After a few days of delays, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has begun its journey towards the Red Planet. The orbiter lifted off atop a massive Atlas V launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral at 1143 UTC (7:43 am EDT). The spacecraft established radio contact with controllers on the ground 61 minutes after launch and confirmed that everything's working well. MRO will reach Mars on March 10, 2006, and begin several months of aerobraking maneuvers to lower its orbit.

This image of Saturn taken by Cassini looks it was drawn by an impressionist painter. The giant planets' atmospheres are dominated by counter-flowing jets of wind, and this image shows the process up close. You can see the turbulence as these jets shear against each other. Cassini took this image on July 6, 2005 when it was 2.5 million km (1.5 million miles) away from Saturn.

The European Space Agency's Cluster fleet of spacecraft have identified micro-vortices in the Earth's magnetosphere. These small vortices were predicted in mathematical models, but they hadn't been seen before now. They're created when plasma from the Sun's solar winds slip through holes in the magnetosphere. As it moves through these holes, the flow of turbulence creates the vortices, like pouring one liquid into another.

This image of Saturn shows how the planet has gigantic hurricanes which spin backwards through its atmosphere. On Earth, hurricanes in the Southern Hemisphere spin clockwise, but Saturn's anti-hurricanes are spinning counter-clockwise. These kinds of storms are very common in the giant planets. This image was taken by Cassini on July 4/5, 2005 when the spacecraft was 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from the planet.

An Ariane 5G rocket blasted off from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana today carrying the largest telecommunications satellite ever to be placed into geostationary transfer orbit. The massive Thaicom 4 (previously named iPSTAR) satellite weighed almost 6500 kg at launch. Thaicom 4 will provide Internet access to customers in Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Arianespace's next scheduled launch will be two satellites on September 29, 2005.

When human explorers reach the Moon or Mars, they're going to have to watch out for something we've all experienced here on Earth: static electricity. Zap! It's annoying when you grab a door handle after rubbing your socks across the carpet. But the dry environments on the Moon and Mars could cause astronauts to build up a significant charge that could fry electronic equipment when they try to handle it. Astronauts may have to walk across a sheet of aluminum mesh to ground themselves before returning to base.

Galaxies are actually much larger than they appear in most telescopes. Astronomers working with the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii have found stars associated with galaxy NGC 300 at twice the previously estimated radius. These old, dim stars would have blazed brilliantly billions of years ago, but now it takes a powerful telescope to be able to see them. And if NGC 300 is probably twice as large as previously estimate, our own Milky Way galaxy could extend as much as 200,000 light-years across.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and NASA are preparing to head back to Chile's Atacama desert to search for evidence of life with Zo?, an autonomous solar-powered rover. During this third trial, Zo? will travel 180 km (112 miles) across the desert, seeking micro-organisms. Researchers have chosen Atacama because it's one of the driest places on Earth, and one of the best analogs for finding life on Mars. This time around, it'll build a 3D map of soil to show how populations of bacteria cluster together.

Astronomers from the US and France have discovered an asteroid with two small moons. The asteroid, 87 Sylvia, has been known since 1866, and known to have a single moon since 2001; the second moon was a complete surprise. The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory's 8.2m Very Large Telescope in Chile while astronomers were trying to pin down motions of the first moon. These moons allowed astronomers to estimate the mass of 87 Sylvia, and they found it was only 20% higher than water. It's probably a loose pile of rubble held together by gravity, with mostly empty space.

Fergal Murphy took this picture of a straight Moon wall on 28th April 2004 from his backyard in Sandyford, Dublin, Ireland. Fergal used Toucam Pro II webcam attached to a Nexstar 8.

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With Discovery's return to flight complete, NASA is counting up the accomplishments for this shuttle mission: 14 days in space, three spacewalks, all four space station gyros returned to service, high resolution images of launch and in-orbit, and the first spacewalk to the underside of the shuttle. Discovery will now be ferried back to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a modified Boeing 747 aircraft.

Since we're inside the Milky Way, it's impossible for us to see what our whole galaxy looks like. But we can look at similar galaxies and get a pretty good idea. Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory have photographed two galaxies - NGC 4565 and M83 - which are very similar to the Milky Way. NGC 4565 is perfectly edge on, so we can see the central bulge. M83 is face on, so we can see its magnificent spiral arms and central structure.

After a one-day delay, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is ready for launch on Thursday, August 11. The first launch window opens from 1150 to 1335 UTC (7:50 to 9:35 am EDT). If the spacecraft fails to launch during this period, there will be additional windows every day through August. It's expected to arrive at Mars in March 2006, where it will perform a series of aerobraking maneuvers for a full half-year before it arrives in its final science orbit.

Our planet gained its nice, oxygen-rich atmosphere about 2.4 billion years ago thanks to early bacteria. One question that has puzzled researchers, however, is why it took at least 300 million years for oxygen to build up to large levels, even though the bacteria had been working madly to produce it. Researchers from the University of Washington have developed a model that shows how volcanic gasses could have sucked up this available oxygen. Not only that, but a large layer of iron from meteorite strikes would have used it for rusting. Not until those sinks were filled could oxygen build up.

The Earth suffered a period of heavy bombardment in its early days when the Solar System was swarming with asteroids. Although it would have been catastrophic for you and I, it might have actually been a nice environment for early microbes. This is according to researchers who spent time at Haughton Impact Crater on Devon Island, in the Canadian Arctic. They found many life-friendly features in this "ground zero", including hydrothermal vents, blasted rocks that make cosy microbe homes, and a nice, protected impact basin.

José Luis Ortiz had no idea that his announcement on July 29th of the discovery of a big Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) would kickstart one of the most confusing and controversial days for the astronomical community in recent years. The astronomer from Sierra Nevada Observatory, Spain, sent an e-mail detailing his findings with the subject "Big TNO discovery, urgent" to a mailing list for astronomers. A few hours later, reports surfaced on some astronomical websites indicating that the object found by Ortiz, designated as 2003 EL61, was twice as big as Pluto, but they were quickly dismissed by Ortiz.

One person can harvest a field, many people can move a mountain. This is the power of community. The challenge is to get a consensus on the definition of a mountain, which mountain to move, and where to move it. W.D. Kay in his book, Defining NASA - The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission uses his skills in political science to look at the United States government's perception of space flight. Though NASA isn't a mountain, it is the result of the contributions of millions of people. Acknowledging this, Kay ponders on what was and what may be for this government agency.

The space shuttle Discovery returned safely back to Earth this morning, landing at Edwards Air Force Base at 1211 UTC (8:11 am EDT). Poor weather over Florida's Cape Canaveral prevented two landing attempts, so managers decided to switch the landing location to California. This safe landing brought mission STS-114 to a successful conclusion, two and half years after the catastrophic destruction of Columbia. The next shuttle, Atlantis, is scheduled to launch September 22, but it all depends on whether they can resolve the foam shedding problems with Discovery's launch.

Brad Timerson took this picture of the Moon and Venus on August 7, 2005. Brad used Olympus C740 camera at 10x zoom with 1/30th second exposure.

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Astrophotographer John Chumack with DIRAS Observatory Team took this picture of the newly discovered 10th Planet with 8 minute exposure on the 31st Jul. and 10 minute exposure on 1st Aug. John used a 0.30 meter FL. 11.9 Takahashi Dall-Kirkham Scope and Software Bisque ParaMount and FLI CCD.

Do you have photos you'd like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them to me directly, and I might feature one in Universe Today.