This week we anticipated the fall of the ROSAT satellite, watched a Russian rocket launch and thought about the possibilities of taking a vacation to space in just some of the stories that came from space this past week. <p>Vote for your top space story of the week:
The operating hub for public space travel is being dedicated here today (Oct. 17), home base for pay-per-view suborbital treks out of Earth's atmosphere. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13294-spaceport-america-virgin-galactic-dedication.html">Full Story</a>]
We can all breathe a sigh of relief: The so-called "doomsday comet" Elenin made its closest flyby of Earth Sunday (Oct. 16), and no cataclysms ensued. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13302-doomsday-comet-elenin-pieces-earth-flyby.html">Full Story</a>]
Virgin Galactic's private suborbital SpaceShipTwo vehicle encountered an anomaly during a recent test flight that sent it hurtling toward the ground uncontrolled. Its feather re-entry system kicked in to allow a safe landing. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13297-virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-test-flight-glitch.html">Full Story</a>]
Paying customers thought they'd be flying to suborbital space with Virgin Galactic by now. Why is the space tourism industry taking so long to get off the ground? [<a href=http://www.space.com/13313-suborbital-spaceflight-virgin-galactic-space-tourism.html">Full Story</a>]
New observations of extra bright, blue stars may hold the key to explaining how the stellar objects which according to astronomers shouldn't be able to exist, actually manage to keep shining. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13326-mysterious-vampire-stars-blue-stragglers.html">Full Story</a>]
Astronomers have discovered the youngest exoplanet ever found, spotting the alien world as it's coalescing from the dusty disk around its parent star, a new study reports. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13328-youngest-alien-planet-exoplanet-formation.html">Full Story</a>]
Astronomers have found water ice and possibly a wispy methane atmosphere on a dwarf planet known as "Snow White." [<a href="http://www.space.com/13332-snow-white-dwarf-planet-water-ice-methane-atmosphere.html">Full Story</a>]
NASA has begun drafting guidelines to protect the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 landing sites, listing them as off-limits, and including ground-travel buffers and no-fly zones to avoid spraying rocket exhaust or dust onto aging, but historic, equipment. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13346-nasa-guidelines-protect-apollo-moon-landing-sites.html">Full Story</a>]
A Soyuz rocket blasted off this morning from South America, lofting to orbit the first two pieces of Europe's Galileo global positioning system. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13349-russia-soyuz-rocket-galileo-satellites-launch.html">Full Story</a>]
A defunct German satellite fell to Earth late Saturday (Oct.22), with experts predicting that up to 30 big pieces of the junked spacecraft could hit the planet. But exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery. [<a href="http://www.space.com/13356-falling-german-satellite-rosat-death-dive.html">Full Story</a>]
