Scientists have discovered a planet that according to current understanding of orbital dynamics, should not exist. The planet is known as a "hot Jupiter", a giant gaseous planet orbiting the star Wasp-18 about 330 light years away from Earth. It is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit in less than an Earth day.

A planet that close, however, should be consumed by its parent star in less than 1 million years. Researchers at Keele University in England believe the star Wasp-18 to be 1 billion years old. Since stars and the planets around them are tought to form at the same time, the planet Wasp-18b should have been reduced to nothing but ashes ages ago.

Coel Hellier, an astrophysicist at Keele University, said:

"This planet should spiral inwards on such a short time scale that the likelihood of seeing it is very low.

Douglas Hamilton, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, said:

A popular destination for local school trips and youth groups, as well as those interested in space exploration, the NASA Glenn Research Center's visitors center will be closing down this fall. It will not be closing for renovations, but rather, for good. NASA plans to offer the exhibits to the Great Lakes Science Center in downtown Cleveland.

NASA Glenn Director Woodrow Whitlow Jr. said that the reasons for the closure include a tight budget, as well as the desire to give the facility a higher profile.

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin famously walked on the moon on July 20, 1969. The NASA Glenn Research Center will celebrate the 40th anniversary of this historic moon landing on July 18.

Amongst the days activities is an 11am presentation about the first steps on the moon, as well as the overall impact of the Apollo program. Beginning at 1pm, visitors will be able to learn about the next generation of launch vehicles - the Ares rockets.

Tours of the NASA Glenn Research Center will also be available from 10:30am until 2pm. For further information, please visit http://visit.grc.nasa.gov, or call 216-433-2000.

For the second day in a row, NASA has been forced to delay the scheduled landing of the space shuttle Atlantic. Thunderstorms have prevented the shuttle from returning to its home base on Saturday, keeping the astronauts circling Earth after a successful repair job at the Hubble Space Telescope.

Offshore storms were what prompted the space agency to skip both morning landing attempts at the Kennedy Space Center. Sunday's forecast isn't looking too good either, but NASA is still opting to wait out the bad weather instead of taking a detour to California.

The Atlantis crew are hoping to soon wrap up their Hubble repair mission, which started on May 11. It was NASA's last visit to the now 19-year-old space observatory, and the $1 billion overhaul and repairs are expected to keep the telescope working for a good five to ten years.

The shuttle's backup landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California, is expected to have good weather all weekend. However, NASA is holding off on using the backup landing site as it takes quite a bit of time and money - about $2 million - to have a shuttle ferried across the country.

NASA Glenn Research Center's Visitor Center will pay tribute to those who have lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration on Thursday. Amongst those to be honored are the crews of Apollo, Challenger, and Columbia, as well as all other members of the NASA family that have died in the pursuit of knowledge.

A minute of silence of be observed at 12:59pm EST on Thursday January 29, 2009. Immediately following the moment of silence will be a presentation entitled "Space Heroes" given by Jeff Woytach of Glenn's Speakers Bureau. The presentation will be repeated again on Saturday, Feburary 7, 2009 at 1:30pm. There is also the astronaut memorial wall in the Visitor Center, which is available to view. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

The Visitor Center is open Monday-Friday 9am to 4pm, Saturday 10am to 3pm, and Sunday 1pm to 5pm, and is located at 21000 Brookpark Road. Adult visitors are required to present government issued photo ID. Access to the Visitor Center is limited to US citizens.

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has not only discovered evidence of past water at its landing site on Mars, but it has also now spotted falling snow for the first time.

Soil experiments at the landing site reveal the presence of two minerals - calcium carbonate and sheet silicate - that are known to be formed in liquid water. However they aren't yet sure how this happened.

A laser onboard the Phoenix also detected snow falling from clouds more than two miles above its location in the northern arctic plains. The snow disappeared before it reached the ground.

Phoenix landed in the arctic plains on Mars in May, where it is on a three month mission to study whether the Martian environment could be friendly to microbial life. Thus far, its biggest discovery has been confirming the presence of ice on the planet. The lander also discovered that the soil is slightly alkaline, and contained important nutrients and minerals.

Today Mars is cold and dry, with no signs of water on the surface, however researchers believe that the planet was once warmer and wetter.

Mars today is frigid and dry with no sign of water on the surface, but researchers believe the planet once was warmer and wetter.

Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii believe that they have captured the first image of an alien planet in orbit around a star that is similar to our Sun.

The planet in the image is 500-light years from earth and is eight times bigger than Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. The planet also lies more than ten times further from its star than the Sun does from Neptune, which is puzzling to the scientists.

The likelihood of a chance alignment between the planet and the star, which is younger than our Sun, is thought to be small. Nevertheless, it may take up to two years for the astronomers to verify that they are moving through space together.

The star, called 1RXS J160929.1-210524, is much younger than our Sun, but is similar in mass.

In a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters, David Lefrenicre, a University of Toronto scientists, said: "This is the first time we have directly seen a planetary mass object in a likely orbit around a star like our Sun. If we confirm that this object is indeed gravitationally tied to the star, it will be a major step."

The only planet-like bodies that have been observed outside of our solar system are either free-floating in space or orbit brown dwarfs.

Due to questionable weather conditions yesterday, US Navy officials were not sure if their plan to shoot down a rogue US spy satellite would be able to be carried out on Wednesday. But the weather conditions cleared up well enough for the mission to proceed.

The USS Lake Erie in the Pacific launched a Raytheon Co. heat-seeking missile at the 5,000-pound satellite. President Bush had approved the mission last week, citing the potential danger the satellite and its 1,000-pounds of toxic fuel could cause if it crashed to earth.

The Navy shot two missiles up at the satellite, which were positioned so that only small remnants of the satellite would fall back to earth in the Pacific Ocean. According to a senior US defense official, everything went as planned.

Of course we have some awesome video footage of the event, which you can check out here:

Weather conditions may force the US Navy to halt plans to launch a heat-seeking missile on a mission to shoot down a rogue US spy satellite, said the Pentagon on Wednesday. High seas in the north Pacific, and other factors are being considered as the Navy decides whether to proceeds with the mission or put it off for another day.

But according to an official at the Pentagon, it is assumed that the mission would go forth Wednesday evening, unless weather conditions are determined to be unfavorable. Early on Wednesday they were facing bad weather and rough seas, which could be a problem for the USS Lake Erie, a cruiser armed with two SM-3 missiles. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will get the final call on whether to go forth.

The Pentagon had also been waiting for the return of the space shuttle Atlantis to the Earth, before launching the missile. Atlantis landed at 9:07am EST, so that is no longer a factor holding up the mission.

The satellite is expected to have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere by February 29, which gives them a short window of opportunity to shoot it down. Once the satellite enters the atmosphere, it would be infeasible to attempt to hit it with the Navy missile.

On the 40th anniversary of the day "Across the Universe" was recorded by The Beatles, Dr. Barry Geldzahler of NASA's Deep Space Network will trasmit the song into outer space. Geldzahler will trasmit the song 431 light years away, in an attempt to find life on other planets.

Travelling at 186,000 miles per second, it will take centuries for "Across the Universe" to reach its destination, the North Star.

NASA is also requesting that Beatles fans around the globe play the song at the exact same time they press the "transmit" button, at 2pm GMT (7pm EST) on Monday, February 4. They hope that this additional noise "clutter" might also reach intelligent alien life.

NASA has broadcast Beatles' tunes into space before, but on low-power transmissions to the International Space Station. This will mark the first time that any song has been transmitted into deep space.

Geldzahler said, "I've been a Beatles fan for 45 years - as long as the DSN has been around. What a joy this is, especially considering that Across the Universe is my personal favourite Beatles song."

"Across the Universe" was written in 1967, mainly by John Lennon with some minor contributions by Paul McCartney.