That’s right, NASA will shoot a missle at 5.5K mph into the moon tomorrow morning at 07:30 AM eastern time. A satellite will follow behind, travelling through the mushroom cloud which could plume up to 30 miles high, gathering ice and dust particles in an effort to measure the amount/quality of the moon’s potential water sources. Critics argue that NASA will violate international laws with regard to altering the form of celestial bodies as the missle will produce a new crater on the moon’s surface a third of the size of a football field.

Via NASA & Scientific American

You may remember that an object plunged into Jupiter. The blemish it left behind has, within three weeks, grown to the size of the Earth!

This past week, astronomers have discovered a new moonlet in Saturn’s orbit. The small moon is about a quarter of a mile in diameter and first photographed from the Cassini. 1000 light-years away, astonomers also found the first occurance of a planet orbiting backwards – ie. in the direction opposite to its star’s rotation – possibly due to a near-collision between star and planet. And by 2020 NASA says it should be able to detect 90 percent of potential collisions and hazards nearing earth’s orbit. These potential hazards are defined as those objects larger than 3 football fields.

Via BBC
Via Space.com
Via JPL’s Asteroid Watch

Filmed in 2002, the conspiracy theorist called Aldrin a “liar” and a “coward” claiming the lunar landing never happened and that Aldrin was a fake. The toothless grin he woke up with the next day wasn’t fake. And to add insult to his injury, the L.A. District Attorney wouldn’t press charges against Aldrin. Ouch!

Listen now at NASA.gov

Launched in 1977, the Voyager spacecraft contains a gold-plated phonograph record, which contains sounds and images selected to protray the diversity of life on Earth. Hoping that it finds it’s way into the hands of intelligent extraterrestrial life forms, the Voyager spacecraft will take about 40,000 years to come near another star, if it survives that long of course. The contents of the Golden Record are well documented throughout history, but now, thanks to the internet, you can listen to the audio contained on the record directly through your browser. The more I listen, the more I imagine a late-night 70s sci-fi film, tracking humanities history through it’s low-quality sound effects and recording techniques.

Hear more: The sounds of Voyager’s Golden Record | Golden Record entry @ Wikipedia

SpaceX, the private space transportation company started by ex-PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, is currently counting down for an unmanned demo launch of their Falcon I space module. With several delays so far it’s looking like the launch will take place later this evening Pacific Standard Time, meaning I’ll probably be asleep while this puppy is hopefully heading up to the stars. Musk is said to have invested over $100,000,000 of his own money, so let’s hope this demo flight goes well.

Read more: Spacex updates as they happen

Ahhhh, artists, how I love your crazy ideas. An art group are proposing an extremely odd (and interesting) project / installation which would involve placing a gigantic banana over Texas, floating 30km to 50km above the US state for around 1 month. The banana will be constructed much like a blimp, with a 300 meter long semi-rigid structure made from bamboo, encased with a helium-filled skin of synthetic paper. The project is supposedly in it’s final stage of engineering and a launch time is currently being scheduled for August 2008. Real or not, I’d love to see the reaction to a giant banana floating over the Bush ranch, though I’d assume it would be seen as a giant risk to national security and subsequently shot down.

Read more: Geostationary banana over Texas

French photobugs have been hard at work, taking pictures of the heavens, from moon phases to the Aurora Borealis, and posting them on celestial hobby photos page Photo Astronomique. One such project is a collection of pretty-good quality photos of every full moon since May 2005, compiled into a nifty little flash animation. Something about good quality photos of the moon is just so perfectly relaxing.

See more: 20 consecutive full moon slideshow