The very earliest moments of the Big Bang are still the focus of intense research, and the final word is not yet in. This Telegraph article outlines the current model, and shows how odd and fascinating the subject is.read more | digg story

To mark Earth Day, space.com show these two images of the Earth. One taken in 1960, the other in 1996, they illustrate nicely how things have changed in terms of both our technology and our perception of space.read more | digg story

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 26th of April 2008:

• 1 Swedish City Gears Up For Virgin Galactic Spaceport
• 2 New Plan For Identifying Watery “Earth-like” Planets Emerges
• 3 Galaxies go wild watch a video of them collide - Amazing!
• 4 NASA - Crew Earth…

If, like me, you’ve been lucky enough to have flown with an airline that stocks the Sky Mall catalogue then you’ll know it’s brilliant. This is a magazine specially designed for people who have been sitting on an aeroplane for hours and have nothing to do. Why else would you buy…

China’s Fengyun 1C satellite, which was destroyed intentionally by China last year, still presents a risk to satellites and other orbiting bodies. I have created a Google Earth file which will let you track the debris in real-time.

I have updated and fixed the files for tracking satellites and the ISS on Google Earth. You are no longer offered driving directions to the satellites either.

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 19th of April 2008:

• 1 Fifty Years of American Space Exploration [Slideshow]
• 2 Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Running Chicken Nebula
• 3 America in Space: NASA”s First Fifty Years
• 4 Mars radar opens up a planet’s third dimension
• 5 Great…

The fiftieth Carnival of Space is up on KySat. Visit it now for much astronomy bloggage. Also, who knew Kentucky had a space program?

I had a question via email asking about Comet Holmes. I thought that by answering it on the blog, maybe others would also have some questions answered. so, thanks to Marycie for her question.

Trailers seem to be the ‘in thing’ these days. There is a (very long) trailer for the BLAST experiment’s movie somewhere out on the internet. Today, this very nice trailer popped up in my Twitter feed from Stuart at Astronomy Blog. It’s for the International Year of Astronomy, also known…

Many animals have been put into space. Here I list my favourite space critters, including the Orbiting Frogs for which this very blog is named.

The Japanese Moon-mapping craft, Selene, has been busy. A preliminary release of what will be the best map of the Moon ever created, shows the topology and mineral content of the Moon’s surface.

There is an interesting conversation taking place on Universe Today. You’ll currently find a list of short answers to the question ‘what is the value of space exploration?’ from a series of Astronomy Bloggers.

My favourite quotes so far are “It would be useful to know about the cosmos, rather than…

This short film, ‘Das Rad’ is shown from the point of view of two rocks, watching the world go by them in ultra fast-forward. It is interesting to try to view humanity on such a long time scale.

ESA have released information on the incredible content of the skies above our heads. In their press release they outline what exactly is littering orbital space around the Earth.

The image here shows the view from above the North Pole of all low Earth orbit objects as of January 2008. To…

Two new designs in the Orbiting Frog Shop this week that are worth noting. ‘Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining’ depicts a cloud blocking the Sun whilst a series of Ag symbols cling to its edges. ‘Parallel Universes’ shows the word universe twice, in parallel; perfect for anyone who understands…

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 12th of April 2008:

• 1 Firefox Logo Spied In Deep Space
• 2 The 1.5 Gigayear Technology Gap.
• 3 Space is full of crap
• 4 Brand New NASA Science Website Opens
• 5 APOD: At first, he couldn”t see the Moon

To find…

This is more art than science, but it is very pretty. Stereoscopic 3D images give full colour and allow each nebula to show another dimension of beauty.

Will Gater, who helped us out with the NAM Blog recently, is hosting the 49th Carnival of Space. There are some nice articles in it this week, particularly Out of the Cradle’s post on growing plants on other planets and Riding with Robots Victoria Crater animation.

Dugg from Daily Galaxy: NASA is serious about launching the most difficult mission ever attempted by the human race - putting an astronaut on Mars. The voyage will cover hundreds of millions of miles and take two and half years round trip.

read more | digg story

The much anticipated SCUBA-2 instrument has been installed on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. The question is how did they manage to get one very large and expensive piece of kit inside another? Here are some photos from the JAC website.

Dugg from Universe Today: If a verified message from aliens is ever received, would the public really be told about it? SETI has an international protocol that if an alien signal is ever received, it would be disseminated among the astronomical community and made public.

read more | digg story

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I recently visited Moundville, Alabama. This ancient Creek city was discovered hidden in the woods just over a hundred years ago and presents a possible astronomical mystery. I have come to see it as the Stonehenge of Alabama.

Hosting the carnival this week is Next Big Future. It covers Mars, Red Dwarfs, Astronomy meetings, The Forbidden Planet, Dr Who, aliens that could hide their solar system and more. Why not go and have a gander.

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After a brief abuse of my servers by someone or something, I am just about back up and running. Those of you using the 100 Brightest Satellites on Google Earth may have noticed that it’s stopped working. This will be fixed in the next couple of days.

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 05th of April 2008:

• 1 Planet Mars”s stunning mountain landscape.
• 2 Layers in Aureum Chaos
• 3 The Coolness Of NASA”s Weightlessness Preparedness Training
• 4 South of Orion
• 5 Why are there dozens of dead animals floating in space?

To find…