This week a demotion, a new name and did we really go to the moon?
D'oh! Sad news for our fellow plutonians, and I know there are lot of them out there reading this blog, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. To be even consider a planet, under the new definition, one has to be "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit" which de facto restrict the membership in our solar system to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Orion is the new name of the new
Crew Exploration Vehicle (it's a bit more sexy than CEV) which will replace the aging space shuttle as the new manned spacecraft to get us back to the moon and beyond. The name was leaked to the press during a transmission between the International Space Station and Earth. Still I would have preferred a name like...
Serenity...
Finally, 'cause I've been asked by a few people, no I didn't steal the original tapes (which are 4 time better quality than the pictures we know) of the moon landing for my own private collection. They're merely... lost/misplaced somewhere in the huge warehouses at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. And by the way for all those of you conspiracy theoricist, yes once and for all: we've been to the moon ;-)
Watch the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour (the last of the three shuttles left to fly since Columbia's accident in 2003) tonight live at 6:36 pm EDT on NasaTV! Mission STS-118 is a multi-purpose mission to perform assembly, repairs and resupply on the International Space Station. This will be the first shuttle flight for astronaut/teacher/mission specialist Barbara Morgan and a happy bookend for the space program 
as Barbara was Christa McAuliffe’s backup in the Teacher in Space Project when Space Shuttle Challenger was lost in 1986. Most of the mission (including the spacewalks) will be broadcasted live on NasaTV for the next 11 days.
Watch the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis tonight live at 7:38 pm EDT on NasaTV! Mission STS-117 resumes the construction of the International Space Station by adding a new pair of solar panels on the starboard side of the space station. Most of the spacewalks will also be broadcasted live on NasaTV for the next 12 days.
Space Shuttle Discovery launch is a go for tonight at 9:35pm EST!
Is there still liquid water on Mars?
In other sad martian news, Mars Global Surveyor(MGS) has probably finished its life as no attempt to re-establish communications with the spacecraft succeeded. MGS was the longest (10 years) and most successful mission orbiting Mars as it returned more than 248,000 pictures of the Red Planet to Earth.
Space Shuttle Discovery (isn't she beautful?) is currently gently rolling out to Launch Pad 39B in preparation for launch on mission STS-116 to the International Space Station. The shuttle's payload includes the next space station components: the P5 integrated truss segment and the SPACEHAB module The launch window for mission STS-116 opens Dec. 7.
This amazing new view of the Orion Nebula (a composite of visible and infrared light) was created using both NASA's Spitzer and Hubble telescopes. (click on the pic for more info and a larger high-def image) In other shuttle and Hubble (shubble?) news, a new 900 million dollars mission was decided last week to go and repair the aging Hubble Telescop. Great news for all astronomers around the world as this telescop brought unprecedented discoveries about the origins and the inner mechanics of our lil' universe.
No, it's not an inside view of my stomach after the last Halloween party but a really frakking big storm on Saturn captured by orbiting spacecraft Cassini (this spacecraft is navigated, between pregnancies, by my dear friend Julie at JPL where I used to work): 8,000km (5,000 miles) wide with winds up to 550km/h (350 miles/h)... (click on the pic for more info and a movie of the storm)
This week a demotion, a new name and did we really go to the moon?
