First of all, apologies for having to cancel last week’s Christmas show, but you’ll be glad to hear that today’s New Years Eve Astroengine Live is ready to go! Actually, this was going to be a recording as we were hoping to be partying in San Diego, but like all great New Years plans,...

DEM images of Columbia Hills on Mars (USGS/HiRISE) If there’s one instrument that should get the Mars Orbiting Science Award of 2008 it’s the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). Flying on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), HiRISE has been taking some astonishing...

My Facebook Universe It might seem a little egocentric, but I thought this was rather cool. After wading knee-deep in Facebook code for the last few days, I came across some nice little tools. As with 90% of Facebook apps, it is debatable as to whether they are considered “useful” or not,...

Four centuries after Galileo Galilei first pointed his telescope at the night sky, the international community will not only be commemorate Galileo’s momentous discoveries, we will celebrate mankind’s continuing scientific endeavours in space. Back in 2007, the United Nations decided 2009...

Having just stumbled around the space blogs, I was enthusiastic that I would find some inspiration toward my next Astroengine.com article. Along the way, I found this rather entertaining short film on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy website. As Phil points out, “black holes don’t work this...

Facebook Connect, a new era for social media... Facebook recently officially announced the release of Facebook Connect. At first, I was a little dubious as to what it would do; after all who needs to sign in to their Facebook account when surfing other websites, right? Actually, Facebook Connect is a...

The Aztecs, affected atmospheric carbon levels? (Getty) Global warming anyone? I ask as I don’t want to upset anybody. Forget it, I’m going to talk about it anyway. Climate change is an important subject worthy of debate. But for a debate to develop into something constructive, all sides...

Wind whipping up a dust storm on Mars (NASA) One of the overriding features in the Martian atmosphere is the troublesome dust storm. Sometimes, these storms can last months and can span the entire planet. As testified by the solar panels on rovers Spirit and Opportunity, dust storms block sunlight from...

It's sad, but the next show will be awesome... Sorry everybody, but if you’re listening in to Astroengine Live for your weekly space news updates, you’ll notice a recording is currently being re-broadcast on WPRT Radio (thank you Jack!). Due to unforeseen circumstances I am currently stuck...

SpaceX Dragon approaches the ISS (SpaceX) NASA has just signed two very large cheques for two private spaceflight companies, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corporation. The contracts will allow private launches to re-supply the International Space Station beyond Shuttle...