The very heart of the Milky Way is obscured by a thick wall of dust that optical telescopes can't peer through. But astronomers have used the dust-penetrating infrared capabilities of the 6.5 metre Magellan telescope in Chile to look past the wall, and map stars never seen before. Astronomers found thousands of stars jammed into an area only 6 light-years across. The purpose of these observations was to uncover stars which could be orbiting and feeding white dwarfs, neutron stars, or even black holes. These special binary objects are thought to be more common in the crowded centre of the Milky Way.

Scientists already considered Saturn's moon Iapetus unusual, because of its strange two-toned appearance; one hemisphere is dark, while the other is bright. But new images from Cassini show an even more unusual mystery: it has a seam. It's 20 km (12 miles) high and runs 1,300 km (808 miles) directly around Iapetus' equator. In some places, this ridge is so high it rivals Olympus Mons, which is unusual for an object which is 1/5th the mass of Mars. Researcher will have to wait until September 2007 for Cassini's next pass, when it will provide pictures 100x better resolution.

After four years of data crunching, NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have completed a comprehensive topographical map of 80% of the Earth's surface. Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific were the final areas released to the public this week. Many of the smaller islands have never been properly mapped because of their remoteness, often being obscured by persistent clouds. It's these smaller islands which are at great risk to weather and long-term sea level rise, so being able to predict where water levels will go will be very helpful to mitigating future disasters like the Asian Tsunami.

NASA completed a major milestone this week as part of its work to get the space shuttle fleet flying again when the newly redesigned external fuel tank arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The tank will eventually be mated with the space shuttle Discovery for its Return to Flight mission, STS-114. NASA and Lockheed Martin have spent almost two years redesigning the tank to make it safer. One major redesign was on the forward bipod fitting, which shed the foam that led to the destruction of Columbia last year.

Happy New Year fellow sky watchers! The New Year gives everyone a chance to make plans, resolve themselves to new and better habits and the hope that the New Year will be a good one. January also offers stargazers a chance to plan a years worth of observing. For some this may seem like a daunting task. Many observers, particularly those new to amateur astronomy, still ask ?what should I look for, what will I see?? It is in the spirit of this question that I offer a year long ?to-do list? for back yard astronomy. It is by no means an exhaustive list, but it might get you out the door and lead you to many other discoveries. The list is a mixture of upcoming events and small, at home projects that require no special equipment, just a healthy curiosity.

Astronomers from Yale have used data from the Hubble Space Telescope to develop a map of dark matter clumped inside clusters of galaxies. These clusters contain hundreds of galaxies bound together by gravity; about 90% of their mass is dark matter. The team used a technique called gravitation lensing to see how the light from distant galaxies was bent by the gravity of closer galactic clusters. Even though dark matter is invisible, its mass will still bend light like regular matter.

NASA has given a Canadian firm the green light to begin developing a robotic salvage mission that could repair and upgrade the aging Hubble Space Telescope. The agency awarded a $154 million contract to Canada-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. This is the same firm that developed the Canadarm, and contributed to the Mobile Servicing System on the International Space Station. MDA's solution is called Dextre: a two-armed robot that could perform all of the same maintenance tasks that had originally been designed for human astronauts. The move towards a robotic solution is still controversial, and NASA hasn't made the final decision on what to do with Hubble yet.

NASA's Swift observatory is only in the initial testing period, and it's already finding massive gamma ray bursts. Scientists were calibrating the telescope when it recorded a burst on December 17, three on the 19th and then one on the 20th. The team was hoping they'd see 2 bursts a week, so this greatly exceeds expectations. It could be that they were lucky, or they underestimated how often these explosions occur. The Swift team also tested the observatory's instruments by pointing it at Cygnus X-1; a well-known object that produces a signficant amount of gamma rays.

At a traditional wedding, the bride, well hidden by a veil, gracefully walks up the aisle. At the appropriate moment, the groom gently moves the veil aside so all can share in the wondrous visage of his new bride. Jeffrey Kargel provides the same service for us in his book, Mars: A Warmer Wetter Planet as he draws away the veil of mystery surrounding Mars to show us the red planet's intriguing visage. Not only does he provide a detailed analysis of shapes and features, but he also provides a description of how these likely came into being. Considering that Mars and Earth have been dancing together in their orbits for so long, it is about time that we have a book like this to get to know more of our partner.

Cassini took this image of Rhea, one of Saturn's moons, which shows the bright rays from a relatively fresh crater on its eastern limb. This image was taken on November 10, 2004, when the spacecraft was 3.6 million km (2.2 million miles) away from Rhea. Cassini will make a much closer approach to the moon on November 25, 2005.

Planetary nebulae are created when large stars shed material near the end of their lives. This material should expand in a perfect sphere, but astronomers have found many examples where the material is twisted into an unusual elliptical or bipolar shape (like an hourglass). A team of German astronomers have detected the presense of a magnetic field around the central stars in four planetary nebulae - it's these magnetic fields that could give nebulae their unusual shapes.

The Chandra X-Ray observatory took this image of an unusual star called Beta Ceti. It's only three times more massive than our own Sun, but it radiates 2,000 times more X-ray power. Astronomers believe it's putting out so much X-ray radiation because it's at an advanced stage of stellar evolution called "core helium burning". For its first billion years, Beta Ceti was converting hydrogen to helium through fusion, but it ran out of hydrogen fuel and became a red giant star. Then it started to shrink again, and temperatures rose to 100 million degrees; hot enough that it could begin fusing helium atoms together to create carbon atoms.

NASA's Spirit rover celebrated the completion of its first full year of operations on Mars yesterday, and began its second by analyzing puzzling new rocks. Spirit is currently exploring a region of the Gusev Crater called Columbia Hills. Scientists uncovered a completely new kind of rock in December, which look like they were ejected from a volcano or meteor impact. On the other side of Mars, Opportunity is examining its own heat shield, which protected its descent through the Martian atmosphere. By studying how charred the shield is, engineers hope to improve their ability to deliver future robots to Mars.

Cassini made a relatively close flyby of Iapetus on December 31, 2004, and took photographs which show Saturn's third-largest moon in unprecedented detail. Iapetus is best known for its two-toned colour; one hemisphere is dark, while the other is bright. Cassini passed within 123,400 km (76,700 miles) of the moon, which is 10 times closer than Voyager 2. One possiblity for Iapetus' dark side is that it passed through a cloud of organic material which painted one side. Another idea is that the dark material originated from inside Iapetus, and was ejected in a series of volcanic eruptions. Hopefully this, or an upcoming flyby in 2007 will give scientists enough information to understand it better.

The powerful Gemini Observatory took this image of spiral galaxy NGC 6946, which is awash in star formation. This image was taken with a special filter designed to highlight the regions of star formation. Astronomers aren't sure why this galaxy is so furiously building new stars, compared to the other galaxies in our local neighborhood. And all this starbirth leads to supernovae, which are explosions of massive stars that "live fast and die young." Just in the last century, astronomers have seen 8 supernovae explode - more than any other galaxy ever observed.

Greetings, fellow sky watchers! I trust everyone's holidays were wonderful? It's time to start a New Year and what better way than with a bit of celestial "fireworks" as the Quadrantid meteor shower begins the week! Dance along the ecliptic plane as five planets are visible in the morning skies and Moon occults Jupiter for Africa and part of Australia! Journey with me as we explore the "death" of a star in the M1 and celebrate the "birth" of a new solar system with T Tauri. We will begin exploration of Orion with the M78 and the "Flame" nebula. Who knows? This could be your lucky "Knight"! The week end becomes even more exciting as the last of the Moon occults Antares for the northwest and the "Magnificent Machholz" joins the Pleiades in a spectacular showing! As Saturn reaches the ascending node, we'll be out reaching for the stars...

Because here's what's up!

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its closest approach to Saturn's moon Iapetus on New Year's Eve, passing only 123,400 km (76,700 miles) away. Iapetus is best known for its strange two-toned colour, and it's also been called the "Yin Yang Moon" - one hemisphere is completely dark, and the other is white. At 1,400 km (890 miles) across, it's Saturn's third largest moon, and it was originally discovered by Jean-Dominique Cassini in 1672 who actually deduced that one side of the moon was dark, and the other bright. Cassini will make another 13 close encounters with Saturn's moons during 2005, 8 of which will be past Titan.

A few weeks ago, I let you know that Dr. Jean-Pierre Lebreton, the Huygens Project Scientist and Mission Manager from the European Space Agency, graciously agreed to answer questions from Universe Today readers and forum members about Titan and Huygens. Your response was incredible, and we got dozens of great questions - thanks to everyone who participated. The Community Support team picked their favorites and passed them along to Dr. Lebreton. We've got the answers back. So, if you want to know more, read on...

Happy Holidays, Skywatchers! This week we continue our celestial journey beginning before dawn with a close pairing of Venus and Mercury. As we wait for the later and later rise of the Moon each evening, we will visit in Aries with a fine double - Mesarthim. Returning again to the north, it's time to locate the M34 in Perseus and begin studying the open clusters of Auriga with the M36 and M38. For those in the north, discovery awaits you with the "Little Dumbbell", M76, while the south enjoys the incredible Eta Carinae. Celebrate the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one by journeying across time and space. Take the time to enjoy the singular beauty of "Hind's Crimson Star" and return again to the "Magnificent Machholz" as it climbs even higher and gets even brighter! So grab your binoculars, get out your telescopes, and hope for clear skies...

Because here's what's up!

An unmanned Progress cargo ship reached the International Space Station on Sunday, and the two-man crew got right to work unloading its cargo. Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao had both cut their food consumption by 10% to stretch out supplies, and had each lost a few kg during the last month. The Progress ship is carrying 2.5 tonnes of supplies, including a 15kg (33 pound) gift package for each man.

Astronomers have now ruled out the possibility that Asteroid 2004 MN4 will strike the Earth in April 2029. Scientists from the Spacewatch Observatory near Tuscon, Arizona searched back through older observations to find some images of 2004 MN4 that were captured in March, 2004. This gave them enough data to recalculate the asteroid's path, and see that it doesn't pose a threat to the planet.

NASA's Opportunity Rover has reunited itself with the heat shield that protected its entry into the Martian atmosphere almost a year ago, when it first arrived at Mars. After it was ejected, the shield crashed to the surface nearly 2 km away from Opportunity's landing spot. The rover will study both the heat shield, and its impact mark - now the freshest crater on Mars. Engineers will have an opportunity to understand how the heat shield performed during atmospheric entry, and scientists will get a chance to see what's beneath the surface of Mars.

The European Space Agency's Huygens probe successfully detached from Cassini on December 25, and began its brief journey to Titan. The probe is currently dormant, though, and will remain this way for most of its 20-day journey to Saturn's largest moon. Four days before arrival, a triply-redundant alarm clock will wake the probe up, and it will prepare for arrival. On January 14, 2005, the probe will enter Titan's atmosphere, descending to the surface in about 2 hours.

New observations of Jupiter's moon, Amalthea, reveal that it probably didn't form with the giant planet. The observations were made with the powerful Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, which found that Amalthea has unusual amounts of water-carrying minerals. These typically form in low temperature environments. Astronomers theorize that Jupiter's moons formed from several small objects merging together, and Amalthea could be an example of one of these building blocks that never had a chance to merge.

An unmanned Progress cargo ship lifted off from Kazakhstan over night, carrying much needed supplies for the International Space Station. Food supplies were getting low on board the station, so the Progress is loaded up with a 112-day supply of food, as well as water, air, propellant, and additional spare parts for the station. It's expected to dock automatically on December 25th to the aft port of the Zvezda living quarters module.

After a 7 year journey, and traveling more than 3.2 billion km (1.9 billion miles) with Cassini, Huygens is about to head out on its own. In just a few hours, controllers will give the order to detach Huygens from Cassini using tension-loaded springs, and send its on its way for its encounter with Titan in 20 days. The exciting part of Huygens mission will take just over two hours as it plummets through the moon's atmosphere, sending back details to Cassini. And if Huygens is really lucky, it'll survive on the surface of Titan for another two hours.

A newly discovered 400-metre (1,300 ft) asteroid has been given a 2 on the Torino asteroid impact scale; the first time this has ever happened. According to current calculations, Asteroid 2004 MN4 will have a 1/300 chance of striking the Earth on April 13, 2029. Astronomers expect the threat rating will decrease as more observations are made. If it actually did strike the Earth, an asteroid this large would do a significant amount of damage.

Photographs taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft seem to indicate that there still could be active volcanism on the Red Planet. The spacecraft took detailed observations of five Martian volcanoes, and found that some had erupted as recently as 4 million years ago. Although this is ancient in human terms, it means that Mars is still probably geologically active. This is very important to biologists, because it means that there could be geothermic vents with heat and liquid water - havens for microbial life.

When Huygens makes its plunge into Titan's thick atmosphere on January 14, 2005, it'll be watched by a host of instruments, including the radio telescopes from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). By measuring the frequency of Huygens' radio signals, scientists will be able to calculate the east-west wind speeds, and build a better model of Titan's weather systems. Another team will track the probe's trajectory to within 1 km (3,300 feet).

NASA has selected six proposals for instruments that will fly with the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). These instruments include: a laser altimeter, a high-resolution camera, a neutron detector to search for water ice, a thermometer to map the temperature of the lunar surface, an ultraviolet detector to look into shadowed regions, and a cosmic ray telescope to measure background radiation. The LRO will travel to the Moon in 2008, and help gather information needed for future human explorers as part of the new space vision.

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has discovered baby galaxies forming in our relative neighborhood, casting doubt on the theory that only small galaxies were forming this long after the Big Bang. These new galaxies are called ultraviolet luminous galaxies, and they're only 2-4 billion light-years away. They could be as young as 100 million to one billion years old. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer surveyed thousands of galaxies before finding these few dozen ultraviolet-bright ones, which are teeming in new star formation.

One of the highlights of Cassini's mission to Saturn is about to get underway, when the ESA's Huygens probe detaches from the spacecraft on December 24, and begins its solo journey to Titan. Once freed from Cassini, it'll remain in a dormant sleep until a timer wakes it up on January 14, shortly before it enters the moon's atmosphere. It will take 2.5 hours to pass through Titan's atmosphere, and it may even survive a landing on the moon's mysterious surface.

The first Delta 4 Heavy rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Tuesday evening, but it appears there was a glitch that put the rocket's satellite payload into an incorrect orbit. The rocket's first stage shut down 8 seconds earlier than expected, so the upper stage was fired longer than originally planned to compensate. Flight controllers still haven't made an official announcement about the demonstration payload it was carrying, but two additional nanosatellites haven't made contact yet. NASA is considering this vehicle as a potential replacement for some of the space shuttle's cargo carrying duties, so the launch was being watched carefully.

The European Space Agency has produced a detailed temperature map of the Mediterranean Ocean from space that would have required millions of thermometres. All 3 million square km (1.9 million miles) of the ocean are getting their temperature checked every single day as part of the ESA's Medspiration project. The data is being gathered by instruments on several spacecraft and then combined by researchers to help understand climate models. Once the bugs are ironed out, future experiments could keep track of almost the entire Earth's temperature in a similar manner.

Researchers from the University of Rochester are working on a new kind of laser communications system that could dramatically improve the bandwidth that future rovers would use to send data, video and images back to Earth. The team has overcome one of the problems of an efficient fibre laser system, which caused them to shut down at high levels of power. Fired from Mars, a traditional laser would spread out hundreds of kilometres during the long journey, but a fibre laser would still concentrate to within a couple of km, and allow the rovers to transmit high-bandwidth data.

An Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the European Space Agency's launch centre in French Guiana on Saturday, carrying a French military surveillance satellite and 6 additional microsatellites. The Helios 2A satellite is part of Europe's spy satellite network that will be independent of the United States'. The microsats included 4 Essaim satellites designed to demonstrate technology for a future network; the Parasol atmospheric sciences satellite, and a Spanish-built Nanosat, which will also demonstrate technology.

Season's Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Take the time from your busy holiday schedule to relax with some astronomy. There will be three minor meteor showers this week: the Coma Berenicids, Delta Arietid and the Ursids. The waxing Moon will become our guide as we locate historic variable Mira. Mare Humorum and Crater Gassendi are great features to learn about on the lunar surface and we'll travel to the outer arm of our own galaxy to study a multiple star system - Sigma Orionis. Not enough? Then I have a special and very challenging surprise for you on Christmas Day! Although the Moon goes full during this seven-day period, those who are just beginning with new telescopes will appreciate its presence as an easy "pointer" to Saturn. So lift your eyes toward the heavens and enjoy the bright stars of Winter...

Because here's what's up!

One instrument on board NASA's Cassini spacecraft allows it to detect lightning. As part of initial tests, the spacecraft was able to detect lightning on Earth from a distance of 89,000 km (55,300 miles). As it approached Saturn last July, it began detecting lightning on the Ringed Planet at a distance of 161 million km (100 million miles). This means that lightning on Saturn is 1 million times stronger than on our own planet. One possible reason is because the gas giants could have magnetic fields similar to the Sun, which rotates at different speeds at different latitudes.

Ice particles are a key part of Saturn's changing environment according to a new paper published by Larry Esposito from the University of Colorado at Boulder. According to Esposito, much of Saturn's system is filled with ice, and its components: oxygen and hydrogen, which extend millions of kilometres outward from the planet. Researchers are seeing large fluctuations in the amount of oxygen, which could be caused by small, icy moons which are colliding with the planet's E ring, which produces small grains of ice that yield oxygen atoms.

An Atlas V rocket successfully lifted off this morning carrying an AMC-16 broadcast satellite into orbit. The rocket launched at 1207 UTC (7:07 am EST) from Cape Canaveral, and put the satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit nearly two hours later. Its final location will be at 85-degrees West, where it will provide broadcast services to the Americas.

On Cassini's recent flyby of Titan, scientists discovered that Saturn's largest moon has a surprising number of layers of haze in its atmosphere. These layers of haze extend several hundred kilometres above the moon's surface. This image was taken in ultraviolet, and then colourized on computer to look like natural colour.

Cassini took this image of Dione set against giant Saturn as it approached the icy moon for its December 14th flyby. This picture, taken from 603,000 kilometers (375,000 miles), shows how Dione has colour variations across its surface, but it's largely gray. Several oval shaped storms are visible raging across Saturn's banded atmosphere.

The Subaru telescope captured this image of a dusty planetary nebula surrounding a star similar to our own Sun at the end of its life. Located 5,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, the nebula is very similar to the more famous Ring Nebula. When they reach the end of their lives, stars like our own Sun shed layers of gas and dust which pile up around the star, and are pushed outward. In this nebula, the material has reached a distance of 100 times the size of our Solar System.

The shape of the Helix Nebula has always been a bit of a mystery to astronomers; some theorized that it's donut-shaped, or it could even resemble a snake-like coil. But new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope have helped to shed some light on this issue. Researchers tracked the speed of material being expended from the central dying star, and came to the conclusion that it's actually two gaseous disks which are perpendicular to each other. One disk was expelled 6,600 years ago, and the other was fired off 12,000 years ago.

Astronomers had seen storms around Titan's south pole before, but now they've been discovered at the moon's mid-latitudes as well. The discovery was made using the Gemini North and Keck 2 observatories, which have adaptive optics systems capable of resolving Saturn's largest moon with great detail. These storms could be created by surface activities, like cryovolcanoes which could spew an icy mix of chemicals into the atmosphere. It could also be caused by seasonal temperature changes, like the weather here on Earth.

Just days after completing its second flyby of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, Cassini proceeded on to its next target: Dione, Saturn's 4th largest moon. The spacecraft came within just 81,000 kilometres (50,600 miles) of the moon and sent back a stream of close up images of its strange surface, which are now being analyzed by scientists.

Scientists were surprised to learn that the Earth's magnetic field can concentrate radiation from the Sun during powerful solar storms, even in places that were previously thought to be safe. One region is the gap between the two Van Allen radiation belts that surround our planet, which resemble two donuts, one inside the other. In between these belts is a relatively safe area that could be prime real estate for satellites because of the low radiation levels. During the extreme solar weather last year, that safe zone actually filled up with radiation and became quite hazardous for more than five weeks.

NASA has selected eight proposals for experiments that will be installed on the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, which will launch for the Red Planet in 2009. The instruments proposed for the minivan-sized rover include: a stereo video camera, a laser that can blast material off from 10 metres, a microscope, an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, an X-ray diffraction/X-ray fluorescence instrument, a radiation detector, a descent camera, and a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer which would be able to detect organic compounds and chemicals produced by bacteria.