There are a couple of astronomy related stories that are worth reporting and here they are:
Genesis Galaxy found
A small, very far away galaxy has turned out to be the earliest know galaxy in the universe. It's small (15% of our Milky Way Galaxy) and it's was formed less than 500 million years after the creation of the universe in the Big Bang.
It's so far away and so red-shifted
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift that it's almost out of the range of the Hubble Space Telescope to detect it. When it is launched, the James Webb Space Telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope (unlike the Hubble Space Telescope) will be able to look into the infrared spectrum so it might be able to eventually detect galaxies that are even older than the Genesis Galaxy. More on this story here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12289840
New multiple-planet solar system detected
The Kepler Space Telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_space_telescope has found a new planetary system which contains six planets ranging between two and four-and-a-half times the diameter Earth, and between two and 13 times the mass of Earth.
Five of the six planets orbit the sun-like star closer than Mercury orbits our Sun so they are going to be hot and inhospitable. The sixth planet orbits in the equivalent space between Mercury and Venus in our own Solar System. More here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12333766
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_...ote-Lissauer-1
Whilist this new discovery has no direct implications for life in this particular instance, it does indicate that solar system formation is widespread in this galaxy. I am glad that NASA are not hyping this discovery out of all proportion like they've done with previous planetary discoveries.