The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) achieved a new milestone this week when it made its first observations. APEX consists of a 12-metre telescope designed to view the Universe at submillimeter wavelengths: a part of the radio spectrum especially useful for viewing colder objects. APEX is the same instrument that will eventually go into the much larger ALMA project, which will consist of at least 64 of these telescopes, arrayed to function as a single instrument.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express has taken an new photograph of Nicholson Crater, located at the southern edge of Amazonis Planitia on Mars. This crater is 100 km (62 km) across and has a very large raised central mount. Large craters often have this kind of central peak, which forms when material rebounds after a meteor impact, but Nicholson Crater's peak is heavily eroded by wind and water.

When the first astronauts set foot on Mars, they'll need to keep a nervous eye out for the many dust devils that crisscross the surface of the Red Planet. In fact, if you were standing next to NASA's Spirit rover in the middle of the Martian day, you might see 6 dust devils zipping across the landscape. While they wouldn't be dangerous, these devils are electrified, and could disrupt communications, damage electrical devices, and clog up spacesuits with statically clingy Martian dust that would be very difficult to remove.

NASA has announced that the space shuttle Discovery's earliest launch window will be on Sunday, July 17 at 1914 UTC (2:14 pm EDT); although, it could be much later. A problem with a fuel gauge on the shuttle's external tank halted the countdown on Wednesday. Engineers have so far been unable to find the source of the problem. The shuttle's launch window will last until the end of the July, and then opens up in September again.

The analysis software that NASA uses to inspect photographs of the Earth is starting to recognize changing events on our planet's surface, like Spring thaws, snowfalls and volcanic eruptions. In fact, the software is now giving orders back to NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite on where it should be pointing its camera. The software has taken more than 1,500 photographs of frozen lakes and can recognize when the ice has melted. Software like this could be used to track changing events on other planets, like dust storms on Mars or search for ice volcanoes on Europa.

A backdrop in many science fiction stories is to have multiple suns in the sky. Astronomers have now found such a world, called HD 188753 Ab. Our heroes couldn't set foot on this planet, though, since it's a "hot jupiter"; roughly the mass of Jupiter, but orbiting its parent star every 3.3 days. The other two stars in the system take 25.7 years to orbit the main star (about the distance from the Sun to Saturn), and spin around each other every 156 days,

Astronomers have discovered a massive explosion in a galaxy 11.5 billion light years away. This explosion is producing streams of high speed material called "superwinds" which are nearly tearing the galaxy apart. These explosions are thought to put a limit on the amount of star formation that can happen in any galaxy, since these superwinds will blow excess gas and dust out into intergalactic space. This helps explain why key elements needed for the formation of planets and life were well distributed in galaxies so early on in the history of the Universe.

The return to flight launch of the space shuttle Discovery was delayed Wednesday when a faulty fuel gage failed a prelaunch check. The shuttle actually has four of these sensors for redundancy, but they all need to be working for the shuttle to get cleared for launch. The launch window has been pushed back to Saturday, July 16 at 1940 UTC (2:40 pm EDT). When it finally gets off the ground, Discovery will deliver supplies to the International Space Station and test new safety procedures developed for the Return to Flight.

The European Space Agency's fleet of 4 Cluster spacecraft put a little more distance between each other, during a difficult repositioning maneuver completed this week. Three of the spacecraft were separated to 10,000 km from each other, with the fourth moving 1,000 km away from the third. By shifting the distance of the spacecraft, from 100 km to 5,000 km, and now 10,000 km, scientists are able to study the Earth's magnetic field at different scales. This maneuver also marks the fleet's fifth year of operation.

As techniques and equipment for finding extrasolar planets improve, astronomers are finding planets with smaller masses. First it was Jupiter-sized planets and larger, then Saturn-sized planets, and now Neptunians. But could these Neptune-mass planets actually be terrestrial planets, made of rock instead of gas and ice? Unlike Neptune and Uranus, these planets orbit very close to their host star. Astronomers will need to find one that transits in front of its host star to they can determine its density, to know if it's rock, ice or gas.

An international team of astronomers have discovered a hidden neutron star using three different space observatories: Integral, Swift and Rossi. The object, called IGR J16283-4838, is part of a binary system which is shrouded in thick layers of dust that obscure our view from Earth. Astronomers were able to detect it because it released a blast of gamma and X-rays that penetrated this shroud of dust. It took all three observatories to pin down the source of this blast of radiation as a neutron star.

In this beautiful image, Saturn's shepherd moon Prometheus hovers above the planet's A and F rings. It's also possible to see bright clouds on the surface of Saturn, passing through the ring shadows. This photograph was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on June 3, 2005, when it was approximately 2.1 million km (1.3 million miles) away from Saturn.

A new supercomputer has been installed at the Rochester Institute of Technology to simulate the interactions between black holes and the evolution of galaxies. Known as the gravitySimulator, this computer will run simulations that calculate the gravitational interactions between thousands of individual stars. It can achieve a top speed of 4 Teraflops (4 trillion floating point instructions a second), making it one of the top 100 supercomputers in the world.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a comprehensive view of the night sky gathered by a dedicated 2.5 m telescope in New Mexico. Astronomers have used this vast database to make many discoveries about our Universe. And now it's going to have a sequel. SDSS II will be a new survey beginning in 2008, and consisting of three parts: a continued mapping of deep space to image distant galaxies and quasars; a detailed survey of our own Milky Way galaxy; and a study of supernovae, to try and help pin down the mysterious dark energy accelerating our Universe.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has gotten a good look at Saturn's unusually shaped moon Hyperion. It has many fresh craters, giving it a spongy looking appearance. Scientists estimate that the moon is only 60% as dense as water, which means that much of its interior must be completely empty space. The images were gathered during a recent Hyperion flyby, when Cassini came within 168,000 km (104,000) of the moon.

During the Apollo era of spaceflight, many US spacecraft and vehicles were left on the Moon when the astronauts returned home. For the first time in more than 30 years, we'll get a chance to see them again when NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at the Moon in 2008. It will be equipped with a camera capable of resolving the surface of the Moon down to half a metre (1.6 feet). Some of the larger structures on the Moon are 9 metres (30 feet) across, so they should be easy to spot by the orbiter.

When Deep Impact's impactor slammed into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, it released a tremendous cloud of fine powdery material from the comet's nucleus. Scientists are still studying the volumes of data acquired by Deep Impact, but it appears this plume was much brighter than anyone had expected; its surface was more like talcum powder than sand. The crater was probably on the large side of what was being predicted: 50 - 250 metres (165 - 820 feet).

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It will be busy skies this week as the Moon goes through a series of occultations for viewers around the world - be it a star, Jupiter or even a comet! We'll begin by exploring the "Butterfly Cluster" and work our way through some new lunar features as the week progresses. The dance of Venus and Mercury continues, so open your eyes to the skies, because...

Here's what's up!

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