Space Elevator - The LiftPort company in Washington State says it wants to send an elevator into space. It is going to open a plant in Millville, New Jersey this summer and to start producing nanotube fibres. These fibre's are 60 times stronger than steel. It is also planning to create an eight-inch wide ribbon that will stretch from an ocean platform 62 thousand miles into space. A robotic elevator will then crawl up and down the elevator to carry satellites and eventually people into orbit. The city of Millville and a county development project provided 100 thousand dollars to build the plant, which will employ six people. In Bremerton , Washington the three year old company will has nine employees. They also plan to sell nanotubes to strengthen glass and plastic products.

Great Wall Of China - Last year, China's first man in space disappointed everyone by saying that he had failed to spot the "Great Wall" whilst in space. Now an official newspaper has said that a picture taken by a Chinese-American astronaut shows the wall. It was taken by Leroy Chiao by commercially available equipment. The picture was sent back by Mr Chiao, who is currently aboard the International Space Station and was authenticated by a leading Chinese expert. The wall is highlighted in orange to distinguish it from a nearby road and railway. He is going to try and snap it again when he next passes over China. He will have to be quick though, he is orbiting at a speed of 8km. which is five miles a second. Egypt's pyramids and even various airports can be seen too.

New Moons Discovered - 12 new moons have been discovered orbiting Saturn. These latest moons were discovered last year by the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Confirmation of these were made last month using the Gemini North telescope also situated in Hawaii. the number of natural satellites orbiting Saturn is now 46. The Moons are small, irregular bodies probably only 3-7km in size and they are so far from Saturn that they take about two years to complete one orbit. All but one of the moons circles Saturn in the opposite direction to its larger moons, which is a characteristic of captured bodies. The planet with the most moons is Jupiter which at the last count was 63. Saturn now has 46 and Uranus has 27 and Neptune 13. The newly-found satellites were probably formed in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and then scattered out of it by the tug of Jupiter's gravity, but the question is how they became captured by Saturn. Astronomers have found that all four giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune possess about the same number of small irregular satellites irrespective of the mass of the planet, the orbit of the satellites, or if they were captured or formed in orbit. This observation remains unexplained.

Mars - In the hope of finding hidden seas on Mars scientists are about to erect a giant radar telescope above Mars in a hope to find underground lakes and caverns. This would be a tremendous discovery for researchers looking for life on Mars as water is essential for the evolution of life. The instrument which is carried on Europe's Mars Express satellite is called Marsis (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) Over the past 16 months it has made several key discoveries. It is now hoped that Marsis will find water beneath the surface of Mars. It was originally planned for deployment a year ago, not along after the Mars Express went into orbit around the planet but a last minute computer analyses revealed that there was a danger that the release of Marsis's three radar booms could have caused a whiplash that would have jeopardised that whole mission. It was then decided to delay Marsis's unfurling until most of the mission's tasks were completed. The deployment of the booms will take 10 days and a signal will be sent from Esa's control centre in Darmstadt and the container will then open so that the elastic energy of the compressed glass fibre booms will allow them gently to unfold. Using radar pulses to penetrate the Martian soil it will be easy to spot water or ice as they have easily distinguishable signals. Last month researchers discovered a sea of ice near the planet's equator.

Mars Telecommunications Orbiter - Lockheed Martin Space Systems is expected to land a $500 millions contract to build the Mars Telecommunication Orbiter. The Mars Telecommunication Orbiter is intended by Nasa to pioneer the use of lasers in planet to planet communication and the intended launch date will be sometime in 2009. It will be the first interplanetary spacecraft whose main mission is to provide communications services to other missions. It will orbit Mars at a higher altitude than most other orbiters, at about 2,800 miles above the Martian Surface. It will provide an enhanced line of site to the Earth. It will communicate with Earth via two radio bands and a new optical communications terminal, which will demonstrate the use of a near-infrared laser beam for interplanetary communications. the information from the spacecraft will be beamed to the 5 meter Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California.

Deep Impact Space Probe - One of Nasa's most ambitious space activities was launched in January 2005. This probe is supposed to reach Tempel 1 comet on the 4th July, 2005. America's Independence Day. The probe is expected to near the comet and fire a 270 kilo shell at it, in the direction of the comet's nucleus. If successful, the shell will hit the comet at a speed of 37,000 km/h. The football sized crater which is believed will be formed will allow scientists to be able to see the contents of the comet's nucleus. The scientists will be observing the process with video cameras installed onboard the Deep Impact probe. Also, with the help of US telescopes - Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer. The shell is also outfitted with a video camera. The structure of the comet nucleus will provide more information about the formation of the Solar System. Comets were believed to have formed about 4,6 billion years ago when the Sun and the planets of the Solar Systerm were being formed.The impact will occur at the distance of 132 kilometres far from the Earth. The impact will not cause much damage to the comet itself, it will be comparable to a flying bug that smashes into the windscreen of a racing car.

Mars Polar Lander Found? - According to the July 2005 issue of the Sky & Telescope, now in press, the Nasa's Mars Polar Lander (MPL) which went missing in December, 1999 has been found. It was supposed to touch down near the red planet's south pole, but shortly after it entered the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft disappeared without a trace. Now five and a half years later scientists think that they have finally located the wreckage. Malin used his company's Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) to search for the missing spacecraft but found nothing. A review board looking into the craft's disappearance reported what might have caused the Mars Polar Lander's demise. They suggested the MPL's landing rockets which were fired at the right time and altitude, but cut off prematurely. Apparently, they should have continued firing until one of the craft's landing legs touched the surface. The onboard software mistook the jolt of landing-leg deployment for ground contact and shut down the engines, causing the MPL to fall from a presumed height of 130 feet.After observing the two Mars Exploration Rover landers last year, information gained, Malin re-examined the 1999 and 2000 images looking for similar features. This time he saw what looked to be a parachute located several hundred metres away from a disturbed bit of ground with a large mark in its centre. The parachute feature closely matches the Mars Exploration Rover parachutes (These were made of the same material), and Malin believes that the distrubed ground matched what you would see if a rocket had blasted the surface from a height of tens of metres.Writing in the Sky & Telescope, Malin may have been correct says the MPL investigation board.Later on this year NASA is going to direct Mars Global Surveyor to re-examine the MPL crash site using a special technique to improve the camera's resolution to 0.05 metre per pixel. They hope that the new observations will prove conclusively that evidence to prove this was the case and to officially close the case of the missing Mars Polar Lander.

Strange Streaks Seen In Hawaii Sky - Last December, strange streaks of light was seem in the skies above the Hawaiian Islands. The Night Sky Live (NSL) project has its web cameras continuously watching the night sky, searching for UFO's. and they recorded it. Then on December 17th, NASA reported that their camera on top of the volcano Haleakala on Maui captured something mysteriously moving in the sky. A camera on a nearby island also recorded the same thing, so it could not have been an anomaly. No satellites were passing by at the time either. The object remains unknown at the present time.

UFO Seen Over Peru - On the 6th May, at 6.46 pm an UFO was seen and captured on a video camera by a student Jason Mendez Cordova, from Lima who was visiting El Ahorcado which is 115 km from the capital city. Apparently daily sightings of strange vehicles are seen. Local residents of the city of Huaral claim to having seen strange craft on a daily basis in the skies both early in the morning and at dusk. Two farmers claim to have seen an enormous craft in the skies over Huaral and it appeared to follow them as they walked. They said it had the shape of a circle or ball. According to another farmer, he left his home on May 2nd to round up his animals and as he walked beside a river, he noticed a cylindrical object which seemed to be following him. Another resident claimed that at around 6 pm. he saw a craft that flashed intermittent lights in the sky, hiding among the rocky mountains and then vanishing at height speed.

UFO's Seen Over Melbourne - Dozen of orange lights have been seen hovering over Ferntree Gully forming strange and intricate patterns. Tim Webster photographed the lights on his phone-camera when they appeared at 10.30 pm. hovering over the Gully. He phoned his friends and one of them managed to take a video of them. The lights were visible for 10 minutes before flying off in different directions and vanishing. The local pizza shop manager, Ned Bulic also took photo's of the objects and said "They were definitely alien UFO's, nothing else could have moved like that." Police contacted the Melbourne Airport after reports came in from Hallam to Boronia, but nothing was detected on radar.