From YahooNews: 
Astronomers find distant, fluffy planet
WASHINGTON - The largest planet ever found orbiting another star is so puffy it would float on water, astronomers said Thursday. The newly discovered planet, dubbed HAT-P-1, is both the largest and least dense of the nearly 200 worlds astronomers have found outside our own solar system.
HAT-P-1 orbits one of […]

From YahooNews: 
Russian Duma rejects Madonna space Holiday
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia’s parliament has voted against a motion to send the celebrated US singer, actress and children’s book author Madonna to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2008.
Alexei Mitrofanov, a member of the Duma (the lower house of parliament) for the ultra-nationalist LDPR party, had said the trip […]

From The Daily Mail: 
Pope sacks astronomer over evolution debate
Pope Benedict XVI has sacked his chief astronomer after a series of public clashes over the theory of evolution.
He has removed Father George Coyne from his position as director of the Vatican Observatory after the American Jesuit priest repeatedly contradicted the Holy See’s endorsement of “intelligent design” […]

 From YahooNews: 
Indian villagers worship rocks after meteor shower
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Villagers in western India have reportedly begun worshipping rock fragments following a meteor shower.
Residents in Gujarat state’s Kutch region have been hunting for meteorite fragments after streaks of light were seen over three heavily populated districts late Monday, the Times of India daily said.
Witnesses […]

From CNN.COM:
Scientists: Cosmic blob biggest thing in universe
(SPACE.com) — An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say.
The galaxies and gas bubbles, called Lyman alpha blobs, are aligned along three curvy filaments that formed about 2 […]

From MSNBC.COM:
Virgin Galactic plans space flights by 2008
Celebrities, royalty among the first 150 passengers to buy tickets
FARNBOROUGH, England - Former soap star Victoria Principal, designer Philippe Starck and a senior member of an unidentified royal family have all bought tickets for the world’s first tourist space flights planned for 2008.
Virgin Group, owned by billionaire businessman […]

I came across this cool public domain animated GIF on Wikipedia.  Thought I would share, it’s probably the best animated of the moon ever made from real photographs.   More information on the image can be found here.

From AftenPosten: 
Another meteorite hits Norway
A meteorite weighing around two kilos landed right in the yard outside Bjørn Herigstad’s home in coastal Jæren, western Norway, over the weekend. It’s the second meteorite-landing in Norway in a month, and experts are calling the incident sensational.
Bjørn Herigstad says he found the meteorite just outside his house at Orre, […]

From YahooNews: 
Bird droppings survive space launch
HOUSTON - NASA’s rocket scientists have a new appreciation for the out-of-this-world power of bird droppings. The orbiting space shuttle Discovery sported some whitish splotches on its black right wing edge that NASA officials said appeared to be bird droppings.
 
Shuttle lead flight director Tony Ceccacci said he saw the same […]

From YahooNews:
Large asteroid zips past Earth
LOS ANGELES - A huge asteroid whizzed by Earth early Monday, passing about 269,000 miles from the planet’s surface — slightly farther away than the moon.
 
More than three dozen asteroids have flown closer to Earth in the last few years, but scientists believe 2004 XP14 is among the largest
(more here)

From YahooNews: 
Huge Asteroid to Fly Past Earth July 3
An asteroid possibly as large as a half-mile or more in diameter is rapidly approaching the Earth.  There is no need for concern, for no collision is in the offing, but the space rock will make an exceptionally close approach to our planet early on Monday, July […]

You travel 300,000 miles on a dangerous mission to the moon using 1960’s technology, it’s one of the most documented events in history, viewed by millions of people, and then 40 years later you have to deal with some idiot conspiracy nut calling you a liar.
Our technology may have improved a lot […]

From SFGATE.COM: 
LITTLE BLACK HOLES, Researchers say there might be tiny versions of galactic giants throughout Milky Way.
Researchers have proposed a bizarre new theory that our solar system might be the home of thousands of very small black holes — that is, pint-size versions of the weirdest objects in the universe.
If verified by a NASA satellite […]

 
From PHYSORG.COM: 
Mysterious carbon excess found in infant solar system
Astronomers detected unusually high quantities of carbon, the basis of all terrestrial life, in an infant solar system around nearby star Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years away.
“For years we’ve looked to this early forming solar system as one that might be going through the same processes our own […]