A comet discovered earlier this year has now moved close enough to be visible to naked eyes. The comet is named after its discoverer California amateur Don Machholz. He found the comet on On August 27 2004.
Comet Machholz will be at its closest to Earth Jan. 5-6, 2005, when it will be 32 million miles (51 million kilometers) away. People with dark rural skies and a good map should be able to find it on Moon-free nights now into January.
Comet Machholz, officially named c/2004 Q2, is not expected to produce the sort of spectacular display put on by comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 or the periodically stunning Halley’s comet.

(Note; The following article will also appear in my other blog http://ko-science.motime.com)

Since the first Station residents arrived Nov. 2, 2000, humans have lived and worked continuously in International Space Station(ISS).
Science on the Station this year was focused on future exploration, with human life science experiments taking on highest priority.

One such experiment called ADUM (Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity) was used to develop the remote medical diagnostic and telemedicine capabilities that will be needed by crews on distant exploration missions. The objectives of the experiment are-

In the historic speech at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC on 14 January, 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush stated that America’s first goal in space exploration is to return the Space Shuttle to flight safely.
“Our second goal,” Bush went on, “is to develop and test a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014. The Crew Exploration Vehicle(CEV) will be capable of ferrying astronauts and scientists to the Space Station after the shuttle is retired. But the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds. This will be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo Command Module.”

Evidence of an astronomical “smoking gun” has been discovered that supports the idea that cosmic rays from a nearby supernova triggered climate change on Earth. The evidence comes from an unusual form of iron that was blasted through space by a supernova before eventually settling into the rocky crust beneath the Pacific Ocean
Gunther Korschinek, a physicist from the Technical University of Munich in Germany, leads a team who in 1999 found the first deposits of supernova matter on Earth. But it was impossible to date the supernova accurately from those samples, because the material was distributed through several different layers of rock.

NASA announced that coming Space Shuttle launch window would run from May 12 to June 3, 2005. So, what is a ‘launch window’?
A launch window is a particular period of time in which it will be easier to place the spacecraft in the orbit necessary to perform its intended function.
If the spacecraft intends to rendezvous with another spacecraft, a planet, or other point in space, the launch must be carefully timed so that the orbits overlap at some point in the future. If the weather is bad or a malfunction occurs during a launch window, the mission must be postponed until the next launch window appropriate for the flight. If a satellite were launched at the wrong time of the day in perfect weather, the satellite could end up in an orbit that would not pass over any of its intended users.

Gamma-ray bursts, whivh can release as much energy in a few minutes as the Sun emits in its 10-billion-year lifetime, are among the most mysterious phenomena in the universe. They are the most powerful explosions the Universe has seen since the Big Bang. They come from all different directions of the sky and last from a few milliseconds to a few hundred seconds. They occur approximately once per day and are brief, but intense, flashes of gamma radiation. Yet what causes these mighty blasts is still unknown.

Gamma-ray bursts were first observed during the Cold War. In the late 1960s, US military satellites designed to look for clandestine nuclear tests picked up powerful bursts of radiation. Some even thought that they might be the product of Soviet nuclear tests on the Moon or on other planets. In fact, they came from deep space.