Best view yet of Apollo landing site

A NASA spaceprobe has sent back the clearest photo yet of an Apollo landing site - including even the US flag. It clearly shows the descent stage of Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger, nearly 37 years after it touched down in December 1972 in the Taurus Littrow valley. The new LRO image. Click it to enlarge For the first time even its legs are visible, thanks to the detail possible with the orbiting digital camera. Tracks can be seen from the astronauts' runabout - the Lunar Roving Vehicle - because there is no atmosphere to weather them. (There is a photo of one of an LRV here). Experiments and antennae placed by spacemen Jack Schmitt and Gene Cernan can be picked out plus the place where the vehicle was abandoned - parked to record the astronauts blasting off back to Earth from the final Apollo mission to the Moon. Amazingly, even the American flag, the Stars and Stripes is visible in the image, which NASA must hope will provide the clearest proof to conspiracy theorists that the Apollo programme was not faked. The new picture was possible because the robotic probe, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, has moved into its new lower mapping orbit just 30 miles (50 km) above the Moon's surface. The 13 ft (4-metre) wide lunar module is just eight pixels across on the picture. See NASA's hi-res photo here, annotated with names of experiments or other features. Newly enhanced video of the first Moon landing, by Apollo 11, was released earlier this year. • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Hole in the Moon could give shelter

Space scientists have discovered an odd hole in the Moon. They believe the deep pit - the first ever found - leads to a huge underground tunnel, called a lava tube. The hole, which is about 70 yards wide, lies in a volcanic area on the Moon's near side called Marius Hills. It was spotted as a dark dot as researchers scoured photos taken by Japan's Kaguya probe before it ended its mission by crashing in June. The hole appears to be at least 90 yards deep and the rock pattern suggests that it is connected to a tunnel 400 yards wide. Astronomers believe underground tunnels may be common the on Moon, caused by molten lava that flowed billions of years ago. But this is the first found with an entrance. Experts say it could be adapted to shelter future lunar colonists from deadly radiation from the Sun and space. The discovery came as Japanese and German scientists searched for signs of "skylights" or entrances to the underground tunnels. "This is the first time that anybody's actually identified a skylight in a possible lava tube" on the Moon, Carolyn van der Bogert of the University of Münster, in Germany, told New Scientist online. Scientists are now waiting for NASA's latest Moon probe, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, to take detailed close-up pictures of the hole to tell them more about it. Picture: A photo from Kaguya showing the strange hole. (Credit: ISAS, JAXA, Junichi Haruyama et al.) • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Here's what that UFO was really

Most UFOs reported have perfectly rational explanations, a leading UK astronomy publication says this week. Ten top cases of mistaken identity are reported in the latest issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine in an article by Vincent Whiteman. In no particular order, they are: 1. Chinese lanterns. Paper lanterns bought for celebrations can float up to a mile high. They make no sound, have an orange glow and can fly in formation due to being tied together with string. 2. A bright meteor. A sudden fireball swiftly crossing the sky before vanishing can spook anxious witnesses into thinking they're seeing fast-moving aliens. 3. The Moon. In 2007, a woman phoned police in Wales to report a 'bright stationary object' that had been floating in the air for 30 minutes. An officer confirmed it was the Moon. 4. An odd-shaped cloud. Lenticular clouds have a classic flying-saucer shape. They form over mountains and can remain stationary for hours. 5. Lens flare. Light bouncing off the glass elements of a camera lens can look like solid objects on photos and can be mistaken for spacecraft. 6. Top secret aircraft. Spyplanes developed by the military, such as the Stealth bomber, were reported as UFOs before their existence was officially revealed. 7. A planet. Venus is so bright in the evening or morning sky that it is frequently mistaken for a hovering UFO. Jupiter is also currently bright, low in the evening sky, puzzling many onlookers. 8. The International Space Station. Man's orbiting outpost is now bigger than Wembley's football pitch and looks brilliant. It is silent as it crosses the sky, confusing those used to hearing aircraft engines. 9. An Iridium flare. A constellation of 66 communications satellites, usually invisible, will suddenly flare brightly when their highly reflective antennae are turned towards the earth. 10. Military satellites. Top secret satellites launched in the 1970s to track Russian ships orbit in groupe of three and can look like a group of flying saucers flying silently in formation across the night sky. Chris Bramley, of BBC Sky at Night Magazine, said: "The truth really is out there - but it is probably not down to aliens!" You can read a full version of "So you thought you saw a UFO?", complete with pictures, in the November issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine, which is on sale now, price £4.25 in the UK. For more information, visit www.skyatnightmagazine.com. Picture: The International Space Station leaves trails in this time-exposure as it passes silently across the night sky. (Credit: Paul Sutherland). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Life's mix found on alien world

NASA scientists have found the basic ingredients for life in a second giant planet outside our own solar system. The alien world is a so-called "hot Jupiter" made mainly of gas and so could not harbour life as we know it. But the discovery of the right chemistry boosts chances that life will exist on smaller rocky worlds around the stars. The planet, orbiting a star called HD 209458 in the constellation of Pegasus, is only the second where the right set of ingredients for life has been detected. The news comes just a day after European astronomers revealed they have spotted another 32 planets, bringing the total known to over 400. Researcher Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said: "It's the second planet outside our solar system in which water, methane and carbon dioxide have been found, which are potentially important for biological processes in habitable planets. "Detecting organic compounds in two exoplanets now raises the possibility that it will become commonplace to find planets with molecules that may be tied to life." He added: "This demonstrates that we can detect the molecules that matter for life processes." Swain and his team mde observations with two space telescopes, Hubble and Spitzer, to study HD 209458b, a hot, gaseous giant planet bigger than Jupiter that orbits a sun-like star about 150 light years away. The new finding follows their breakthrough discovery in December 2008 of carbon dioxide around another hot, Jupiter-size planet, HD 189733b. Earlier Hubble and Spitzer observations of that planet had also revealed water vapour and methane. The detections were made through spectroscopy, which splits light into its components to reveal the distinctive spectral signatures of different chemicals. Picture: An artist imagines how the giant planet HD 209458b would look. (Credit:  JPL/NASA). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

NASA's new rocket is on launchpad

NASA has rolled out the brand new rocket that will replace the shuttle and launch men into space. The towering Ares I-X, nicknamed the Stick, is due to make its first £270 million, unmanned test flight next Tuesday, 27 October. It will blast off from pad 39B - one of the two launch pads used by the shuttles - at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. Standing 310 ft tall, the Ares rocket is nearly twice the height of the shuttle when attached to its fuel tanks. It took nearly eight hours for NASA's giant crawler to carry the vertical rocket the 4.2 miles to the launch pad at a top speed of less than 1 mph. At 800 tons, it weighs almost twice as much as a fully-loaded Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Astronauts in their Orion capsule will sit on top of the fuel tanks, eliminating the danger of insulation debris hitting the craft. That happened with the Shuttle several times and caused the Columbia disaster in 2003. Ares has been in development since George W Bush set America on the road back to the moon and then on to Mars. It is part of NASA's Constellation programme. But even as the rocket was preparing for launch, the White House was considering a review panel's proposal to scrap it and go for something cheaper. President Obama has been told that NASA does not have the funds to reach the moon and should develop a cheaper launcher. The Shuttle was due to be retired next year but flights are likely to be extended while a decision is made on the Constellation programme. Otherwise NASA will be left in the embarrassing position of relying on Russia to launch its astronauts in their Soyuz rockets. Picture: The Ares I-X on its journey from the giant Vehicle Assembly Building to the launchpad. (Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Look out for Halley's Comet debris

Amateur astronomers are being promised a celestial treat tonight when the Earth ploughs through a stream of dust left by Halley's Comet. A spectacular display of natural fireworks, called the Orionid meteor shower, will produces many bright shooting stars easy to spot with the naked eye. Earth crosses the meteors' orbit every October. But this year's shower - which is already active and will continue to produce some meteors for a few days after the maximum night of 20/21 October - could be particularly good for two reasons. First, it is just three days after new moon, meaning there will be no bright moonlight to drown out the meteors. But research by Japanese meteor scientists Mikiya Sato and Jun-ichi Watanabe shows that numbers will be higher too because the Earth will run into filaments of meteoroid particles ejected by the comet in 1400 BC and 11 BC. These regions are expected to be rich in bright meteors and a single observer may see up to 30 an hour. The meteors are called the Orionids because they appear to stream into the atmosphere from a point near the bright star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion the hunter. But they can flash into view anywhere in the sky. Robin Scagell, of the UK's Society for Popular Astronomy, said yesterday: "The Orionids are one of the strongest meteor displays of the year and will be best seen later in the night as Orion rises higher in the sky. "You don't need any special equipment to see them. Just wrap up warm and sit in a deckchair away from bright lights and wait!" • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Planet hunt nets 32 new worlds

An amazing haul of 32 new planets was revealed today. The alien worlds orbiting other stars were all discovered by a planet-hunting instrument at the European Southern Observatory 2,400 metres above sea level in Chile's Atacama desert. The device is fitted to a telescope with a giant "eye" - a mirror 3.6 metres wide (11.8 ft) - to collect light from distant suns. Its long list of new finds was announced at a conference of planet-seeking astronomers at Porto, Portugal, and simultaneously at another astronomical gathering in Madrid. The detector, called the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), works by watching tiny changes in the spectrum of starlight. These indicate that the star is wobbling as one or more exoplanets that we cannot see directly orbit around it. The latest discoveries make HARPS the clear leader in planet-hunting. In five years of operation, it has now spotted more than 75 of the 400 or so exoplanets found in alien solar systems. It has been particularly successful in finding smaller planets only a few times more massive than the Earth, rather than just giant gas worlds called "hot Jupiters". In fact 24 of the 28 planets known which are less than 20 times the size of Earth have been found with HARPS. Most of these smaller planets have been found in star systems that have a number of planets with up to five per star. Stéphane Udry, of Geneva Observatory, announced the latest discoveries. He said: "HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds. We have now completed our initial five-year programme, which has succeeded well beyond our expectations." HARPS' success is being challenged by other hunts using NASA's Kepler space telescope and automatic camera surveys on the ground, such as Pan-STARRS and SuperWASP, that watch for dips in starlight, or transits, as planets pass in front of them. Picture: One of the new planets detected is about six times as massive as the Earth and orbits a star called Gliese 667 C, which belongs to a triple system.Two of the stars can be seen in this artist's impression. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Twisted beauty when whirls collide

This dramatic image from the Hubble space telescope shows how our own galaxy might look if it were involved in a cosmic collision with a similar city of stars. Two spiral galaxies that once resembled the Milky Way are twisted and distorted by tidal forces as they crash together. The result looks like a single, bizarrely shaped galaxy with the hearts of each galaxy almost completely merged and long graceful tails with new stars being born. Such is the vast distance between stars that the billions of other suns in each galaxy are likely to be sailing past each other with few if any actual impacts taking place. The double-galaxy, lying about 250 million light-years away in Cancer, the Crab, is labelled NGC 2623 or Arp 243. Astronomers' studies show that massive quantities of gas are pulled from each galaxy towards the centre of the other as they come together. And with their merger almost complete, long tidal tails of young stars formed in the mix of gas and dust stretch out to reveal the collision has taken place. Around 100 bright star clusters have been found in the prominent lower tail alone. The collision has also stirred into action a supermassive black hole at the centre of one of the galaxies. As it swallows in a swirling disk of matter, the energy heats the disk up. The result is that the galaxy's nucleus shines brilliantly across a range of wavelengths in the spectrum - it is so bright in the infrared that it is included in a special group of very luminous infrared galaxies by professional scientists. This remarkable view was produced from images taken in 2007, before Hubble's recent upgrade, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys. It was taken by a team led by US astronomer Aaron S. Evans. Picture: Hubble's dramatic view of the galaxy merger. Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Evans (Stony Brook University, New York & National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, USA). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

No lunar fireworks as craft crash

NASA slammed two spacecraft into the Moon today in a bid to find water - but any lunar fireworks hoped for turned out to be a damp squib. Astronomers around the world trained telescopes on the Moon to watch for bright flashes and clouds of debris to mark the impacts and saw... nothing. The space agency confirmed that a two-ton Centaur rocket crashed first at 12.31pm UK time followed four minutes later by its shepherding spacecraft, called LCROSS - the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite. Instruments aboard the LCROSS probe confirmed that the rocket had blown a fresh hole in a 60-mile-wide crater called Cabeus near the lunar south pole. But its TV camera revealed NO bright flash and NO sign of any plume of dust - a huge disappointment to thousands of stargazers who gathered for impact parties across the USA. LCROSS's own crash, at 5,600mph, was a third as powerful as that of the rocket it was following, and there was no visible sign of that either from telescopes on Earth. One wag asked whether this meant NASA had faked the Moon bombings as well as the Apollo landings. But NASA had warned that the climax of the $79 million mission was likely only to be visible through large telescopes. NASA scientists will now analyse data from LCROSS and professional observatories to look for the signature of water in the clouds of impact dust that were expected to blow up to 30 miles high. They hope to find large reservoirs of ice which astronauts could use to drink and make fuel for future exploration of the solar system. Scentists at mission control at NASA's Ames Research Centre in California were jubilant when their bombing mission happened as planned. And at a press conference, the team said LCROSS's infrared camera had imaged the Centaur impact as a "little white speck." Scientist Anthony Colaprete said: "We actually saw a crater, we measured its temperature." But there was no disguising the disappointment of stargazers who failed to witness the spectacle they had, perhaps unrealistically, been hoping for. Picture: A rather fanciful impression of the Centaur crash being watched by LCROSS. (NASA). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Countdown to bombing raid on Moon

NASA is set to make its spectacular bombing raid on the Moon in a new bid to look for precious water. Two space missiles will blast holes in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet tomorrow, Friday 9 October. Hubble in space plus professional observatories around the world will watch as the twin impacts occur shortly after 11.30 UT (7.30am EDT) - check the NASA countdown clock here. First a two-ton Centaur rocket stage will crash at 5,600mph into a 60-mile wide crater called Cabeus near the lunar south pole at 1.31 UT (7.31am EDT). It will blast its own small crater creating a bright flash and a plume of debris 30 miles high. Four minutes later, the mission's shepherding spacecraft, called LCROSS, will fly through the dust cloud to analyse it before colliding with the Moon too, creating a second plume. Though the Moon is drier than any desert, space scientists believe ice dumped by comets could be trapped in permanently shadowed craters that have not seen sunlight for billions of years. If so they could provide vital water supplies for a manned moonbase, both to drink and be turned into fuel. NASA say the Centaur impact will produce a crater about 20 yards wide and as deep as a swimming pool. It will have less effect on the Moon than a mosquito hitting a jumbo jet. NASA will broadcast live coverage of the impacts, including images from space and the University of Hawaii's 88-inch telescope on Mauna Kea. The space agency is also organising impact parties. And hundreds of stargazers' backyard telescopes across the world will be watching the waning gibbous Moon for the impact blasts. They will not be visible from the UK or Europe unfortunately as it will be daylight plus the Moon will be close to or below the horizon. The LCROSS mission - it stands for Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite - launched in June together with another spacecraft, called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The orbiter is still circling the Moon searching for potential landing sites for astronauts when they return there in the next decade. Last month, NASA sensationally announced that three moon probes had confirmed that water is spread widely across the Moon. Yesterday they revealed that lunar colonists should be possible to extract it by simply adapting a microwave oven to produce and collect water vapour. Ed Ethridge of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre said: "No magic, just microwaves. We're showing how microwaves can extract water from moondust by heating it from the inside out. "We believe we can use microwave heating to cause the water ice in a lunar permafrost layer to turn into water vapour. This can be collected and then condensed into liquid water. Best of all, microwave extraction can be done on the spot. And it requires no excavation - no heavy equipment for drilling into the hard-frozen lunar surface." Top picture: An artist's impression of the Centaur rocket stage and LCROSS heading for impact with the Moon. (NASA). Bottom: A photograph showing the location of the crater Cabeus by UK amateur Jamie Cooper. • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Asteroid impact danger diminishes

Fears of Armageddon receded further today after NASA scientists refined calculations of the path of a threatening asteroid. A giant space rock called Apophis is due to make two close approaches to Earth within the next 30 years. The first, on Friday the 13th of April,  2029, is virtually certain to miss us though it will come closer than TV and other geostationary satellites, at a distance of only 18,300 miles. But uncertainty over the effect of that close encounter meant that astronomers could not rule out the chance of an impact seven years later in 2036. There were some imaginative ideas to avoid this happening. Now, however, the chance of a catastrophic collision on 13 April of that year have dropped from one-in-45,000 to an even more reassuring one-in-250,000. Apophis is 300 yards wide and weighs 25 million tons. It was only discovered in December 2004. If it struck, it would hit Earth with a force equivalent to 880 megatons - around 65,500 times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima - which is why scientists have taken it so seriously. The new calculations were carried out by specialists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. They are due to present their latest findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico tomorrow. They based their figures on photographs of Apophis made by astronomers using telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, together with other data from Kitt Peak, Arizona, and Arecibo, Puerto Pico. Hundreds of images were analysed to refine the asteroid's position and produce a path into the late part of the century. Hawaii asteroid hunter Dr David Tholen helped analyse the images. He said: "Our new orbit solution shows that Apophis will miss Earth’s surface in 2036 by a scant 20,270 miles, give or take 125 miles. That’s slightly closer to Earth than most of our communications and weather satellites." As well as showing the reduced likelihood of an impact in 2036, the analysis revealed that Apophis will make another close encounter in 2068, although once more it is unlikely to present a danger. • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Saturn's biggest ring is out of hiding

Saturn is famous for the spectacular collection of rings that encircle it. But the biggest has gone completely unnoticed - until now. That is because the band of cool dust and ice particles is too faint to be seen in normal light. It only revealed its presence when the infrared eye of NASA's Spitzer space telescope was turned on the planet. Unlike the other thin but bright rings that may be seen in the smallest of telescopes, the new ring is vast - so big, in fact, that you could fit a billion Earths inside it. It is 20 times thicker than gas giant Saturn is wide. And the new band's own width is around 12 million km (7.4 million miles). It is also tilted at and angle of 27° to the other rings and lies far beyond them - the inner edge only begins about 6 million km (3.7 million miles) from the planet. Astronomer Anne Verbiscer, of the University of Virginia, said: "This is one supersized ring. If you could see the ring, it would span the width of two full moons' worth of sky, one on either side of Saturn." One of Saturn's most distant moons, 230km-wide Phoebe, orbits the planet within the new ring. Its impacts with asteroids are thought to have supplied the dust that formed it. The new ring may also solve a long-standing mystery concerning another of Saturn's moons, Iapetus. The 1,500km-wide satellite has one side much darker than the other, making it vary in brightness by two magnitudes. Scientists say that this dark side, named Cassini Regio after the moon's 17th-century discoverer Giovanni Cassini, is caused by a stream of dust from the new ring hitting it like flies slamming into a car's windscreen. Its discovery is revealed this week in the journal Nature. A co-discoverer of the new ring, Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, said: "Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus. This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship." A spaceprobe, also named after Cassini, is currently orbiting Saturn and returning a host of great findings about the planet and its many moons and rings. The ring discovery is just the latest triumph for the Spitzer space telescope which has also detected a cosmic collision, newly forming solar systems and hints that Star Trek Spock's planet Vulcan could really exist. Pictures: The images show an impression of the enormous new ring and a labelled explanation of its layout. (NASA). • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Invisible clouds burst with new stars

These swirling clouds show part of our own galaxy as we can never see it directly with our eyes - and astronomers are surprised by the intense activity it reveals. The view, from Europe's new Herschel space telescope, picks out a reservoir of cold gas in the constellation of Crux, the Southern Cross, that is bursting with newly-forming stars. The image reveals material as it would appear if our eyes were tuned into infrared wavelengths rather than visible light. It was produced by combining scans from two cameras aboard Herschel, the biggest telescope in space, which was launched in May. The instruments - the Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver (SPIRE), and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) - were aimed at an area in the plane of the Milky Way about 60° from its centre. It covers around 16 times the area of the Full Moon as seen in the sky. They discovered a region in complete turmoil. Herschel peered through the glow of the dust to spot a structure of long filaments of gas with stars forming on them like pearls on string. The new pictures were made on 3 September during the first trial run with the two instruments working together. Herschel will go on to survey large areas of our galaxy. SPIRE Principal Investigator is Professor Matt Griffin, of Cardiff University. He said: "We had high hopes for this kind of observation with Herschel, using the combined power of the two cameras to see the galaxy as never before. "It's great to see that the observations work so well from a technical point of view, and that the scientific results are so spectacular. It appears that star formation in the galaxy is a very turbulent process." • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com

Shields down! Cosmic rays at a high

Earth is being bombarded by powerful cosmic rays from deep in the galaxy because the Sun's natural shields are down, NASA reports. The level of space radiation is nearly a fifth higher this year than at any time since the dawn of the space age 50 years ago. The tiny, energetic, sub-atomic  particles – smaller than atoms but flying at close to the speed of light – can pass completely through solid objects. They are released by massive explosions such as exploding stars called supernovae. Usually the solar wind – a stream of energy from the sun – together with its magnetic field act like a bubble called the heliosphere around the solar system to protect planets from much of the bombardment. But activity on the sun is at its weakest for around a century, weakening this protective shield. The Earth has its own natural shield too – our own magnetic field helps deflect radiation from space and experts insist that there is no danger from the rise in cosmic rays. But if they remain at a high level, it would be a real hazard for astronauts embarking on a mission to Mars. Space engineers would need to provide plenty of physical shielding on their spacecraft to protect them from potentially deadly doses of radiation. The soaring numbers of cosmic rays were detected by instruments aboard NASA 's unmanned Advanced Composition Explorer spacecraft from a position nearly a million miles away between Earth and the sun. Richard Mewaldt, of the Californian Institute of Technology, says the stage is set for "a perfect storm of cosmic rays." He added: "In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years. The increase is significant, and it could mean we need to re-think how much radiation shielding astronauts take with them on deep-space missions." Read NASA's report here. Picture: A diagram illustrating how the heliophere acts like a protective bubble around the solar system. (Credit: NASA).  • Discover space for yourself and do fun science with a telescope. Here is Skymania's advice on how to choose a telescope. We also have a guide to the different types of telescope available. ©PAUL SUTHERLAND, Skymania.com