Dust Devil - Mars scientists and engineers are cheering about a dust-busting blast that struck the Spirit Rover at its Gusev crater exploration site. This Martian whirlwind which was dubbed a "Dust Devil" apparently zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills and in that fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirit's solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life. The engineers reported that the rover's power reading quickly shot up to almost a high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago.

The Rover Scientists suspected that something unusual was happening at the Gusev site when the wheel tracks of Spirit were disappearing. Onboard cameras could look down and see the tracks vanishing. Rover Team members assumed that the site was experiencing a heavy dust loading in the atmosphere. The Rovers energy quickly dropped, and Gusev was alive with "Dust Devils". Next thing was Spirits available energy rocked to a high level. The impact of the devilish dust was significant. The noon solar output from the panels went from 40 percent loss to just 7 percent.

What caused the Opportunity's solar panels at Meridiani Planum to become cleaned is a remaining puzzle.

Bright Light Seen Streaking Across Sky - In Portland, Oregan, dozen of residents in the Pacific Northwest reported seeing a bright streak of light flash across the sky, officials has stated. According to scientists that bright streak of light was probably a meteor, and is most probably disintegrated before any fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean..

According to Summer Jenson who was in her living room on Saturday night, "It was like a big ball of fire" Police, Pilots and some air traffic controllers described it as "A green ball of fire with a long tail" It appeared to have come down over the ocean and then the object flew over the Pacific Coast, streaking along from south to north. According to Jim Todd, planetarium director at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, If the meteor had entered that atmosphere during the day, it may not have been noticed. "It creates a bright contrast against the night sky" Todd said. Last year, a meteor that appeared like a fireball was sighted over western Washington state and in March 2003 residents in four Midwestern states also reported seeing a disintegrating meteorite flash across the sky.

Atmosphere Found On Saturn's Moon - The Cassini spacecraft has revealed that Saturn's icy moon Enceladus has got a significant atmosphere. During a recent flyby, Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that using Cassini's magnetometer instrument for their studies, the source may be volcanism, geysers, or gases escaping from the surface of the interior.

When Cassini had its first encounter with Enceladus it was at an altitude of 725 miles (1,167 km) and the magnetometer instrument saw a striking signature in the magnetic field. When it approached to within 310 miles (500 km) of Enceladus surface it obtained additional evidence. The observations from the Enceladus Flybys are believed to be due to ionized water vapour. These new results from Cassini may be the first evidence of gases originating either from the surface or from the interior of Enceladus. In 1981 when Voyager spacecraft flew by Enceladus at a distance of 56,000 miles (90,000 km) it detected no atmosphere. It is due possibly to Voyager's capabilities, or something may have changed since that flyby. This is the first time sine Cassini arrived in orbit around Saturn last summer that an atmosphere has been detected around a moon of Saturn. An atmosphere has been detected around its largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is a rather small moon and the amount of gravity it exerts is not enough to hold an atmosphere very long.

Enceladus's diameter is about 310 miles (500 km), this would fit into the state of Arizona, and despite its small size, Enceladus exhibits one of the most interesting surfaces of all the icy satellites.

Are Experiments Being Done Near Sumatra? - 74,000 years ago a super volcano erupted killing almost all living beings on the earth and the majority suffered from hunger Almost all of the vegetation was engulfed with the ash and volcanic cloud..

Now Geologists and astrophysicists are slowly getting convinced that the Sumatra epicentre of the earthquake that caused the landslide and Tsunami in late December. occurred in the same area. The 74,000 year cycle is supposed to repeat within a few years and the underwater behaviour in the area of Sumatra, Andaman and Nicobar islands is strange. The number of aftershocks and the pattern of shocks point towards some organized activities at the tectonic levels. It is thought by some Geological engineers and scientists, that the tectonic plate movement may have been artificially created, in order to save us from another mega volcano. They are thinking that maybe someone (Extra-Terrestrials) are trying to save the earth from another calamity. If they have manipulated the tectonic plates, it is possible to avoid this massive volcano erupting again. No humans are capable yet of doing this but according to current UFO researchers, the extra-terrestrials do. The think that maybe the extra-terrestrials want our civilization to move on and not be blown up..

Is it possible that they have created a series of earthquakes in December and January to save us all from a massive volcano later on? What are we going to face in 2012? It seems based on what happened in different parts of the world, one or more entities are really trying to avert some big calamity.

New Super-speed Spacecraft Being Devolved By Pentagon - The Pentagon is developing a suborbital space capsule within the next 5 years. It will be launched from the United States and could deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within two hours.Named the Falcon Program, this year it will test a launcher for its Common Aero Vehicle (CAV), an unmanned manoeuvrable spacecraft that would travel at 5 times the speed of sound. It could carry 1,000 pounds of munitions, intelligence sensors or other payloads, the Washington Post reported. The first generation CAV is expected to be ready by the year 2010 and within the next three years, the Falcon programme hopes to enter a second stage. This is flight testing two versions of a reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle, sometimes referred to as a space plane, this would travel a suborbital path at about 100,000 feet high, carrying a CAV anywhere in the world.Unlike a missile, the vehicle could return to its base after releasing the CAV to deliver bombs or intelligence sensors.

Astronauts Could Be Killed By Superflares - A study has just been done on the most powerful solar flare's over the last 500 years and it has been revealed that one of these flares would be strong enough to kill a astronaut in a poorly shield spacecraft in space. Astronauts on their way to Mars might be at risk unless their craft is made of the right materials.

Just this last January, the current space station crew had to take shelter in the Russian's bulkier side of the station during a powerful series of flares. It has been found that astronauts behind only a few centimetres of aluminium - (This is the shielding you will find in an average spacecraft) would suffer a dose that could cause acute radiation sickness and possibly even death. Aluminium is not a good radiation shield and alternative materials are being looked at, such as polyethylene and carbon foams impregnated with hydrogen.

Strange Aircraft Seen In Valley - A huge aircraft was seen flying low over Valemount at around 11.45.am. It was large, grey and passed silently overhead at about 10 feet above the tree line, heading northwest towards the Valemount Hotel. There was no sound heard. Shortly afterwards another object was seen in McBride. At about 12.10.pm. a gentleman noticed a large dark grey or black plane pass through the alley heading west at about 1,500 feet. The man looked though his binoculars but noticed there was no markings on the object. He thought it was a military plane because of its dark exterior and the back door was outlined in yellow. It was not your typical plane he said. A check was made with the Kamloops Flight Information Centre but nothing was known, but there was a large military exercise involving aircrafts schedule in Kamloops the previous week.

Friday 13th - A giant asteroid is to pass very close to the Earth on Friday 13th, 2029. Asteroid 2004MN4 which was discovered in June 2004 is the size of three football pitches will pass between the Earth and the Moon, the closest fly-by of an object of its size in recorded history. It is expected to pass 22,600 miles from the Earth and will most probably be visible to the naked eye from Britain. It will shine in the sky as a dim, fast moving star and will be the first time an asteroid will be clearly visible from the Earth without the aid of binoculars or a telescope.

Rollout Of Discovery Delayed - At Cape Canaveral, the Shuttle Discovery will not be rolled out to the launch pad on the due day. The shuttle has been stored in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Centre. The high humidity in the Vehicle Assembly Building has slowed work on heat-protection tiles said Jessica Rye, the Nasa spokeswoman.When a shuttle is moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building, workers routinely check the gaps between tiles around the nose landing gear. If the gaps are not just right, a tile is removed and bonded again to the orbiter's aluminium surface. Most of the work is done while the shuttle is in its hangar. The move to Pad 39B on one of the two gigantic crawler-transporters is expected to take 7 hours. They always try to move the shuttles whilst the skies are clear and it is not raining etc. to avoid lightning strikes, so sometimes it means rolling the shuttle out during the night. The launch window now for Discovery extends from 15th May to June 3rd. The next window opens in July.

UFO Seen During Pope John Paul's Funeral - A video has just been released from the Indianapolis News Channel 8 which was taken on Thursday evening of St.Peter's Basilica in Vatican City which shows what appears to be an UFO moving across the upper left portion of the screen. The video taken at around 6.00.am. as Pope John Paul lay in state. The white object is seen passing on a diagonal trajectory from the upper middle part of the screen to the left. It could be a bird but other who have seen the film are not certain of this.

All through history, UFO's have been seen in connection with major religious and historical events.

Mars Images - Some strange images have been cropping up among the ones received. When you look at the photo of these large stones, there appears to be either a free flowing or frozen liquid clinging to the base of these large stones. If this photo had been taken on earth, it would be assumed that it was of liquid water filled with sediment, but given that it was taken on Mars, that assumption may not hold.

Discovery - The space shuttle Discovery has reached its launch pad, after a 4 mile journey. It was delayed when a crack was found in the fuel tank's foam insulation. According to reports Discovery is due to be sent to the International Space Station possibly next month and it will be the first shuttle Nasa has launched since the Columbia was lost in 2003. The launch window runs between May 15th to 3rd June, this is the time which the International Space Station will be in an appropriate position.

New Planet Captured On Film - German astronomers claim to have captured the first direct image of a planet beyond our Solar System. This "Extra-Solar Planet" is said to orbit a star called GQ Lup-

This planet is said to orbit a star called GQ Lup- which is thought to be like a young version of our sun and similar claims have been made in the past. GQ Lup and its companion are located in a star-forming region about 400 light years away and the planet has been observed by the team since 1999. The images are from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Japanese Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. The planet is also quite a distance from GQ Lup- which is about 100 times the distance between the sun and the Earth, this assisted the team in separating the light from the two objects. apparently the limitations of current technology make it very difficult to see a planet directly.

Nasa Test Undertaken - For the first time in more than two years Nasa has fuelled a space shuttle. This test was part of a critical relaunch test of Discovery's external tank which has been redesigned to remove excess foam following the Columbia disaster. During the May lift off ice could be even more dangerous than if foam broke off during the lift off and smacked into the shuttle. The Discovery's tank 154 foot tall, rust coloured was filled with more than 500,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in the morning. The fuel will remain in the tank until the practice launch countdown ends at the 31-second mark in late afternoon and then it will be drained for future use. About half of the fuel dissipates into the air.

Nasa are undertaking this test to see how Discovery's newly redesigned tank reacts to the cryogenic fuel. and where any ice or frost forms on the exterior. The engineers are interested in the areas of the tank where foam insulation was removed or applied differently, to avoid large chunks breaking off during launch.The size of the chunk of foam which brought down Columbia in 2003 was a 1.67 pound piece. This struck the ship's left wing at more than 500 mph at lift off and let in the searing atmospheric gases of re-entry. The wing melted from the inside out and the spaceship was doomed. All 7 astronauts onboard were killed.The lift off is due no earlier than May 15th and the latest snag was a 1 1/2 inch long hairline crack which was found in the tank's foam. Engineers believe that there is no need to repair the crack. The crack is located on the side of the tank opposite the shuttle and even if piece of foam did come loose, it would not strike the ship.

Shuttle Crew Would Rather Be Rescued -The astronauts preparing to launch on the first shuttle flight since over 2 years have expressed reservations about the feasibility of repairing a damaged orbiter and safely flying it home. The 7 member crew of Discovery which is scheduled to launch on the 15th May said the strategies to repair damaged tiles were still unproved.

Charles Camarda a mission specialist from New York who is making his first flight into space said "This is an experimental flight and I don't believe (repair techniques) are certified in my opinion." He further stated that "If the damage occurred in a non critical area, we could envision risking a repair instead of waiting in the International Space Station for a rescue ship. If the damage was in an area that would experience high heating during re-entry, such as at the leading edge," he stated that he "Would not want the crew to fly back." This opinion was shared by several other astronauts. Mission Managers, however have expressed more confidence in the five repair techniques developed over the last two years.