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Today, Comet 96P/Machholz is at perihelion, its closest approach to the sun. At 0.128 au , which is @ 11,991,299 miles away. The same distance back in Jan 2002.

This video discuss the possible reaction with Comet Leonard and Venus tonight, (12/17) and 12/18... The first 12 minutes is where the key information is.

While the plot of the hit Hollywood film "Gravity" is fictional, the United States must bolster efforts to address the alarming amount of space junk surrounding Earth, or risk potentially catastrophic collisions in orbit, lawmakers said today (May 9). Such real-life accidents could resemble the horrifying destruction depicted in the movie, they said.

Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans. The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven...

New Comet(Lovejoy): On March 15th, Terry Lovejoy of Thomlands, Australia discovered a new comet (C/2007 E2) in the southern constellation Indus. Remarkably, to make the find he used not a telescope but just a camera- a Canon 350D. At Lovejoy's request John Frummund of Gisborme, New Zealand confirmed the comet with this photo taken through a 0.41-m reflector. The new comet is green, 9th-magnitude, and located approximately at right ascension 20h 42m 55s, declination -50o 43' 14" (ref: International Astronomical union Circular 8819). A detailed ephemeris is not yet available, so it is impossible to say how bright Comet Lovejoy...

Last week, for probably the first time in my life, I got excited by the prospect of U.S. government bureaucracy. The Federal Aviation Administration took a step toward developing rules for space tourism, issuing more than 120 pages of proposed guidelines for “space flight participants.” The initial set of regulations is set to go into effect in June, and to me it’s a sort of tipping point, cementing the reality that in just a few years any one of us may be able to blast off into the cosmos the same way we can fly Jet Blue to Vegas for...

The United States is doing "pretty well" in the war on terror, but more needs to be done and more progress is necessary to transform American military capabilities, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers said Feb. 18. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spoke at a "Space at the Crossroads" conference co-sponsored by the Space Foundation and Space News. The audience came mostly from industry, and Myers seemed to relish the chance to speak on military transformation and what it means for civilian partners. But first, he gave a report on progress in the war on terror. In...

Two American space tourists are being trained in Russia for express lane rides up to the International Space Station. A space tourism company has sold seats in Soyuz spacecraft slated to fly in 2004 and 2005, and has also acquired from Russian space officials two more slots for future paying passengers. "We have contracted for two more seats with the Russian Space Agency, beyond the two that we have been selling," Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures told SPACE.com

C-SPAN's Morning Journal. Program just started and will be on for 45 minutes.