The Chinese space authority have tentatively set a date for the launch of their proposed lunar orbiter probe for April next year, tests and circumstances permitting.

Japan hasn’t had a lot of luck in the commercial satellite launching market so far. So they’ve taken hold of a modern business model in the hope of garnering more customers. They’re offering free launches for any Japanese company or individual that wants to put something into orbit, as long as it’s not a profit-making venture. No applicants yet, apparently.

Just like buses, really. You wait around for ages, and then three planets with a mass comparable to Neptune turn up at once, all in the same star system. A team of European astronomers have made this discovery with the HARPS spectrograph, a unique ‘planet-hunting machine’ running on a telescope in Chile.

Despite the UK government thoroughly denying the existence of UFOs in that ‘leaked’ report some people think that the truth may be ‘out there’ after all. Which is why Ian Crawford, a researcher from University of London’s Birkbeck College, thinks that future Lunar mission crews should be keeping an eye out for alien artifacts, which may have got there by accident or by design.