The Japanese space agency JAXA announced the successful launch of the ASTRO-E2 X-ray satellite on Sunday. A Japanese-built M-5 rocket blasted off from the Uchinoura Space Center carrying the Astro-E2 into orbit. This satellite, renamed Suzuka, is a replacement for the Astro-E satellite, which was destroyed because of a launch failure in 2000. Once it's operational, Suzuka will help astronomers understand the evolution of galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their centres.

One of the instruments tuned into Deep Impact is NASA's Swift satellite, normally designed to detect and analyze gamma ray bursts. Swift has been watching the expanding debris cloud, and detected increasing numbers of X-rays every day. This has enabled scientists to accurately measure the total amount of material released. So far, it appears that several tens of thousands of tonnes of debris were blasted off the comet into space; enough to bury a football field under 9 metres (30 feet) of dust.

Of the 130 extrasolar planets discovered to date, most have been found using the radial velocity method, where a planet causes tiny changes to a star's velocity compared to the Earth. This back and forth motion changes the wavelength of the light from our perspective. Another method, the transit method, has turned up 6 planets so far, and should find many more in the coming years. It works by watching for a star to dim slightly on a regular basis as a planet passes in between us and the star.

There's a new rumour going around the Internet. Maybe an excited friend has sent an email about a once in a lifetime chance to see Mars. Mars is going to make its closest approach on October 30th, 2005, and look bigger and brighter than it has in two years. Unfortunately, the closest approach actually happened two years ago, in August 2003, when the Earth and Mars were closer than they had been for 50,000 years.

A new study by NASA and the Naval Research Institute has found that exhaust from the space shuttle can create high altitude clouds over Antarctica, just a few days after launch. Exhaust released at an altitude of 110 km (69 miles) can form Antarctic polar clouds in the mesosphere (the second highest layer of the atmosphere). Scientists originally discovered the connection when they noticed iron particles in clouds above Antarctica, and couldn't imagine a natural process that could put them into the high atmosphere.

An international team of astronomers have discovered a strange source of high energy gamma rays. The object is called LS5039, and it's known as a microquasar because of the kinds of radiation it generates. Microquasars are binary systems, where a regular star orbits a dead star, like a neutron star or black hole. Material streams from the regular star to the neutron star in such quantity that it starts to back up, like too much water going down a drain. What's unusual about LS5039 is that it's producing more high energy gamma rays than should be possible.

NASA has taken detailed measurements of global sea levels, and confirmed that they're rising. Not only that, the rate is increasing. During the last 50 years sea levels have risen .18 cm (.07 inches) a year, but during the last 12 years, that rate is .3 cm (.12 inches) a year. Part of this rise is due to the expansion of water as it warms up, and part of it is from increased ice cap and glacier melt. It's estimated that 100 million people around the world will be affected by a one-metre (3.3 foot) rise in sea levels.

With the safety concerns resolved, NASA has announced that they will begin the official countdown for STS-114; the space shuttle return to flight. The countdown begins on July 10 at 2200 UTC (6:00 pm EDT), which is 43 hours before liftoff. If all goes well, Discovery and its seven-member crew of astronauts will lift off at approximately 1951 UTC (3:51 pm EDT) on July 13. They will visit the International Space Station to deliver some supplies, and then test out a series of new procedures designed to improve the safety of the shuttle.

Bigger is better. When you're making a telescope, you want to construct the biggest mirror you can. The European consortium building the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) - a monster observatory with a main mirror that will be between 50-100 metres - moved a step closer to building their telescope today by releasing the scientific case. If development moves forward, the ELT could begin construction within a few years, and be complete by 2015. Where Hubble can resolve objects 95 m (311 feet) apart on the Moon, the ELT could resolve objects 2 m (6.5 feet) apart.

As Deep Impact's impactor probe smashed into Comet Tempel 1 this week, every available observatory, on land and in space was watching to help gather as much science as possible from this $333 million mission. The Gemini North telescope, located on Hawaii's Mauna Kea successfully captured images, before and after the collision that clearly show the debris cloud moving off the comet. They also found evidence that rocky materials were exposed on the comet's surface.

From space and even on the surface, Mars just looks dry, reddish and rocky as far as the camera can see. But there's actually a pretty complex world of minerals under that surface layer of basalt. By studying the surface of Mars with Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, NASA scientists have turned up very interesting surface features which hint at the hidden minerals underneath. This research is published in the latest edition of the Journal Nature.

Scientists monitoring NASA's Swift satellite had a good view of Deep Impact's collision with Comet Tempel 1. Although the space-based observatory was designed to watch for gamma ray bursts, its instruments were handy for this observation since it can see in several wavelengths at the same time. One of its most important observations from the impact is a quick rise in ultraviolet light. This means that the impactor struck a hard surface, as opposed to something soft and snowy.

The European Space Agency is helping Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard construct a solar powered airplane that will fly around the world in 2010. Piccard made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon in 1999 with Brian Jones from Britain. When they make their attempt, the Solar Impulse will be flown by three pilots in shifts, and travel along the equator to maximize the Sun's energy.

NASA/ESA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the most successful comet hunter in history, is expected to discover its 1,000th comet this summer. In fact, half of all comets ever discovered can be attributed to SOHO. This is because many comets close to the Sun were once part of an enormous comet that was broken up. SOHO can resolve chunks as small as the size of a house as they blaze up near the surface of the Sun. Many of SOHO's comets have been discovered by observers through the Internet.

Scientists at the University of Maryland think that large quantities of artificial meat could be produced to supply the world with animal-free meat products, like chickenless nuggets. This is based on experiments for NASA, that created small amounts of muscle fibre cultured from single cells. According to the researchers, larger quantities could be grown in thin sheets and then stacked up to create thickness. Of course, they need to figure out a way to exercise it to make it taste like regular meat.

Ah, summer. Long relaxing days spent at the lake, just swimming, fishing, and enjoying the scenery. Think you can only enjoy lakes here on Earth? Well, think again. NASA's Cassini spacecraft might have turned up a lake on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It might not be the kind of lake you're used to though. The average temperature on Titan is only a hundred degrees above Absolute Zero, so it's probably a lake of liquid hydrocarbons. Carolyn Porco is the leader on the imaging team on the Cassini mission to Saturn and the director for the Center of Imaging Operations at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. That's where the images from Cassini are processed and released to the public.

When Deep Impact's impactor spacecraft smashed into Comet Tempel 1, the two objects collided at a speed of 10 km/s (6.3 miles/s). The force of this collision generated a tremendous amount of heat and light which served to illuminate the whole area for the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft. The impactor spacecraft was able to capture images of Tempel 1 as it approached, and the last image was taken at an altitude of only 30 km (19 miles).