Comets, sometimes called "dirty snowballs," are largely composed of water. An international research team led by Andreas Wolf of the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, recently succeeded in deciphering an important aspect of the way in which water molecules often form in space. As a surprise, the water molecules produced under cold, dilute conditions turned out to be produced as particles as hot as 60,000 Kelvin. In their research the physicists, though, did not use a telescope, but a particle accelerator.

The research appears in the journal Physical Review Letters.

In comets as well as in interstellar clouds, the precursor molecule of water is the positively charged hydronium ion H3O+. This molecular ion can be detected from earth by telescopes. In the cosmic clouds negatively charged electrons are also present, causing frequent collisions. In those the hydronium ion converts to the neutral instable radical H3O, which rapidly decays. "For this break-up reaction, nature offers three choices," describes Andreas Wolf, forming either H2O plus H, or OH plus H2, or OH plus two H atoms. Present research tries to determine the yields of these production channels, including that of water.

You spend a third of your life sleeping. What if your dreams are real? Perhaps our dismissal of dreams as "just dreams" is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of consciousness and physical reality.

"I am real" said Alice (in Wonderland). "If I wasn't real, I shouldn't be able to cry."

"I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?" Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt.

We take for granted how our mind puts everything together. Everything we experience is a whirl of information occurring in our heads. Biocentrism -- a new "theory of everything" -- tells us that space and time aren't the hard objects we think, but rather tools our mind uses to put everything together. They're the key to consciousness, and why in experiments with particles, space and time -- and indeed the properties of matter itself -- are relative to the observer. During both dreams and waking hours, your mind collapses probability waves to generate a physical reality, replete with a functioning body. You're able to think and experience sensations in a 3D world.

This is your captain speaking, your plane is about to become invisible!

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has theorized a see-through passenger plane for the future, one with a completely transparent fuselage. In this concept craft, the push of a button by the captain would a send an electrical pulse through a high-tech ceramic skin -- making the main body of the plane see-through.

The extraordinary design would allow travelers to look down on cities and landscapes thousands of feet below or gaze up at the heavens, giving them the sensation of floating unassisted through the sky.

"Passengers in an airplane like this would experience flight in a completely new way," Airbus' head of research and technology, Axel Krein, the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Though the proposal might seem far-fetched, it is one of a number of plans being considered by engineers at the European aerospace giant.

Airbus unveiled the concept in "The Future, By Airbus," written by the giant manufacturer for July's Farnsborough Air Show. The report includes information on potential future sources of energy (watch for the "Cryoplane," fueled by hydrogen) and solutions for overcongestion in the air, such as pre-seating passengers in pods that are then loaded onto the plane when it is ready.

Other developments envisaged by Krein's team include an aircraft skin that can repair itself in the event of cracks or breaches and streamline engines that are embedded in the plane's fuselage rather than attached to its wings.

New results from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show that the Moon was heavily bombarded by asteroids in its complex youth.

The early Moon was apparently hit by asteroids much more than previously thought, according to the LRO's new findings and its surface is much more intricate than what astronomers believed.

"Our new LRO LOLA dataset shows that the older highland impactor population can be clearly distinguished from the younger population in the lunar 'maria' -- giant impact basins filled with solidified lava flows." Said James Head of Brown University in RI, lead author of the study.

"The highlands have a greater density of large craters compared to smaller ones, implying that the earlier population of impactors had a proportionally greater number of large fragments than the population that characterized later lunar history." He continued.

NASA launched the LRO to study the Moon's surface and it is now returning its new results from its detailed global topographic map of the natural satellite's surface, which it acquired using its Lunar Laser Altimeter (LOLA).

Britain's electrical system, financial networks and transport infrastructure could all be paralysed by a solar flare or a nuclear attack, Liam Fox will warn next week.

The Defence Secretary will next week attend a summit of scientists and security advisers who believe the infrastructure that underpins modern life in Western economies is potentially vulnerable to electromagnetic disruption.

Such disruptions, which can shut down electrical equipment and cripple orbiting satellites, can be triggered by man-made nuclear blasts or natural events on the surface of the sun.

The recipe for a rainbow is well known. Add a few thousand raindrops to a bright shaft of sunlight and presto--a colorful arc appears. You might be surprised to learn, however, that sunlight is not required to make a rainbow. Moonlight does just as well:

"Last night I conducted a successful hunt for the elusive Lunar Rainbow," says photographer Martin McKenna of Maghera, Northern Ireland. "I noticed showers moving in from the west, so I drove out to a field and waited. The Moon rose behind me, then in an instant a complete primary and secondary bow formed. I could see them easily with the naked eye complete with colors."

"It was a wonderful experience." The only drawback: "My camera is completely drenched!"

An international team of astronomers has recently captured the image of a new star, a very young brown dwarf. They discovered a unique, rare phenomenon: the proximity between the brown dwarf and its enormous stellar companion is as close as Uranus and the sun.

The newly imaged brown dwarf is among the youngest stars ever seen. It is located in a tight orbit around a nearby sun-like star, which is huge, with mass about 36 times larger than Jupiter's (which is the largest planet in our solar system). The brown dwarf is dubbed PZ Tel A and its star-like neighbor is dubbed PZ Tel B. The distance between these stellar objects was measured at 18 Astronomical Units (AU), which is extremely close in comparison to the average 50 AUs. Furthermore, in just the past year the researchers observed PZ Tel B moving quickly outward from its parent star; usually, in such a short span of time stars are much more passive.

Brown dwarves are sub-stellar objects, and unlike most stars they do not maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores (due to smaller mass). They have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth.

Better catch Jupiter next week in the night sky. It won't be that big or bright again until 2022.

Jupiter will pass 368 million miles from Earth late Monday, its closest approach since 1963.

You can see it low in the east around dusk. Around midnight, it will be directly overhead. That's because Earth will be passing between Jupiter and the sun, into the wee hours of Tuesday.

The solar system's largest planet already appears as an incredibly bright star. The only thing brighter in the night sky right now is our moon.

A wall painting (fresco) of Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune, was exposed during the 11th season of excavation at the Sussita site, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, which was conducted by researchers of the University of Haifa. Another female figure was found during this season, of a maenad, one of the companions of the wine god Dionysus.

"It is interesting to see that although the private residence in which two goddesses were found was in existence during the Byzantine period, when Christianity negated and eradicated idolatrous cults, one can still find clear evidence of earlier beliefs," said Prof. Arthur Segal and Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who headed the excavation. The city of Sussita is located within the Sussita National Park under the management of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, which has accompanied and assisted the excavation teams this season in enabling the continuation of excavation work and the conservation of the archaeological finds.

During the course of the excavations conducted by the team from the University of Concordia under the direction of Prof. Mark Schuler, in a residence that appeared, by the quality and complexity of its construction, to belong to one of the city notables, the excavators reached an inner courtyard with a small fountain at its center. Near the fountain they found a fresco of Tyche, who was apparently deified as the city's goddess of fortune. Her head is crowned, her youthful gaze is focused, and she has abundant brown hair beneath her crown. According to the researchers, artistic analysis has indicated that the wall painting may be dated to the end of the Roman period or the beginning of the Byzantine period (3th centuries C.E.).

UK scientist unearths 5,000-year-old rock art, including drawing of a mounted hunter, in Somaliland

Striking prehistoric rock art created up to 5,000 years ago has been discovered at almost 100 sites in Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden in eastern Africa.

A local team headed by Dr Sada Mire - of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London (UCL) - made the finds which included a man on horseback, painted around 4,000 years ago - one of the earliest known depictions of a mounted hunter.

Leaping antelopes, prancing giraffes and snakes poised to strike are among animals and reptiles depicted with astonishing clarity. Such is the quality of the paintings that at least 10 sites, scattered across semi-desert terrain, are likely to be given World Heritage status.