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Microsoft has released to the public a near-final version of a major update to its Windows XP operating system.
As of Wednesday, the ‘Release Candidate’ for Windows XP Service Pack 3 was available as a 336 Mbyte download from Microsoft’s Web site. The software had previously been available only to participants in Microsoft’s official test programs.

Software vendors usually issue a release candidate when they’re close to producing a final version of a product or update. It provides a last chance for users to weigh in before a final version is released to manufacturing.

Get it here: Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate

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A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the red planet on January 30, scientists said Thursday.

“These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track … threatening asteroids,” said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.