 light years away. The planet has approximately 8 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits at the distance Saturn orbits our sun. I think this is perhaps the most earth like solar system yet imaged. A recent study has detected cosmic rays which appear to be originating from a nearby source, perhaps 300 light years away or less. The high energy electrons are encountering the earth at such high velocity that they could not have traveled much further than that without losing more velocity. However, the detector is not capable of accurately determining what direction the electrons are coming from, so we really have no idea where the source is, just that it must be relatively nearby. China as a space threat The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission issued a report to congress which, among other things, warns of China's space program as a potential military threat. What does this have to do with deep space? Well, the biggest space program in US history, Apollo, was a military program. It was a response to a perceived threat by the USSR, and a demonstration of the US space capability. In particular it was a demonstration of the US ICBM capability. What, Saturn V was just a giant ICBM? Yes it was, why do you think NASA built a disposable launch vehicle? You don't reuse ICBMs. And, China has stated that there long term goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon. Now, if this is seen as a potential military threat, we must follow suit and build our own moon base with equal or greater capability. Of course we also have plans for a permanent moon base, but the plans of NASA can shift from year to year. With out a "guns and butter" justification for the expense of such a program, it would be likely to lose support eventually, especially when the enormous cost of a moon base turns into a line item on this year's congressional budget talks. Whether or not there is a real military threat isn't really the point. The point is there is a congressional report which at least mentions this as a possibility, and that should be all the support we need. Deep Space Report 1.8
Luna
NASA tests new rover designs
NASA tested a bunch of new lunar rover designs last week in Black Point, Arizona, including ATHLETE, a 6 leg rover design, and the Small Pressurized Rover Concept vehicle. This video sort of rambles a bit but watch the whole thing, there are so many rovers being tested at times it looks like a scene from Star Wars.
Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan-1 has sent back pictures and also adjusted it's orbit for the 4th time. The orbit now takes the spacecraft 267,000 km from the earth. The next maneuver should take the spacecraft all the way to the moon.
Google Lunar X-Prize
In a bizarre twist, NASA has announced it will collaberate with Odyssey Moon Ventures LLC to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize.
Shakleton Crater may be xenobiotic deep freezeIn an interesting article last week,
Joop Houtkooper presented an interesting paper at Europlanet's latest Planetary Science Congress last week. He presented the idea that permanently shadowed parts of Shackleton Crater near the moon's south pole should in theory act as an interplanetary deep freeze. In particular, ancient meteor impacts on earth and even mars could have expelled debris into interplanetary space. Some of this debris almost certainly would have been collected on preserved deep inside Shackleton Crater. In fact, over the billions of years of history of life on earth, it is very likely that, at the very least, some samples of very early life on earth would have been preserved on the moon in this way. It is interesting to note that the same thing is true for Mars. If at any point in the past microbial life existed on Mars, those microbes would also have been expelled and transported to the moon in the same way. Although Mars is obviously much further way from the moon, it is also nearer the main asteroid belt and would have experienced more frequent large impacts.
What is unique about the moon is it is not geologically active. We do not have samples on the surface of the earth which would preserve evidence of life on earth from the time when we believe the origin of life occurred, because the earth is a very active place. that geologic record has been erased billions of years ago. However, this record may still be preserved hidden in the shadows of Shackleton Crater.
Mercury
Moving at the speed of interplanetary science, the MESSENGER team has finally released some amazing new images and science results from the recent flyby. Among other things, they have discovered a mysterious blue material on the surface of Mercury.
Mars
Once again, MER-B Opportunity is roving across the seemingly endless sands of Meridiani, on its way to Endeavor Crater (image credit hortonheardawho)
On a sadder note, the sun is setting on the Phoenix lander. It has already entered safe mode at least once due to low power, and NASA has begun the shutting down systems to try to squeeze the last remaining watts out of the spacecraft.
Deep space Report 1.5
 Do you want to blow your mind? Oh yeah I knew you did! Go read up on the Matrioshka Brain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_Brain Such a structure would be composed of a collection of one or more (typically more) Dyson spheres built around a star, and nested one inside another. A significant percentage of the shells would be composed of nanoscale computers (see molecular-scale computronium). This plays an integral role in the book I'm currently reading, Accelerando by Charles Stross.
Pretty cool animation of the orbits of the planets and the major asteroids. I'd like to point out one of the more interesting things to take a look at, find the asteroid Ceres. Look at the nice circular orbit. Ceres is the largest asteroid, has a stable orbit, it's a sphere, it has a lot of water...can you say "planet".
Mercury
After it's successful encounter with Mercury a couple of weeks ago, Messenger has increased it's velocity relative to the sun to 63 km/s. This is the second fastest NASA spacecraft in history, the fastest being Helios 2 back in the 70s.
Earth
The IBEX spacecraft was launched on a Pegasus rocket last week. Pegasus is an aircraft launched rocket. IBEX's mission is to observe the boundary of our sun's magnetosphere. IBEX will use it's own solid rocket boosters to achieve a 100,000 mile earth orbit before beginning the science phase of it's mission.
Also, 9 teams (including Armadillo Aerospace, see RRL article last week) will compete in Northrup Grumman $2 million Lunar Lander Challenge this week. Here is a video from last year:
Mars
New observations by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft have been used to more accurately measure the mass and density of Phobos. With a revised density of 1.85 g/cc, which is significantly lower than the density or Martian rock at 2.7-3.3 g/cc, the conclusion is Phobos is most likely a rubble pile. It is also likely that the mass of Phobos contains significant quantities of water ice, which of course has a density of 1 g/cc. Of course, it would be nice to obtain a sample of Phobos, and a Russian mission planned to launch next year may do exactly that. However, with Russia's less than spectacular success record with missions to Mars, I would not bet on seeing those samples return to earth any time soon.
Opportunity is continuing on it's journey to Endeavour Crater, taking one last lap around Victoria first. Also, a couple of weeks ago, on sol 1671, Oppy acquired this panorama (assembled by Hortonheardawho)
Saturn
After the spectacular encounter with Enceladus last week, Cassini has still not posted any details or results from the encounter. They did post some raw images from 5000km+, but I was hoping for some extreme closeups. So far the hihgest res images are these images from August, at 545 km:
Now that is darn good, you can practically see the polar bears and leopard seals lounging on the ice, but if they got better images in the most recent encounter I'd love to see them.
Deep Space
A new comet was discovered last week, w00t!
Deep Space Report 1.3
Near Earth Space
For the very first time, our extensive near earth object tracking program has detected an impactor before it hit the earth. Well, not long before it hit the earth, and it wasn't much of an impactor. Asteroid 2008 TC3, estimated to measure between 3 and 15 feet in diameter, burned up in the atmosphere over Sudan on 10/7 at 2:46am GMT. The really cool part is the asteroid actually was detected prior to impact, and being a relatively small chunk of rock, this was quite a feat!
Image Credit: Richard Kowalski and Ed Beshore, Catalina Sky Survey
The asteroid was initially discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson Arizona. The final orbit shows 2008 TC3 was both a Mars crosser and also (obviously) and earth crosser.
But, can anyone say invasion from Mars? Maybe, just as a precaution, we should send a team of international investigators to the impact location to check things out. Anyone exhibiting curious behavior or extra limbs should be detained ;-0
But seriously, JPL's Near Earth Object Program posted some nice data on this event:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news159.html
Mercury
On 10/6 Messenger successfully completed the second flyby of Mercury this year. The spacecraft passed within 125 miles of the planet.
NASA update
Latest images
Mars
MSL was nearly cut this week, but then it wasn't. It's gone over budget of course. they've already spent $1.5 billion on the program. I think the real issue is if they do not get enough funding to keep the program on schedule, it will have to slip to the next launch opportunity for Mars, which come about 18 months apart. That would add even more cost which would suck even worse. The project is expected to run at least 30% over budget as is. Status quo really.
Phoenix is desperately trying to get in some more science before the mission ends from lack of sunlight. I have to say that compared to MER, Phoenix hasn't delivered much.
MER continues to be the poster child for the Energizer Bunny on Mars. If they keep going they may have to pick up Energizer as a sponsor because NASA is going to get tired of funding the mission that refused to die.
Saturn
10/9 was a busy busy day for Cassini. The big news was a very close flyby of Enceladus, at a distance of less than 16 miles. But along the way they also passed through the rings and had encounters with Telesto and Janus at 42,000 and 56,000 miles respectively. The encounter was a success. Apparently they have sent back data from the encounter, but none of the really close up images have been posted yet. In addition to acquiring phenomenally high res images of the vents near the south pole, Cassini flew directly through the plumes and sampled them.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=874
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/index.cfm
Pluto
Almost forgot, 10/15 is going to be the 1000 day aniversary for New Horizons mission to Pluto. Everyone put on a party hat and sing happy birthday new horizons or something like that 
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php
Deep space Report 1.2
All the news that's fit to print from Luna and beyond!
Luna
Carnegie Mellon University has decided to pursue the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize. http://www.space.com/spacenews/071001_businessmonday_lunarprize.html
The UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has developed a sophisticated x-ray camera for lunar observation. The camera is scheduled to be launched 10/22/08 on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft - India's first mission to the Moon.
http://www.moondaily.com/reports/X_Ray_Specs_Ready_To_Eye_The_Moon_999.html
Mercury
MESSENGER's second pass by Mercury, a gravitational boost maneuver, is scheduled for 1/14/09. MESSENGER sill pass within 125 miles of the surface, snapping pictures as it goes. Although they are planning to eventually orbit Mercury, the planned trajectory uses many gravitational boost maneuvers to save fuel. They should achieve capture by Mercury in March 2011
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/081001-mercury-flyby-preview.html
Mars
Phoenix
The Phoenix science team held a press conference last Monday. They have discovered calcium carbonate and sheet silicates. These two minerals don't usually form without the presence of liquid water. Calcium carbonate was detected by both TEGA and MECA at 7% or more. In general, evidence of phyllosilicate clays are abundant. MECA lead scientist Michael Hecht commented, "We are seeing smooth-surfaced, platy particles with the atomic-force microscope, not inconsistent with the appearance of clay particles." Extreme dryness of soil might be related to perchlorate prevalence. So far the science team has not detected organics.
Perhaps more exciting, a laser instrument designed to measure the atmosphere has detected actual snow falling on Mars. The snow was detected high in the atmosphere. Similar to dry deserts on earth, This was a "ghost" snow since it evaporated before it reached the ground.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080930/ts_alt_afp/usscienceastronomyspacemars;_ylt=Aq1nxcED8qVFptS5WZdCAfwPLBIF
http://astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2890&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Other Mars news
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered hundreds of small fractures on the surface of Mars which may have served to direct the flow of water through Martian sandstone billions of years ago.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080926-fracture-mars.html
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/MRO_Reveals_Rock_Fracture_Plumbing_On_Mars_999.html
A new study based on information collected by the ESA's Mars Express Planetary Fourier Spectrometer has come up with an explanation for why Mars' ice caps are slightly offset. Detailed, accurate measurements of wind flow patterns have revealed that the Hellas Basin reroute high altitude winds and force weather systems towards the south pole. This creates a strong low-pressure system in the western hemisphere of Mars, which is responsible for the asymmetry of the southern polar cap.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080929-mm-mars-ice.html
Researchers at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin have analyzed images of the Xanthe Terra region of Mars. "For years scientists have been suspecting that the current appearance of the landscape has, in part, been shaped by rivers that cut into the surface," comments Ernst Hauber of the German Aerospace Center. They have concluded that fan shaped sedimentary deposits are the result of flowing and standing water in Mars' ancient past.
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/The_Ancient_Rains_Of_Mars_999.html
Deep Space
The Dawn mission to Ceres and other minor planets has reached it's first anniversary. Using an advanced ion propulsion system, Dawn has used 67 kg of propellant to produce 1.68 km/s delta V. It is difficult to put this amount of thrust in perspective, but it is a huge improvement over less efficient chemical rockets, and is only the beginning of Dawn's mission.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Dawn_Reaches_It_First_Anniversary_999.html
F. Marchis, PI, at the SETI Institute and at UC-Berkeley, and P. Descamps from Paris Observatory announced recently the discovery of two moons around the M-type asteroid 216 Kleopatra, the so called "dog bone" asteroid.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081002/sc_space/twocompanionsfoundneardogboneasteroid;_ylt=AokvI8HNSM.FpcO.QTvy4KqHgsgF
The Kepler planet hunting telescope mission has managed to cut costs and avoid cancellation. The nearly 1 meter Schmidt telescope was designed to scan a large field of stars, searching for earth size planets in potential habitable orbits. The new plan would launch the mission in 2009.
http://www.space.com/spacenews/070716_businessmonday_kepler.html
ESA's Stone-6 artificial meteorite tests if a Martian meteorite could transport living organisms to Earth.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Stone_6_Artificial_Meteorite_Shows_Martian_Impactors_Could_Carry_Traces_Of_Life_999.html
Deep Space Report 1.1
 Space exploration key to mankind's survival: NASA chief
So in this he agrees with Stephen Hawking. A couple of pretty *froopy thinkers there.
"I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible." - Michael Griffin
* FROOPY [fru-pee]: 1. adj. An Azlumic word equivalent to cool, awesome, and somewhat neat.
2. adj. An Azlumic word equivalent to sexy or attractive. (from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy).
Deep Space Report Vol. 1 Issue 1 This is the first installment of a weekly summary of what's happening in solar system exploration. My goal is to include all the news that's fit to print from the moon and beyond. Mars Mars has been a very busy place recently. MER Opportunity is leaving Victoria crater and heading for an even larger crater, Endeavor, 12 km away. This is a very ambitious goal, one which would never have been dreamed of at the begriming of the mission, but the rovers have proven to be two tough little robotic explorers. Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator on the MER team, says with the new driving software JPL uploaded he believes Opportunity can cover up to 100 meters per day easily. On the way to the massive 20 km diameter crater, they hope to find some impact debris which may have been excavated from deep beneath the surface. Studying the ejecta could give them a window into Mars' ancient past. On the way, Opportunity will be guided by ground imagery from HiRISE, the high resolution imager on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. HiRISE can image features as small as 50 cm across. This will allow the MER team to possible identify some impact debris along the way, and navigate the rover to study the debris. By the way, I posted a thread on the Mars Rover Blog forum 4 years ago, suggesting we visit endeavor crater, although at the time I did not realize this was a crater. It's so huge I saw the crater rim in some MOC images and thought it looked like an enormous canyon. Meanwhile, the end is fast approaching the the Phoenix lander in the Martian arctic. Winter will bring a thick layer of water and CO2 ice which will bury the lander, but long before then the dwindling amount of sunlight will cease to provide enough energy to continue with science operations. This means the Phoenix team is in a race against time to collect one more sample of ice. According to Peter Smith, Principal Investigator on the Phoenix science team, soil samples collected by Phoenix do not behave like any of the simulants they worked with prior to launch. The soil particles seem to be small enough to fit through the sample screen, but they still get stuck. The particles appear to be sticking to the screen which was designed to prevent larger particles from entering the sample and clogging the mechanism. Obviously this has been very frustrating for the science and engineering teams. They have already obtained one small sample of ice, but they want to get one more sample of a high concentration ice deposit before the mission ends. Saturn Cassini is sponsoring a scientist for the day competition for high school students. Sounds like fun!
 Good (if short) interview with Buzz Aldrin at Popular Mechanics wherein he talks about the current state of NASA manned spaceflight and the potential of a significant Mars mission.
His main point with regards to a manned Mars mission is if we don't go to stay then we shouldn't go at all. It shouldn't be one-two-three missions, the way we did with Apollo. I think the reason to go to Mars is to establish a permanent colony. This lines up to Rich's recent posts regarding Mars.
An interesting read here from Gregg Easterbrook regarding the risks from a major asteroid strike on the Earth. Once thought to be a terribly remote occurrence, it seems the more the astronomers look at the issue the less rare it appears to be. The Sky Is Falling A generation ago, the standard assumption was that a dangerous object would strike Earth perhaps once in a million years. By the mid-1990s, researchers began to say that the threat was greater: perhaps a strike every 300,000 years. This winter, I asked William Ailor, an asteroid specialist at The Aerospace Corporation, a think tank for the Air Force, what he thought the risk was. Ailor’s answer: a one-in-10 chance per century of a dangerous space-object strike. Although from what I can glean from this table: Sentry Risk Table [NASA], there appears to be only one rock that is of any concern at this time. [this one - 2007 VK184] and that will happen June 3rd...2048. The whole point of the first article seems to be that we may be more at risk than we had previously thought and spending some money on asteroid defense systems may be prudent.
Here is a roundup of links regarding the successful landing on Mars of the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander. First of all there are several pictures taken of the lander taken from Mars orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) [now THAT is a mouthfull]. ![img2[4]](http://www.techrivet.com/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/BigMarsPhoenixLanderRoundup_92B2/img2%5B4%5D_1.jpg)
Here is one of the Lander with its solar panels extended on the surface.
And this one is remarkable, the HiRISE satellite captured the Lander during decent!
This is remarkable. Stop and think for a moment. We have four eight probes looking at Mars at one time. Scientists are experiencing a golden age of Martian exploration right now. Links:
 Accelerating change is going on all around us. We see it in entertainment from computer games to movies. We see it in telephones as they keep getting smaller and more feature rich. We see it in cameras and music players and personal GPS devices. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
All of this creeps into our lives and becomes ubiquitous. The changes quickly becomes invisible, expected and, in a weird sort of way, un-important. But accelerating change is also affecting the sciences. For example the hunt for extra-solar planets. The first one discovered was in 1991. Since then there has been a rapid pace of discovery. The bulk of the discoveries essentially done by inference: careful detection of the wobbling of the star around which the planet[s] orbit.  So the point here is that before 1991 we had NO evidence of planets orbiting other stars. In theory we were 100% sure (or so close as to make no difference) that most stars had some planets, but we had no direct evidence. Now there has been over 250 planets identified. But wait that's not all! N ow there is a new technology under development by the Lyot Project, it's goal to create the necessary instrument and associated software to remove starlight from images thus allowing the much fainter planets to be viewed directly. Astronomers will no longer need rely on inference to discover new planets. This would be a remarkable achievement and would allow for a much greater number of planets to be discovered. It would probably also allow for the discovery of Earth like planets and the reading of spectrums from the planets themselves. What would the reactions be if we found a planet with a spectral analysis that matched Earth? Orbit, temperature, water, oxygen?... Would that spur some research into a viable star probe? Just asking... Accelerating change is cool. Sites of interest:
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posted: Nov 15, 2007
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scooter
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I was able to find the video of this awesome footage on YouTube today. The rising image Wide Shot taken from near the North Pole, and the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean can be observed on the Earth.
The setting image Tele Shot taken from near the South Pole, and we can see the Australian Continent (center left) and the Asian Continent (lower right) on the Earth. Scooter GadgetGrid.com
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posted: Nov 14, 2007
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scooter
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A Japanese moon probe, Kaguya, has recaptured the Apollo "Earth-rise" photograph but, this time it was captured with high-definition imaging. The relative locations of the Kaguya probe: the moon, and the Earth as the imagery was made. Credit: JAXA/NHK:
Earth-rise (2): In the image, made from a moving image taken onboard the Kaguya spacecraft, a region of the moon's surface near its north pole is shown. Credit: JAXA/NHK:
 Earth-set (1): This still image was taken from a moving image shot by the HDTV onboard Kaguya and sent to the JAXA Usuda Deep Space Center. The Moon's surface is a region near its south pole. Credit: JAXA/NHK: 
Earth-set series:
 Via Space.comScooter GadgetGrid.com
Check this out. Very cool flash simulator of the Solar System. 
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