A few weeks ago celebrity blogger Robert Scoble wrote that "Microsoft researchers make me cry" but couldn’t tell us why.  It turns out its the World Wide telescope.  The telescope really is not a literal telescope - it is a marvel of integrating information from telescopes throughout the world in a way that astronomers can have a much richer view of space that is bordering on a 3D virtual reality.  I saw a demo that had us zip zooming in that feels like Electronic Arts produced it but it has the scientific integrity of Johns Hopkins.   Check it.  The inventor is Curtis Wong who is a researcher with Microsoft.  It will be a downloadable application for the PC.  I look forward to flying to Pluto soon.

UPDATE:  Here is the Talk

The Chinese Government is planning to send an orbiter named Change-1 to the moon by 2012. The Chinese have stated that a primary goal of Change-1 is to make it "better" than the early US and Russian rovers. The average speed of this rover is 100m or 328ft per hour. The rover is nuclear powered, which will allow it to operate for a longer period of time, and use more energy than conventional battery based systems. American rovers have traditionally run on lithium-ion batteries for safety and enviormental reasons. Source: Gadget Lab
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This is one of the most bizarre weather patterns ever seen, the six-sided feature is circling the north pole of Saturn. Planets that have an atmosphere usually have a coil of clouds at the poles, but this cloud formation appears to be in the shape of a hexagon. The bizarre part is that the hexagon has smooth edges and the sides are the same length. NASA has seen this before with the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, and now they are witnessing it again with Cassini. Scientists say it is a long-lasting oddity. The hexagon is just about 15,000 miles across, which means about four Earth’s could fit in inside it. Thermal imagery from Cassini enables scientests to see that the hexagon goes down into the clouds about 60 miles. Saturn also had a one-eyed storm in November 2006 at the southern end of the planet. Source: Space
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With the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery imminent, (currently set to launch tomorrow,  July 4th at 2:37 pm) Space.com has posted a collection of 16 rare space shuttle images taken over the last 20 years.  These images show the beauty and tranquility of space from on-board and outside the space shuttle.  You can launch the gallery here.

The SPHERES micro-satellites program, led by David Miller over at MIT is developing micro-satellites that are capable of formation flying. About the size of a volleyball, the spheres micro-satellites have been launched aboard the International Space Station on May 18th. Aimed at developing better robotic technology for orbital work the SPHERES program has developed technology in these small micro-satellites that uses ultrasound technology to determine the micro-satellites position and are able to maintain a position in space with only 0.4 inches of drift. During the test aboard ISS the satellites will use their thrusters and hunt down special beacons installed throughout the the station. Intresting to say the least this technology can lead to more complex versions of micro-satellites that are able to hunt down and repair other satilites as well as help automated docking systems which in the future could be used for missions to the Moon or Mars.

NASA has released some amazing movies that capture the decent of the Huygens probe onto Titans surface. The movies were made using data that was collected from the probes Imager/Spectral Radiometer instrument during the decent. The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan is a joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The movies and images can be found here