Hello and welcome to the 40th Carnival of Space! I thought I’d add a bit of javascript into my page for a change - it’s the HTML equivalent of a mid-life crisis for the Carnival which is now at its 40th gathering. Congrats to the Carnival and all those involved.

Now let’s get on with the material. There are some great oddities this week, including an anecdote regarding Willie Nelson. Batman is involved, too. This is my first time hosting the carnival, so I hope you all like it.

In case your browser won’t accept javascript, here are this weeks posts presented in the usual format.

Astroprof has two stories on Mercury: one on the Caloris Basin and one on weird terrain.

Cumbrian sky has a post about coming home.

APOD is featuring a great montage of Comet Holmes.

Chris Lintott talks about getting your bearings in a post from Hawaii.

Collectspace is featuring a lovely tale of what I’d call a spatial confluence of events.

Wanna know how to make a black hole? Starts with a bang is going to try and tell you. Or you can read about Batman.

Next Big Future has a post on SpaceX and the progess they are making toward Falcon 9.Link

Astropixie writes about some major NASA events that happened during this week over the years.

Visual Astronomy is thinking about Asteroid 2007 TU24. Have we learned anything?

Sorting Out Science is sorting out the history of Explorer 1.

Another Explorer posting from A Babe in the Universe.

A Mars Odyessy discusses a pretty advanced version of a gripper.

From Music of the Spheres, a post about a 4 percent chance…

Hobby Space has two posts both about Bieglow’s recent activities

Got 100 years to spare? Centauri Dreams has something you can do with your time.

Political Action for Space wants your help (if you’re American).

Orbiting Frog (me) has some lovely wallpapers to share with you all.

New Frontiers has some more on SpaceX and space fashion.

Read More about the Carnival and how to get involved at Universe Today.