“Mission objective: To obtain the most complete, near-global, high-resolution database of the earth’s topography.”

Walt Anderson, 46, a US-based venture capitalist who has made a fortune through telecommunications companies told the San Jose Mercury News on Thursday, “Mir, which was about to be thrown away, was a huge opportunity. Yes, it’s old and yes, it has a few problems. Yet any old building has that. You don’t tear down an old building because it has a few heating and air-conditioning problems. You renovate it.” Launch: 11 Feb 2000, 11:30 a.m., CST.

“Stop worrying about the end of the world — the end of the whole galaxy is the real problem. Astronomers have calculated that the Milky Way will be destroyed in a headlong, 300,000mph collision with the giant Andromeda galaxy.”

“No signal was heard from Mars Polar Lander on Mars at the 12:39 PST (20:39 UTC) opportunity … There is a window on Saturday evening, December 4, during which the lander would transmit if it experienced a slightly different safing event. You will recall from the above that the lander would transmit on Friday afternoon if it entered safe mode immediately upon touchdown. If it went into safe mode sometime after touchdown but before its first transmission session began, it would shut itself down and wait until Saturday evening to transmit to Earth. This signal would be expected during a window between 8:30 and 10:45 p.m. Saturday, December 4.”

Cool. Select from the available options to have the simulator create a color image of your favorite planet or satellite.

Science news and live webcasts of the Leonids meteor shower from NASA. Remember, the show’s supposed to peak today.

“SETI@home is a scientific experiment that harnesses the power of hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. There’s a small but captivating possibility that your computer will detect the faint murmur of a civilization beyond Earth.”

“Aim: Science a GoGo aims to reveal developments in science and technology to as wide an audience as possible. Method: Deliver science news in a readable and exciting format that will appeal to a wide audience.”

Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

“Is the universe computable? If so, it may be much cheaper in terms of information requirements to compute all computable universes instead of just ours. I apply basic concepts of Kolmogorov complexity theory to the set of possible universes, and chat about perceived and true randomness, life, generalization, and learning in a given universe.”

“Each month, we will bring you the best of the current issue — augmented to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the WWW. You will find many of your favorite magazine features here, as well as at least two major articles in their entirety, with links that let you connect directly to the researchers and their work.”

“The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS) is a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to helping people enrich their lives by following their passion to take part in scientific adventures of all of all kinds. SAS is a unique collaboration between world-class professionals and ‘amateur’ scientists. SAS is totally dedicated to helping everyday people find the limits of their own genius by developing their scientific skills and removing the roadblocks that today make it nearly impossible for people without Ph.D. degrees to do research.”

Ever wanted to know how to go to the bathroom in space? What music astronauts listen to in the shuttle? Do astronauts have to take an oath? All these questions and more are answered by actual astronauts including Buzz Aldrin and John Glenn. Submit your own questions or read answers to archived questions.

Want $10 million? Of course you do. And it’s never been easier to get it! All you have to do is construct a reuseable space ship capable of transporting three people 100km above Earth. I mean, come on! You took physics in high school, right?

These are the first pictures from an extraordinary experiment which has probed what it is like to look through the eyes of another creature.