Astrosphere for October 11, 2007

Here’s your space photo for the day. It’s an image of galaxy NGC 253, captured by Strongmanmike. This is just one of a series of new images released by Mike.

I briefly mentioned that one of the latest batch of astronauts headed to the International Space Station is Malaysia’s Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. As a Muslim, he’s got the puzzling problem of praying in space.

The SpaceShipTwo is going to cause delays to Virgin Galactic’s plans for space tourism. Personal Spaceflight tries to figure out how much of a delay.

Now this is going to be good. An upcoming episode of Nova will cover the recent Intelligent Design trial. Pharyngula has the trailer.

Why do people think the Earth is tilting wildly away from its normal 23.6-degree inclination? This madness almost debunks itself, but Phil gives it just the push it needs to tilt right over.

When the next generation of planet hunting space observatories get into orbit, they’re going to be analyzing the atmosphere of distant worlds. Pamela describes what they’ll be looking for.

Why bother with Mars when we could colonize Ceres instead?

Space Law Probe remarks on the 40th anniversary of the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.”