NASA

The astronauts aboard the Atlantic space shuttle woke up to a surprise wakeup call from none other than RnB singer Beyonce.

Astronauts continued organizing the unloading of a year's worth of supplies at the International Space Station after NASA said on Monday that a piece of Soviet space debris was unlikely to collide with orbiting lab.

NASA fuelled space shuttle Atlantis for lift-off Friday on the final flight of the 30-year program, defying the stormy weather that threatened to delay the launch, after forecasters insist there still is a 70 per cent chance of thunderstorm and rain.But despite the gloomy forecast and an eve of launch which saw torrential rain and lightning, technicians are still proceeding as if it will take off on time.

Atlantis has blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre on the last ever space shuttle mission and despite gloomy weather conditions, the launched took place on time.

She's been in space 32 times since 1985, and orbited the earth 4,648 times, but today will be the last launch of the Atlantis Shuttle, and of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program.

Thunderstorms threatened to delay the last space shuttle launch, set for today, and a lightning strike near the pad briefly caused NASA engineers to question whether the launch should take place at all.

The suspected LulzSec member Ryan Cleary, if found to have taken part in LulzSec's attacks on the U.S., could face up to ten years in jail.

Environmentalists be damned, rather than a future so hot and humid that humans will not be able to survive, the Earth is actually heading towards a 'mini ice age', according to the world's newspapers. Which just goes to show that you shouldn't read today's papers.

US solar physicists announced yesterday evening that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth, far from facing a global warming problem, is on the opposite headed heading into a mini Ice Age.