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The hot news in astronomy is that a new planet has been discovered beyond Pluto, officially called 2003 EL61 for now, and nicknamed "Santa."  This planet also has a small moon.  But "Santa" is not a moon;  it has its own orbit around the sun (which you can view and animate here), one that is more elliptical (oval-shaped) than Pluto's.  This might explain why it took so much longer to find it.  Astronomers are still debating the size of the new planet:  It may a small and bright, or large and dim.

Meanwhile, the ESA people are jumping for joy with the discovery of what appears to be water ice inside a crater on Mars.  The image shows a sort of mound of bright material that scientists say is not frozen carbon dioxide, yet is not 100% water either.  I wonder if there is any way to tell whether the ice came from whatever foreign object caused the crater, or not.

Plus, spacecraft Cassini's latest observations of Saturn moon Enceladus are, as usual, unexpected and unique, showing yet again how poorly evolutionary models are predicting the make-up of our solar system.  Dr. Peter Thomas, one of the Enceladus imaging-team members, said "A landscape littered with building-sized blocks [of ice] was not expected." 

[In other news, an Ecuadorian bird called a manakin makes the fastest known limb movements of any animal with a backbone:  The male beats its wings against its back 106 times a second in a beautiful courting song.  It is said to sound like a violin note.]

You've probably heard that a now-paranoid NASA has grounded all future shuttle flights, following an assessment of video recordings that showed a chunk of foam falling off the Discovery during liftoff, eerily reminiscent of the Columbia disaster.  NASA officials are sure that the Discovery's mission and return are safe, but they don't want to take any more chances until the foam problem is permanently fixed.  (Or maybe they'll just get on with a new shuttle design.)  The New York Times has a nice section on this story, including a chart showing shuttle debris damage over the years, and a history of the shuttle program.

Also, this Slashdot post is intriguing, linking to a research paper that claims Asia may soon overrun the USA when it comes to scientific research and technology.  The post generated over a thousand comments.

Boy, I'm glad the National Research Council gave what-for to NASA for not guaranteeing the sterilization of rovers Spirit and Opportunity, both now exploring the red planet.  I've been worried sick that human viruses are going to wipe out Martian life before we get a fighting chance to discover it. . .

Apparently Steven Spielberg has done a very convincing job in his version of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," because that's the very same scenario that the NRC is pitching to NASA, after tight budgets prodded the space organization to scale back some very expensive sterilization techniques that had been used in earlier missions to mars.  They're afraid resilient microbes from earth are "contaminating" possible Martian microbes.

Uhh, "War of the Worlds" is fiction, guys.  Martian life has never been found, despite the colorful imaginations of Wells and Spielberg, who continue to delight us.

Actually, this could be a blessing in disguise.  If a microbe from earth were really on one of those rovers, and it secretly jumped on a Martian rock, imagine the ruckus that would explode when that rock is examined:  "NASA FINDS LIFE ON MARS!"
And from then on evolutionists would argue theories as to how the same species of microbe evolved independently on two separate planets.  Sigh.

Discovery crew seated & ready to go.  NASA/KSC

NASA's second try for the liftoff of the Discovery Shuttle is scheduled for today, in less than two hours.  The crew has been loaded into the shuttle and workers are preparing to close the pressurized, double-sealed hatch, having given the vehicle interior one last "once-over."  You of course can watch everything live online on NASA TV (Open TV with RealPlayer or Windows Media Player), and if anything goes wrong you''ll be the first to hear it.

A view of Rome using Google Earth.

If you love maps and satellite images, and haven't downloaded the free Google Earth program yet, you really must.  The program draws from several different data sources to create a zoomable globular map of the world--in actual photo quality.  You can view the sand dune formations of the Sahara, the source of the Nile, the bogs of Ireland.  You can zoom in on buildings and warehouse in North Korea.  You can see for yourself the site of the Presidential Palace in Iraq.  You can see Thimble Island in Boston, a mere 60 feet across.

That's nothing.  Chances are if you live near a city you'll be able to see your car parked in your driveway.  And yes if you've always wondered where that gated driveway down the block leads to you'll now be able to spy on it from above. 
Google Earth works like a route planning program as well, and you can get directions, find hotels, and print maps.  Some cities and mountainous regions are topographical--meaning you can tilt the angle of your view and look at skyscrapers and volcanoes from the side.  You'll need a high-speed internet connection for this one, though, since the map data streams from the internet as you "fly" around.  Give it a try; you're sure to be intrigued for hours.  I still haven't gotten over it.

This post isn't very scientific I know, but let's call it geographical.  Yuri Mamchur of the new Russia Blog reports on little-reported Russia, about how bombings occur within that country almost daily (including yesterday, in Russian state Dagestan), and how Russians who send their kids to camp sometimes never see them again.  In one fascinating post he talks about how screwed up the car insurance industry is in Russia, and how establishing fault in an accident is more of an issue of bribery than of culpability.  In particular, there was one incident where 8 armed and angry men took a village hostage for two days in search of a man whom they accused of scratching an Audi A8 sedan.  The thugs beat the alleged car criminal to death, and beat to near-death two other villagers.  They were finally stopped when one resident was able to secretly notify authorities.

[I am ignorantly curious as to what makes this discovery of underground catacombs in Russia "sensational."]

Carl Wieland has written a rebuttal to the "Dinosaurs Breathed Like Birds" story which was in the news last week, and which I commented on here.  He emphasizes that the fossil evidence doesn't support all of the "tertiary" conclusions that Nature came to in its article, and, again, notes that perforated bones were essential for dinosaurs' easy locomotion.  Wieland shows how the fossil evidence brings evolutionists not one step closer to explaining dinosaur or bird evolution.

Theropods (at least the smaller ones) are believed to have been speedy runners, so lighter bones would seem to be an important design feature for them, too. There is no reason, though, why they may not also have shared with birds all or some of the same design features for efficient use of oxygen, as already stated.

It's short.  Go read it.

 

This insightful article was published today (according to the date attached to it) at a relatively new blog called Creation and Evolution Blog, which I'm going to be peeking at regularly from now on.  Here's an excerpt:

One of the more common criticisms that creationists have to evolutionists is to believe that all of this arose by chance. Evolutionists are always quick to say "natural selection is anything but chance." While I wholly agree with the evolutionists statement, I want to take the time to point out why it doesn't answer the creationist's criticism at all.    (read more)

The author, who goes by the name Crevo [Creation - Evolution], goes on to criticize Richard Dawkin's arguments for molecules-to-man evolution as set forth in "The Blind Watchmaker," and argues instead for the creationist theory of "genomic modularity"--a scary term  for the theory that cells were created with the ability to rearrange their own genetic structure apart from mutations.  Check it out, and while you're at it you may want to visit Crevo's more active but less in-depth Creation Bits blog.

[Is the mysterious Crevo also the brains behind this creation news page?]