A plague of robots

Forget lumbering rovers or exotic aircraft. Penelope Boston, the director of cave and karst studies at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is proposing sending swarms of tiny robots to Mars that would literally hop about the surface using polymer-based artificial muscles that would propel then unward of a meter a jump. The idea has considerable merit, as the tiny robots would be able to reach places a rover could not. More at the MSNBC website.

Beagle found?

New pictures of Mars snapped from orbit may have found the resting place of the ill-fated British Beagle landing craft. Proffesor Colin Pillinger seems pretty convinced that he has found the crash/landing site and it seems likely that the craft came down to fast because the atmosphere was thinner than expected. There are a lot of detailed images and interpretations available here at the Beagle 2 website.

This is scary

Scary Movie 4, (did we ever need 1-3) has released a bunch of teaser posters, one of which indicates that the newest installment in the franchise is going to spoof (amongst other things) Spielberg's War Of The Worlds.

New War Of The Worlds comic

First there was Classics Illustrated, then Killraven, (and a few more inbetween) but now there is a new and pretty good looking contender on the block. Boom Studios have a new comic book in production. Not much to be seen yet on the website but there are some enticing looking images to be found here.

Energia President talks Mars

RSC Energia President Nikolai Sevostianov has been talking about the future of his company and a possible human presence on Mars. Nikolai Sevostianov has some far reaching ideas for the future of humans in the solar system. The full interview is here.

Exomars given UK backing

The British government has approved a higher than normal spend on a future space mission. 108m euros (£73.2m) has been allocated to the Exomars lander which will launch for 2011. Speaking at the ministerial meeting, science minister Lord Sainsbury said: "As a major contributor, the UK will have a leading role in this programme which is set to improve our understanding of Mars and the Solar System." The probe will use similar airbag landing systems to previous sucessful landers, but will bring some exciting new science to the Red planet, including a drill which will be able to dig deep into the Martian surface.

Orson Welles Lives

Interviewed by Sci-Fi Wire, Jack Black, the star of Peter Jacksons's King Kong remake, has revealed that he modeled his part of filmmaker Carl Denham on Orson Welles. Welles of course made the 1938 radio broadcast that panicked many in America with his version of The War Of The Worlds. More at scifi wire.

Europe meets to decide on Mars mission

The European Space Agency (ESA) is meeting this Monday to discuss funding on a number of new projects, one of which would be a robotic probe to Mars. The project is by no means certain to be greenlit as several programmes are chasing the money. More at the BBC.

Hard times on planet Mars

NASA's continuing exploration of the red planet has turned up fresh proof for a very watery past, but officials are still very cautious about suggesting any form of life may have swum these ancient seas. The latest results from the Opportunity rover at it's Meridiani Planum landing site suggests that at some point in the distant past, the land was acidic, oxidizing and sometimes wet. Unfortunately, not good conditions for life to arise. More can found at MSN.

History Channel does War Of The Worlds

The US History Channel has broadcast a documentary covering many aspects of The War Of The Worlds. It was done as part of their UFO Files stand of programming.

War Of The Worlds gets standing ovation

A live performance of Jeff Waynes' War Of The Worlds at Wirral's International Guitar Festival was a big hit with a sell out audience of 900. It was a dream of guitarist Gary Murphy to revisit the musical and it earned him a standing ovation.

New War Of The Worlds comic

Dark Horse comics have been releasing a new version of The War Of The Worlds as an online publication, one page at a time. Not surprisingly, you can now pre-order the old fashioned paper version from Amazon.

National Geographic documentary

The National Geographic Channel in the UK is showing a documentary on the Orson Welles radio broadcast this Sunday, 10pm UK time.

War Of The Worlds most pirated

Not the most enviable of records, but Spielberg's War Of The Worlds had the unhappy distinction of been the most downloaded movie online for the second month running in September. Internet security company BayTSP recorded 51,292 downloads for the month, with Kong Fu Hustle coming a poor second at 33,511. On a personal note, on a train journey last month, I watched someone calmly open a very nice looking notebook with widescreen monitor and watch a pristine copy of War Of The Worlds without a care in the world.

Jeff Waynes' War Of The Worlds like never before

If you happen to live in, or are visiting Vancouver over the next few weeks, check out a fantastic sounding live version of Jeff Waynes' War Of The Worlds. Its a presentation of the H.R. MacMillan Planetarium and runs October 27 though to Nov. 20th. Full details at the dedicated website.

Doctor Who goes to Mars (with Orson Welles)

I've missed the broadcast of this on BBC Radio 7 tonight, but it will be available on their website tomorrow (Sunday). In this new radio series, the BBC's venerable timelord goes back to 1938 New York for an encounter with Orson Welles. Sounds fantastic and I'll be reviewing it for the website as soon as I've heard it.

And another War Of The Worlds

Maysville, KY: The Maysville Players are another group re-enacting Howard Kochs 1938 War Of The Worlds radio script. Read about it here.

Countdown to broadcast anniversary prompts re-enactments

Here's another War Of The Worlds radio broadcast re-enactment, this time by the La Junta's Picketwire Players based in Pueblo, Colorado.

Mars attacks, maybe.

Bay Area residents got themselves into a flap Wednesday night, a UFO flap. Numerous people saw mysterious lights in the sky and many called authorities, including Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central Coast and the Federal Aviation Administration. The explanation seems to be that they were seeing Mars and Venus, but make your mind up here with some photos.

Mars at closest approach

Mars is at the closest approach to earth this weekend, at just 43.1 million miles. For British skywatchers, it should dominate the night sky over the next few weeks, rising in the late afternoon and becoming visible above the eastern horizon soon after sunset. You can use this page to determine where Mars is in your night sky. Happy planet hunting.