The European Space Agency's Ariane 5 rocket blew up less than a minute after take-off

The European Space Agency's Ariane 5 rocket blew up less than a minute after take-off, destroying the life work of some scientists whose experiments (to measure solar activity) were on board. The cause of the failure? A tiny software error in one of the engine controls.So, it has been a year which has provided plenty of scientific advance - and yet reminded us each time that the corollary of science is uncertainty. As a certain TV programme's slogan notes, the truth is out there Sometimes, though, it's damned elusive.. January sees the stars putting on their finest display of the year.

The really brilliant constellations of Orion, Gemini and Taurus will be riding high in the south. You'll also spot Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, appearing to flash all the colours of the rainbow. This is nothing to do with the star itself, but an effect caused by seeing it low in the sky through countless layers of our churning atmosphere. On the night of 3-4 January, look out for enhanced shooting star activity - possibly as many as one a minute - from the Quadrantids meteor shower. Perspective makes the meteors appear to come from a spot in the sky beyond the end of the Great Bear's "tail" (marked on the chart as Ursa Major).

This is the site of an old constellation called Quadrans (the quadrant) which no longer appears on modern maps. This doesn't mean that the meteors have travelled from that constellation. It's simply the Earth's orbit taking it through the remnants of an asteroid which broke up at a particular spot in space. The annual variations in meteor intensity are caused by the fact that space is awfully big - and every time the Earth passes by, its gravity swirls those remnants around a little more.Despite those displays, only two planets are on show. The ringed world of Saturn is on duty during the early evening, setting in the west at 10pm. The red planet, Mars, then rises in the east and shines through the rest of the night. Because Saturn and Mars are close enough (celestially speaking) to show in the sky as faint discs, they are not blurred by air- currents, so, like all planets, they don't twinkle.January diary2 Moon at last quarter 1.46am3-4 Maximum of Quadrantids meteor shower9 New moon 4.26am15 Moon at first quarter 8.02pm23 Full moon 3.11pm24 Mercury at greatest western elongation31 Moon at last quarter 7.41pm. The bombers are back on both sides of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland.

On Friday night, a gunman attempted to murder a Unionist politician as he visited his sick son in a Belfast children's hospital It was the work of the IRA. Yesterday came the response: a bomb exploded under the car of a leading republican - the work of loyalist paramilitaries. It sounds so familiar, so wearisome, so inevitable; armed extremists lobbing hatred at each other all over again. But what happened this weekend wasn't inevitable - nor need Northern Ireland be poised on the brink of an endless escalation of violence and vitriol.