Europe’s brutal cold snap continues to wreak havoc across the continent. Minimum temperatures in the some parts of Europe have stayed below minus 30 degrees Celsius for more than a week. But due to heavy snowfall children across Europe have great snow fun.

There’s water, water everywhere in National Geographic News’s most popular space coverage of 2009: A probe proved there’s water on the moon, a Mars lander’s leg got all wet, fishlike life may swim a Jupiter moon’s seas, and more.