[Saturday, October 1, 2011] New analysis of data sent back by the SPICAM spectrometer on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has revealed for the first time that the planet's atmosphere is supersaturated with water vapour.

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[Saturday, October 1, 2011] This image, captured by the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), shows a number of trails of small craters. These trails, called secondary crater chains, are formed when ejecta from an initial impact are launched outward.

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[Sunday, October 2, 2011] The 100 Year Starship Public Symposium wrapped up today in Orlando, Florida. The event promoted a compelling dialog among academia, business, the public and government about issues related to long term, long distance exploration.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] Such survival fractions are discussed regarding the possibility of interplanetary transfer of viable micro-organisms and the possible existence of microbial life in extraterrestrial salty environments such as the planet Mars and the Jupiter's moon Europa.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] NASA conducted a 40-second test of the J-2X rocket engine Sept. 28, the most recent in a series of tests of the next-generation engine selected as part of the Space Launch System architecture that will once again carry humans into deep space.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] Global and high resolution mapping of Enceladus confirms that the weather forecast for Saturn's unique icy moon is set for ongoing snow flurries. The superfine ice crystals that coat Enceladus's surface would make perfect powder for skiing.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] NASA's Dawn mission, which has been orbiting Vesta since mid-July, has revealed that the asteroid's southern hemisphere boasts one of the largest mountains in the solar system.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] A NASA-led study has documented an unprecedented depletion of Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic last winter and spring caused by an unusually prolonged period of extremely low temperatures in the stratosphere.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array), the most complex ground based telescope in existence, is officially open to astronomers and has produced its first image.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] NASA has a class assignment for U.S. students: help the agency give the twin spacecraft headed to orbit around the moon new names.

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[Monday, October 3, 2011] In early November, NASA will seek applicants for its next class of astronaut candidates who will support long-duration missions to the International Space Station and future deep space exploration activities.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] Opportunity is still positioned at the target called "Chester Lake" at Cape York on the rim of Endeavour crater. The rover continues with the in-situ (contact) science investigation of the surface rock called "Salisbury 1."

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] NASA has awarded the largest prize in aviation history, created to inspire the development of more fuel-efficient aircraft and spark the start of a new electric airplane industry.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its Oct. 1 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus and its jets of water vapor and ice. At its closest approach, the spacecraft flew approximately 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the moon's surface.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] Satellite data from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado in Boulder showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] The two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites reached Europe's Spaceport last month. Galileo's second flight model, FM2, touched down on 7 September on an Antonov-124 and the Galileo Protoflight Model followed it seven days later on an Ilyushin 76.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] An international team has pieced together images gathered by the Cassini mission to create a global mosaic of the surface of Titan. The global maps and animations of Saturn's largest moon are being presented at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] The latest analysis of data from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft shows that comet 103P/Hartley 2 is hyperactive in terms of the material it spews out, compared to the other comets observed up close to date.

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[Tuesday, October 4, 2011] As I understand the gist of the effort from various sources, students will be asked to come up with ideas for experiments that can be performed on the ISS and submit a video via YouTube that describes their idea.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] A team of researchers led by Bill Cochran of The University of Texas at Austin has used NASA's Kepler spacecraft to discover an unusual multiple-planet system containing a super-Earth and two Neptune-sized planets orbiting in resonance with each other.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] NASA has selected nine proposals to demonstrate new technologies for the second set of payloads to fly on commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicles and the Zero-G commercial parabolic aircraft.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] When balance teeters, movement results. This simple idea is the fuel for a new movie from NASA called LOOP. Opening Oct. 6 in spectacular Science On a Sphere theaters, LOOP explores natural forces that propel circulation patterns on Earth.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] The recent reentry of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite into the Pacific Ocean has focused new attention on the problems created by orbital debris.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced Science Across Virtual Institutes (SAVI), an effort to motivate collaboration among scientists and educators around the globe to spur scientific discovery.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] Antarctica is a place of extremes: isolated, cold and dark during the southern winter. In short, it is a perfect location for unique science. ESA is again asking European scientists to submit ideas for research projects at Concordia station.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] Strong agreement was voiced on the need for Space Situational Awareness by delegates representing a wide range of stakeholders at an SSA seminar in Warsaw while exchanging views and ideas on the future direction of Europe's capabilities.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] ESA's Herschel infrared space observatory has found water in a comet with almost exactly the same composition as Earth's oceans. The discovery revives the idea that our planet's seas could once have been giant icebergs floating through space.

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[Wednesday, October 5, 2011] This composite image, created using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, shows the molecular cloud Cepheus B, located in our galaxy about 2,400 light years from the Earth.

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[Thursday, October 6, 2011] "Yuri's Night 2012: Make an Impact" calls on event organizers and attendees around the world to both remember the impact of space travel on human society and make their own impact locally through their Yuri's Night event.

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[Thursday, October 6, 2011] The X PRIZE Foundation today announced Shell as the exclusive presenting sponsor of the X PRIZE Exploration Prize Group, which aims to foster innovation through exploration to improve life on Earth.

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[Thursday, October 6, 2011] Scientists call it LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, but they don't know much about this great-grandparent of all living things.

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[Thursday, October 6, 2011] Steve Jobs was a 6 months older than me. I am certainly not done with life. Given his tectonic impact, he was clearly not ready either - even if he had faced his fate.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] In preparation for launch later this year, the "back shell powered descent vehicle" configuration containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has been placed on the spacecraft's heat shield.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-B spacecraft successfully executed its first flight path correction maneuver Wednesday, Oct. 5.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] Most people know that some planets have moons but would be surprised to know that some asteroids do. According to Joshua Emery, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, about 20 percent of them do.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] Uranus is unusual in that its spin axis is inclined by 98 degrees compared to its orbital plane around the Sun. This is far more pronounced than other planets, such as Jupiter (3 degrees), Earth (23 degrees), or Saturn and Neptune (29 degrees).

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] NASA will begin development and testing of two science instruments, in cooperation with ESA, to be placed on ESA's newly selected Solar Orbiter mission. The spacecraft will study the Sun from a closer distance than any previous mission.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] An international collaboration of astrophysicists has detected pulsed gamma rays from the neutron star at the heart of the Crab Nebula with energies far higher than the common theoretical models can explain.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] One of the Expedition 29 crew members aboard the ISS, approximately 220 miles above Earth, took this night time picture showing clouds, lightning, airglow, Earth's terminator and lights of civilization along the central west coast of Africa.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] In a painstaking re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1998, astronomers have found visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected back then.

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[Friday, October 7, 2011] NASA announced it will provide support to Space Adventures, Ltd. of Vienna, Va., to conduct a global competition for students to design experiments that will be performed in space and broadcast around the world.

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[Saturday, October 8, 2011] Opportunity finished her in-situ work at the target called "Chester Lake" at Cape York on the rim of Endeavour crater and is on the move again.

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[Saturday, October 8, 2011] Richardson Crater is well-known among Mars scientists for its spectacular dunes. These dunes are located around -72 degrees in latitude; if they were on Earth they'd be well south of the Antarctic Circle.

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[Sunday, October 9, 2011] Remote observatories generating gigabytes of data on the weather from Antarctica's vast ice sheets, powered by nothing more than wind and sun. An array of buoys and gliders bobbing and cruising through the Southern Ocean.

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[Sunday, October 9, 2011] Newly released images taken by ESA's Mars Express show an unusual accumulation of young craters in the large outflow channel called Ares Vallis. Older craters have been reduced to ghostly outlines by the scouring effects of ancient water.

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[Sunday, October 9, 2011] A map of the Moon combining observations in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths shows a treasure trove of areas rich in titanium ores. Not only is titanium a valuable element, it is key to helping scientists unravel the mysteries of the Moon's interior.

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[Monday, October 10, 2011] The novel observatory provides a new window to explore the universe. The combination of cutting-edge discovery science and the exotic Antarctic environment is an ideal vehicle to excite and engage a wide audience.

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[Monday, October 10, 2011] GPS III will improve position, navigation and timing services and provide advanced anti-jam capabilities yielding superior system security, accuracy and reliability.

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[Monday, October 10, 2011] Six regional finalists will gather in Washington, D.C., in March 2012 to experience a ZERO-G flight and receive other prizes.

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[Monday, October 10, 2011] A new image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a mountain three times as high as Mt. Everest, amidst the topography in the south polar region of the giant asteroid Vesta.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] While NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity was traveling from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater, between September 2008 and August 2011, the rover team took an end-of-drive image on each Martian day that included a drive.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] Earth's largest mass extinction event, the end-Permian mass extinction, occurred some 252 million years ago. An estimated 90 percent of Earth's marine life was eradicated.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] Global glaciation likely put a chill on life on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, but new research indicates that simple life in the form of photosynthetic algae could have survived in a narrow body of water with characteristics similar to today's

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] Looking like a pair of eyeglasses only a rock star would wear, this nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its infrared vision.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] The launch of the first pair of Galileo satellites, set for October 20, will open the road for Europe's satellite navigation programme.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] On October 11, 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is releasing a Cooperative Agreement Notice (NNH12ZDA002C) soliciting new institutional members to the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] NASA has released an interactive, educational video game called NetworKing that depicts how the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) network operates.

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[Tuesday, October 11, 2011] The Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society today issued a statement in support of Senate and House versions of the fiscal year 2012 appropriations for planetary science.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] This image was taken on October 02, 2011 and received on Earth October 02, 2011. The camera was pointing toward Dione at approximately 278,327 kilometers away.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] Small impact craters retain their original bowl shape, but once a crater is large enough that the force of gravity on the slopes of the crater wall is greater than the strength of the target material, the wall collapses inward to form a central peak.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] Since the termination of the Space Shuttle program, the Soyuz rocket with its Soyuz crew capsule is the only way to transport NASA and international partner crews to the ISS.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] or the first time, observations coordinated by ESA's space hazards team have found an asteroid that comes close enough to Earth to pose an impact threat.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] The Space Generation Congress, organized by the Space Generation Advisory Council, held its 10th annual event for the first time in the continent of Africa bringing together 130 students and young professionals from 42 countries and six continents.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] NASA is offering students the opportunity to compete in two microgravity challenges: "Dropping In a Microgravity Environment," or DIME, and "What If No Gravity?" or WING.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] NASA is planning an Oct. 27 launch of the first Earth-observing satellite to measure both global climate changes and key weather variables.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] More than a thousand X-ray signals illuminate a patch of sky. The false colors in this image from a camera aboard the XMM-Newton spacecraft indicate the energy of the sources -- from red for the weakest signals through green to blue for the strongest.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] An international team of astronomers used the VLT as a time machine, to look back into the early Universe and observe several of the most distant galaxies ever detected.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have directly determined the surface temperature of early Mars for the first time, providing evidence that's consistent with a warmer and wetter Martian past.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] Guess what: the conclusions that NASA arrived at during these studies are in direct contrast to what the agency had been telling Congress, the media, and anyone else who would listen.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] Scientists with Dawn are sharing with other scientists and the public their early information about the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta. The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

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[Wednesday, October 12, 2011] Engineers have been testing the spacecraft, called the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100, since Sept. 17 at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] Registration for the world's largest student rocket competition is open now through November 30. The Team America Rocketry Challenge will accept up to 1,000 student teams in grades 7-12 from any U.S. school, home school or non-profit youth organization.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] After Mars scientists decided Hesperia Planum looked like a lava-filled plain, no one really revisited the matter and the place was used to exemplify something rather important: The base of a major transitional period in the geologic time scale of Mars.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] On September 30, 2011 at 11:08am, Derek Deville's Qu8k (pronounced "Quake") launched from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to an altitude of 121,000' before returning safely to earth.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] Scientists are making advances in the use of satellite data to map changes in Earth's surface. Subsidence of only millimetres can be detected thanks to advances in technology.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] Virgin Galactic has confirmed an order from NASA for up to three charter flights on its privately-built spacecraft to provide opportunities for engineers, technologists, and scientific researchers to conduct cutting-edge experiments in suborbital space.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] The iconic radio telescope, known around the world through movies, documentaries, music videos, newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, textbooks, and thousands of scientific papers, is nearing the completion of an amazing transformation.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] This image, captured by the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), shows a number of trails of small craters. These trails, called secondary crater chains, are formed when ejecta from an initial impact are launched outward.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] This image was taken on October 04, 2011 and received on Earth October 05, 2011. The camera was pointing toward Rhea at approximately 1,149,518 kilometers away.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] Since 1995, scientists have discovered approximately 600 planets around other stars, including 50 planets last month alone, and one that orbits two stars, like Tatooine in Star Wars.

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[Thursday, October 13, 2011] This image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 (or MACS 1206 for short) is part of a broad survey with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys this week over the changing ice of Antarctica.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] The green scum shown in this image is the worst algae bloom Lake Erie has experienced in decades. Such blooms were common in the lake's shallow western basin in the 1950s and 60s.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] The subtropical Canary Islands off Africa's west coast are pictured in this Envisat image. The Canary Islands' favourable climate and beaches attract over 12 million visitors per year.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the U.S. Air Force signed an agreement this week to establish clear criteria for certification of commercial providers of launch vehicles used for national security space and civil space missions.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] The first Galileo launch is less than a week away, but how will Europe's own satellite navigation system operate? Find out in a new ESA video, on YouTube in 3D.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] The Carina Nebula is a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way that is 7,500 light years from Earth and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has detected more than 14,000 stars in the region.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] The first 8.5 million Pounds of investment from the UK's National Space Technology Programme was announced today by the Science Minister, David Willetts.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] This observation shows an impressive chain of pits along the southernmost tip of the chain in Artynia Catena, located on the northwestern flank of the volcano, Alba Patera.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] Today, Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chair Ralph Hall (R-TX), along with several GOP Committee members, sent a letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, offering recommendations on areas within the Committee's jurisdiction.

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[Friday, October 14, 2011] News media representatives will have the opportunity to cover the 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, from up close or afar.

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[Saturday, October 15, 2011] The first Soyuz to take off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana was moved to the launch pad yesterday. The rocket that will carry the first two Galileo navigation satellites into orbit is on track for liftoff on 20 October.

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[Sunday, October 16, 2011] Space technology experts from SSTL and the SSC have announced the four lucky winners of the 'Space App Competition' who will see their Android Applications run on smartphone-powered satellite STRaND-1, due for launch into space next year.

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[Sunday, October 16, 2011] A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has discovered over two dozen new free-floating brown dwarfs, including a lightweight youngster only about six times heftier than Jupiter, that reside in two young star clusters.

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[Sunday, October 16, 2011] Opportunity Status for sol 2738-2744: Opportunity is moving generally north across Cape York on the rim of Endeavour crater with an eye ahead to the next winter.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] The C2V2 is a two-way communications system for use between the ISS and Visiting Vehicles (VVs) during rendezvous, proximity, departure, and docked operations.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] Ladon Vallis, an approximately 600 kilometer (370 mile) long outflow channel, is part of a larger system that begins in Argyre basin to the south and extends northwards across the Southern Highlands towards the larger Ares Vallis outflow system.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its Oct. 1 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, capturing these raw, unprocessed images of the moon and its dramatic plumes of water vapor and ice.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion -- an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] This annual report, submitted as a memorandum from the Inspector General to the NASA Administrator, provides the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with our independent assessment of NASA's information technology (IT) security posture.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] NASA's flight directors lead a team of flight controllers, support personnel and engineering experts from around the world. They also are involved in cargo and crew vehicle integration with the station and developing plans for future exploration missions.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] Like all galaxies, our Milky Way is home to a strange substance called dark matter. Dark matter is invisible, betraying its presence only through its gravitational pull.

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[Monday, October 17, 2011] I had a chance to chat with NEEMO 15 crew member Steve Squyres today as he waits out some bad weather before his 13 day underwater mission begins. According to Steve its looking like Thursday before they can "splash down".

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] Looking skyward, more than 800 guests marveled at Virgin Galactic's commercial space vehicles as they soared through the skies of southern New Mexico during the dedication ceremonies of Virgin Galactic's new home at Spaceport America.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell paid a visit to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on October 17 for a first-hand look at the development of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Taurus II rocket that will start carrying supplies to the Space Station in 2012.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] The beautiful rayed crater at the left edge of the image is named for Benedict Enwonwu, a Nigerian sculptor and painter. Enwonwu crater is about 38 km in diameter. Its bright rays extend for hundreds of kilometers from the rim of the crater.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 42,000 kilometers from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees. Image scale is 253 meters per pixel.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan, investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, found serious flaws with a proposal that would guarantee ULA's monopoly over Department of Defense (DoD) launches.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] This swirling landscape of stars is known as the North America Nebula. In visible light, the region resembles North America, but in this image infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the continent disappears.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] NASA and Japan released a significantly improved version of the most complete digital topographic map of Earth on Monday, produced with detailed measurements from NASA's Terra spacecraft.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] Two researchers from Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg have revealed for the first time the existence of a new signature of the birth of the first stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] Rice, now a veteran of the site-selection process, got his first taste in 1994 with NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission. "I was just a graduate student then, and I can't tell you how excited I was," he says.

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[Tuesday, October 18, 2011] Scaling Everest is more than a climb: it is the ultimate destination for mountaineers. GeoEye-1 .50-meter resolution collected 21 November 2009.

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] Volcanologists from the Universities of Leicester and Durham have forensically reconstructed the impact of a meteorite on Earth and how debris was hurled from the crater to devastate the surrounding region.

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] Arguably one of America's most magnificent national parks is the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. The Aldvanced Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft captured this 3-D view on July 14, 2011.

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] Around 3100 people came to ESO's headquarters on Saturday, curious to find out more about ESO's world-class facilities and front-line scientific results.

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] As the impact of climate change is felt in the Arctic, ESA's CryoSat ice mission is highlighted as a source of vital information at an exhibition in the Netherlands opened by HRH the Prince of Orange.

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] This area of Malea Planum is covered by bright dust and dark lines. These lines formed by swirling winds known as dust devils that move across the surface removing the dust cover and revealing the darker rock materials beneath.

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] The Spitzer Space Telescope has detected signs of icy bodies raining down in an alien solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment".

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[Wednesday, October 19, 2011] The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- whose temperature is like a hot summer day in Arizona -- will be revealed during a presentation at the Signposts of Planets conference at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] NASA OpenGov has enlisted the help of established NASA partners Zooniverse and Vizzuality, who have pioneered the analysis of large datasets through crowdsourcing, using the power of elegant interfaces, to engage citizen scientists in the NEEMO mission.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] Today, SpaceX announced it has successfully completed the preliminary design review of its revolutionary launch abort system, a system designed for manned missions using its Dragon spacecraft.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] The NEEMO 15 mission is projected to start Oct. 20.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] The Antarctic ozone hole, which yawns wide every Southern Hemisphere spring, reached its annual peak on Sept. 12. It stretched to 10.05 million square miles, the ninth largest ozone hole on record.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] The discovery of the mineral jarosite in rocks analyzed by the Mars Rover, Opportunity, on the Martian surface had special meaning for a team of Syracuse University scientists who study the mineral here on Earth.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] This interacting pair of galaxies is included in Arp's catalog of peculiar galaxies as number 148. Arp 148 is the staggering aftermath of an encounter between two galaxies, resulting in a ring-shaped galaxy and a long-tailed companion.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] The typical satellite view of eastern Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula is white or green. On October 16, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite captured this image of a landscape in transition.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] Today's launch of Soyuz with Galileo IOV is delayed. The launch countdown has been stopped and a new launch date will be announced later today.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] A new image of the disk of gas and dust around a Sun-like star is the first to show spiral-arm-like structures. These features may provide clues to the presence of embedded but as-yet-unseen planets.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] Take five astronauts and instead of sending them into space take them underground. ESA's CAVES venture prepares astronauts to work in an international team under real exploration conditions. The latest 'crew' has returned after six days in the dark.

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[Thursday, October 20, 2011] Following the work performed on the Soyuz launch facility and the associated additional checks, Arianespace has decided to restart the countdown operations for the launch of VS01, Soyuz ST-B - Galileo IOV-1.

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] Soyuz lifts off for the first time from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, carrying the first two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites.

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] NASA's MESSENGER probe has discovered a surprise on Mercury in the form of hollows in the surface of the innermost planet. What's creating these hollows?

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] An instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity can check for any water that might be bound into shallow underground minerals along the rover's path.

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] NASA has released a series of new satellite data visualizations that show tens of millions of fires detected worldwide from space since 2002.

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] NOAA is now using a sophisticated forecast model that substantially improves predictions of space weather impacts on Earth. Better forecasts offer additional protection for people and the technology-based infrastructure we use daily.

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] Yuri's Night, the World Space Party, today announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Space Society (NSS) that provides for cooperation and joint activities between the two organizations.

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[Friday, October 21, 2011] NASA provides your weekly update on the research and activities on the International Space Station for October 21-27, 2011.

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[Saturday, October 22, 2011] All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below.

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[Saturday, October 22, 2011] A video recap of the top events at NASA this past week including three new flight directors at Mission Control in Houston, the latest on micro-gravity experiments aboard the ISS, Lifetime achievement awards for the Mars Rovers and more.

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[Sunday, October 23, 2011] DARPA's Phoenix program seeks to develop technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost.

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[Sunday, October 23, 2011] The twin of a Montana State University student-built satellite that was launched in the spring but failed to reach orbit as a result of an anomaly with the TAURUS-XL rocket is scheduled to be launched Friday, Oct. 28, on another NASA rocket.

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] GeoEye will be using Google Earth Builder to deliver a new set of imagery services that will make it easy for any Google Earth(TM) or Google Maps(TM) user to access imagery across GeoEye's vast archive.

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] A good photographer needs agility. So it is with ESA microsatellite Proba-1, which turns in space to capture terrestrial targets. Celebrating its tenth birthday this week, Proba-1's unique images are used by hundreds of scientific teams worldwide.

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] Chabot Space & Science Center has been awarded a $412,000 grant from NASA to create an innovative solar astronomy exhibition showcasing stunning images of the Sun, examining "space weather" created by solar activity and its influences on the Earth.

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] Now that HiRISE has been returning data from its primary science orbit at Mars since 2006, it has been able to document changes in the position of sand dunes and ripples on the surface.

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] This artist's concept illustrates a young, red dwarf star surrounded by three planets. Such stars are dimmer and smaller than yellow stars like our sun, which makes them ideal targets for astronomers wishing to take images of planets outside our solar sys

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] NEEMO-15 crew member Astronaut Shannon Walker says that there will be several tablet computers aboard the next Progress cargo flight to the International Space Station.

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[Monday, October 24, 2011] All the White House promises to do is respond when a petition reaches a certain threshold. But it does get their attention.

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[Tuesday, October 25, 2011] We are all here to learn from each other how we can even more effectively advance personal and commercial spaceflight - to create high-paying jobs and open up endless possibilities for our economy.

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[Tuesday, October 25, 2011] According to NASA Public Affairs, the Russians plan to fly two iPads on the December 2011 Progress cargo mission as a replacement for the iPod they currently have on the ISS

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[Tuesday, October 25, 2011] To mark the 75th anniversary of the first rocket experiments at the site that became NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., several events are planned.

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[Tuesday, October 25, 2011] NASA will host a three-day Human Space Exploration Community Workshop in San Diego starting on Monday, Nov. 14. The agency will introduce the International Space Exploration Coordination Group's Global Exploration Roadmap during the event.

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[Tuesday, October 25, 2011] Reporters are invited to attend a water impact test of an 18,000-pound Orion test article at NASA's Langley Research Center's Hydro Impact Basin in Hampton, Va., on Thursday, Oct. 27.

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[Tuesday, October 25, 2011] A mystery that began nearly 2,000 years ago, when Chinese astronomers witnessed what would turn out to be an exploding star in the sky, has been solved.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] NASA has posted the third status report on its Commercial Crew Development 2 (CCDev2) program to the agency's Commercial Space Transportation website.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] Due to the predicted path of Hurricane Rina, the 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, ended earlier than planned.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] Ideas for solar radiation management include increasing the amount of aerosols in the stratosphere, which could scatter incoming solar heat away from Earth's surface, or creating low-altitude marine clouds to reflect these same rays.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] In today's issue of Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] Astronomers have accurately measured the diameter of the faraway dwarf planet Eris for the first time by catching it as it passed in front of a faint star.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] Today, from an intense selection process with more than 500 applicants including some of the best pilots in the world, Virgin Galactic has selected former USAF test pilot Keith Colmer as the first astronaut pilot to join the commercial spaceline's flight

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] On Saturday morning, October 22, 2011, The Tandem airship was launched from Nevada's Black Rock desert. The airship flew to 95,085 feet, higher than any airship in history.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] On Oct 25, 2006, a Delta II rocket launched carrying two nearly identical spacecraft. Each satellite was one half of a mission entitled STEREO and they were destined to do something never done before -see the entire Sun simultaneously.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] Astronomers have used a large survey to test a prediction that close encounters between galaxies can trigger the rapid growth of supermassive black holes.

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[Wednesday, October 26, 2011] Latest indications are this relatively small comet has broken into even smaller, even less significant, chunks of dust and ice. This trail of piffling particles will remain on the same path as the original comet, completing its unexceptional swing through

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] During a visit to South America, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Thursday signed two cooperative Earth science agreements with Agencia Espacial Brasileira (AEB), NASA's counterpart space agency in Brazil.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] To visible-light telescopes, this star-forming cloud appears to be chomping through the cosmos, earning it the nickname the "Pacman" nebula, like the famous Pac-Man video game that debuted in 1980.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] Parinacota Volcano in the Chile-Bolivia border region, South America is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 29 crew member on the International Space Station.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] This image was taken on October 19, 2011 and received on Earth October 20, 2011. The camera was pointing toward Enceladus at approximately 89,942 kilometers away.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] A new analysis of Hubble surveys, combined with simulations of galaxy interactions, reveals that the merger rate of galaxies over the last 8 billion to 9 billion years falls between the previous estimates.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] Though it is all composed of frozen water, ice is hardly uniform. On October 7, 2011, the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this image of a variety of ice types off the coast of East Antarctica.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] These Dawn FC (framing camera) composite images show the spectacular spectral diversity of Vesta's surface.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] NASA is accepting applications from graduate and undergraduate university students to fly experiments to the edge of space on a scientific balloon. This balloon flight competition is a joint project between NASA and LaSPACE in Baton Rouge.

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[Thursday, October 27, 2011] YouTube and Lenovo today announced seven new, prestigious judges have joined YouTube Space Lab, a global science competition and ongoing education program launched by YouTube and Lenovo in conjunction with space agencies throughout the world.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] There is extreme concern at senior levels of the agency (as expressed to me) that this sad episode has resulted in a black eye for NASA when in fact it was the NASA OIG who was responsible for this mess.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] Ronald Greeley, a Regents' Professor of planetary geology at ASU who has been involved in lunar and planetary studies since 1967 and has contributed significantly to our understanding of planetary bodies within our solar system, died Oct. 27.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] Journalists are invited to attend a major announcement of a new partnership between NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and an outside organization that open NASA's facilities to U.S. commercial space launch service providers.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite soared into space early today aboard a Delta II rocket after liftoff at 5:48 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] This image was taken on October 19, 2011 and received on Earth October 20, 2011. The camera was pointing toward Encealdus at approximately 89,980 kilometers away.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] Subaru Telescope has added another dimension of information about one of the most studied of all compact galaxy groups -- Stephan's Quintet.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] The Flight Readiness Review (FFR) for the Vega launcher was held in Frascati, Italy on October 13 and 14. Based on this review, the Director-General of the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to start the Vega qualification launch campaign.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] The 520 days of isolation for the Mars500 crew will end on 4 November, when the hatch of their 'spacecraft' is opened for the first time since June last year. Scientists eagerly await the final samples as the crew count the hours to liberty.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] NASA is seeking proposals from educators who are looking for a unique way to inspire the next generation of explorers. Formal and informal education organizations can apply to host live interactive education downlinks with astronauts onboard the ISS.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] NASA experienced two suspicious events with the Terra spacecraft in the summer and fall of 2008. There was no manipulation of data, no commands successfully sent to the satellite, and no data captured.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] NASA will conduct a 100-foot robotic lander altitude test flight Friday, Nov. 4, to mature the technology needed to develop a new generation of small, smart, versatile robotic landers.

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[Friday, October 28, 2011] Elon Musk, CEO and Co-founder of Tesla and CEO and CTO of SpaceX, last night was recognized for Innovator of the Year in Technology by WSJ. Magazine.

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[Saturday, October 29, 2011] Within three hours of launch, ham radio operators in France, England and The Netherlands had reported hearing from the satellite. A few minutes later, the satellite was heading over the North Pole toward Alaska.

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[Saturday, October 29, 2011] As the International Space Station is boosted into a higher orbit, Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov float freely to demonstrate the acceleration of the orbiting complex.

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[Sunday, October 30, 2011] Pending the outcome of a series of flight readiness meetings in the coming weeks, this successful flight sets the stage for the next Soyuz launch, planned for mid-November.

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[Sunday, October 30, 2011] @astro_aggie (Mike Fossum) "Enjoy this picture I took #fromspace of the Progress cargo ship burning up after undock on Saturday."

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[Sunday, October 30, 2011] This is one of a series of night time images photographed by the Expedition 29 crew from the International Space Station. It features Southeastern United States centered near Atlanta. The Florida peninsula is visible under clouds (lower right).

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[Sunday, October 30, 2011] This Envisat image, acquired on 21 July 2011, shows part of Greenland's west coast - home to one of the fastest and most active glaciers in the world, Sermeq Kujalleq.

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[Sunday, October 30, 2011] In this image, vegetation is displayed in red, and flooded areas are black and dark blue. Brighter blue shows sediment-laden water, and gray areas are houses, buildings and roads.

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