Strange things happen during the full moon, and we're not just talking werewolves here. When the moon is full, a strange event occurs on the lunar surface: moondust begins to float and gathers, and while there is no air on the moon, the dust flows as if blown by the wind, making a moondust storm. Creepy, eh? A scientific explanation lies in the full article.

If you were wondering just why we haven't yet stepped foot onto Mars, here's quite the revelation: it seems that a certain dangerous element that all astronauts are exposed to whenever they reach orbit is stopping NASA from getting there. And no, it's not space gremlins or anything like that. All the perplexing details in the full article.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft was recently given the task of investigating the plumes of water vapor and ice crystals found erupting from the South Pole of Saturn's Enceladus. Any information gathered from this latest space mission will look into the nature of this strange phenomenon, as well as the possibility of the tiny moon being able to sustain life. More details about this in our full article.

 Worried that you'll drop dead when you're listening to music from an iPod because it interferes with your pacemaker? Worry no more. The Food and Drug Administration has dispelled this little myth with experiments that prove the iPod's innocence. Full details after the jump.

Now before you all start blowing extraterrestrial theories, please hear us out first: new information regarding the planet nearest the sun in our solar system were finally released during NASA's press conference, and the scientific community now had a clearer picture of the planet Mercury. NASA's Messenger, the spacecraft sent to gather new data from Mercury, transmitted images of a crater - yes, crater - now dubbed the "Spider". More of this mysterious find at the full story.

Our world may be round but our solar system is squashed. This was discovered when the Voyager 2 experienced the barrier of solar wind at the edge of the solar system, called the heliosphere. Earlier theories which suggest that the solar system is bullet shaped may yet be proven true. Read more in the full article.

Our solar system is not static, it travels through space at about 62 MPH (100,000 KPH). Merav Opher and her research team from Virginia's George Mason University has found that our system has a "bullet like" shape because of the said movement.

Our system travels "within a bubble of solar wind" which is composed of charged particles from the sun. This is known as the Heliosphere. Opher has said that the solar system's magnetic field is inclined at a 60 degree angle relative to the plane of the Galaxy">Milky Way. Now, when this bubble meets with the Milky Way galaxy's magnetic field, our system takes on a "bullet shape" or as Opher puts it - a "streamlined shape."

She added that "The shape of the solar system, this bullet, is really shaped by what lies ahead of us—the interstellar magnetic field. The [prevailing] idea is that the environment just outside our solar system is patchy and turbulent." Now, you may wonder what causes this turbulence? Opher explained that "there are lots of stars exploding and dying outside our solar system."

This news shouldn't surprise a lot of our budding scientists out there since it's a given fact that objects tend to go into the most stable state. If our solar system is moving at a relatively constant speed, wouldn't it be logical to assume that it would take a streamlined form to help facilitate its movement?

Finally, NASA has released the first 3D images of the Sun, thanks to their STEREO spacecraft. Apart from the aesthetic appreciation we'll derive from these shots, what makes this images significant is that they may actually help our scientists in further understanding solar physics, which in turn could pave the way for better space weather forecasting.

Setting off to space on October 25 of last year, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft went about to complete a series of maneuvers to plant them nicely in their mission orbits, which they completed on January 21, 2007. Getting a better view of the activities in the sun can greatly help in the monitoring of violent solar weather, particularly those originating from the sun's corona.

   

These sun storms, as they are called, can be destructive to satellites, radio communication, and even power grids here in our planet. Russel Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory stresses the importance of these images.

With STEREO's 3-D imagery, we'll be able to discern where matter and energy flows in the solar atmosphere much more precisely than with the 2-D views available before. This will really help us understand the complex physics going on.

The 3D images may also aid us in better responding to the threat of magnetic storms brought about by coronal mass ejections. These ejections ultimately "dump energy and particles into Earth's magnetic field". As a result, magnetic storms powerful enough to overload power line equipment, and radiation storms that disrupt satellites happen. The images will therefore allow for better monitoring and more accurate forecasting of when a CME will occur.

   

"Knowing where the front of the CME cloud will improve estimates of the arrival time from within a day or so to just a few hours," Howard further explains. "STEREO also will help forecasters estimate how severe the resulting magnetic storm will be."

In the future, when man finally dares to move further and further into the outer reaches of space, deflector shields will help protect astronauts against space radiation. Yeah, the whole "deflector shields" thing sounds like something straight out of "Star Trek", but if current experiments pay off, it could become a reality.

According to the New Scientist, a group at the University of Washington in Seattle has just completed a round of experiments investigating one possible approach: using a bubble of charged particles, or plasma, as a deflector shield. A second team, led by Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, has also begun deflector shield experiments. Bamford's team also hopes to eventually fly a test satellite surrounded by a cloud of plasma in space.

The Bamford team's research is built on the fact that plasma clouds have strong magnetic and electric fields that can deflect charged particles. The team plans to use a simple magnetic field generator to trap a cloud of plasma and test its particle-deflecting abilities. The real test of their research, though, will come when they attract funding for a demo mission that uses wires around a spacecraft to generate a magnetic field that can contain a plasma cloud.

"Hopefully we'll be able to fly a test mission in the next, say, 10 to 15 years," said team member Robert Bingham of Rutherford Appleton Lab.

More than a month ago, we covered a story about bees disappearing for a yet unknown reason. The hypotheses presented on this mysterious disappearance of bees called Colony Collapse Disorder, were the following: pesticides, mites, and/or poor management of the bee farmers.

But in a study made by Barbara Shipman, mathematician and daughter of a bee researcher, a different reason for the disappearance of bees was given: sunspots. A sunspot is a region on the Sun's surface that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings and intense magnetic activity. Sunspots follow an estimated 11-year cycle, corresponding to increases in solar activity.

Whatever have sunspots to do with honeybees? Shipman studied the complex dance that honeybees do when signaling pollen sources to their colony. As a mathematician, Shipman analyzed that this complex bee-dance is influenced by things such as polarization of the light of the sun and local variations of the earth's magnetic field.

Shipman's studies suggest that bees are sensitive to quantum-mechanical effects such as magnetic fields and electromagnetic waves. In the bee disappearance case, it may be no coincidence that the predicted next solar maximum in 2010 could be the most intense ever. This view suggests that because of the coming sunspot peak, the quantum field to which bees may be sensitive could have been disturbed.

Let's put it this way: because of Shipman's views, scientists are suggesting that the Colony Collapse Disorder may have been caused by bees losing their navigation skills because of the disturbed magnetic activity. They may have flown skyward, attempting to keep up with the rapidly moving target of home in six dimensions. Or, hyperdimentsional bee-eaters could have emerged from the sunspot, phasing the bees out of existence on contact.

Sounds weird now, but someday maybe we'll understand it better. As physicist David Hathaway puts it, "We don't know why this works. The underlying physics is a mystery. But it does work."