A mixed bag for today’s Universe Today articles. For starters, NASA has asked the ESA Mars orbiter, Mars Express, to help out when NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission approaches the Red Planet in May this year. Along with NASA’s Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey missions, Mars Express...

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has observed something rather strange in our galaxy. There appears to be excess microwave radiation being emitted from the space around us, with apparently no explanation. In new research, this microwave excess may be caused by “nuggets” of...

My true aim for astroengine.com is to post advanced (but interesting) space physics concepts on an informal stage. But when news like this comes along, I feel compelled to say something. In a nutshell, the UK physics and astronomy community has been hit with a series of harsh and ill thought-out budget...

OK, here are two questions on everybody’s lips: 1) Could we be wiped out by an asteroid in the near future? 2) Are Pluto and Charon’s kids adopted? Well, #1 has probably been asked a few times (most likely during crappy movies like Deep Impact), but #2? I’m hoping this is the first...

Just the one article this time for the Universe Today. Todays article covers a recent US satellite mission carrying out some cool experiments in space. This orbiting mini-lab is carrying out tests on a new nanotech sensor that is sensitive to poisons in air (useful for spaceships, protecting astronauts),...

Every time a rocket launches, a spaceship orbits, an astronaut drops some trash or the US blows up a satellite, debris is created. Space debris (a.k.a. space junk) is a nasty side-effect of our push into space, but it isn’t a recent phenomenon. Even the early Gemini missions in the sixties did...

Primordial black holes are strange little critters. They’re not the product of a massive star recently gone supernova and they’re not as exotic as a wormhole, tunnelling a gateway into another dimension. They are very, very old remnants of the very beginning of our Universe. Much like the...

Some more Universe Today articles for you, one about exploding pulsars and another on the mysteries of Venus’s atmosphere: Pulsars are Exploding Unexpectedly and “Magnetars” Might be to Blame The Mysteries Behind the Dynamic Global Weather of Venus

This striking image has been created by tracking the round-trip times of data packets sent from a web site in Virginia to thousands of nodes around the World Wide Web. Using a new technique, this visualization method (3D “hyperbolic geometry”) allows the viewer to analyse large amounts of...

Other articles I’ve written today (for the Universe Today): Mysterious Mars Formation May be Caused by Bursts of Water US Cruiser Strikes Dead Spy Satellite Solar Variability Most Likely Not the Cause of Global Warming