Harvard University, U.S., has retained its top position in 2009, while Cambridge University, U.K., has moved up from third to second position. Yale University of the U.S. has slipped one position to third in the list dominated by US and UK universities.

Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller has the won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature. The Nobel Prize Organisation says that Ms.Mueller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed"

NASA’s Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission will come to a dramatic conclusion at approximately 4:30 a.m. PDT (7:30 a.m. EDT) on Friday, Oct 9, 2009, with the impact of the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket and four minutes later, the impact of the LCROSS Shepherding Spacecraft into Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole.