The Spheres

Absolutely amazing pictures from Europe's Mars Express Orbiter showing glacial, volcanic, and fluvial activity. Nice shots of the Valles Marineris are here, along with a discussion of how the enormous canyon may have been formed.

Three newly discovered moons of Saturn were tentatively given the names Methone, Pallene, and Polydeuces. Three other spotted objects are still awaiting confirmation as moons. Polydeuces is a Trojan moon, a three mile wide rock moving in tandem with a larger moon, Dione. Meanwhile, Cassini snapped the first pictures ever of Saturn's radiation belts, along with a massive storm, several previously unseen rings that may imply more unseen moons, and what NASA is calling the greatest Saturn portrait yet.

NASA scientists announced they suspect that rapid formation of kidney stones during space travel may be caused by nanobacteria, "a novel self-replicating, mineralizing agent" discovered in the '90s and found in kidney stones.

To further comprehend the implications of NB, trials were conducted at NASA to examine NB, in a bioreactor chamber which simulates conditions of space travel. In this microgravity environment, NB was found to multiply five times faster compared to normal gravity on Earth, supporting earlier discoveries that microbes have radically different behavior in weightless environments. NB is also shown to possibly be an infectious risk for crew members living in close quarters.

"The concept that nanobacteria are living organisms is still controversial because the research on their putative nucleic acid has not been completed yet," states lead researcher Neva Ciftcioglu, Ph.D.

Finally, giant, dark tadpoles swim on the surface of the sun.