Thanksgiving from space

I bet we all enjoyed thankgiving this week, but did you know that this holiday extends from out of our world?

On thursday, thanksgiving was celebrated at the International Space Station, which last week celebrated its 10 years in orbit. The space crew has celebrated thanksgiving since 2000, but this was the first time the US space shuttle was docked to the station during the holiday.

The astronauts enjoyed their most traditional meal in orbit, with smoked turkey, yams, green beans, cornbread dressing, and even dessert.

It's cool that this holiday is celebrated outside of not only america but also the world. Just think, in the future we may have turkey on the Moon!

The International Space Station turns 10 this week!

Yeah, that's right! On November 20, 2008, the $100 billion dollar International Space Station, ISS, turned 10 years old. It's been 10 years since the first component of the ISS, the Zarya control module, went into space.

Estimates say that the station has circled the earth over 57,000 times and traveled a distance of 2 billion kilometers.

Currently, the ISS is undergoing what could be described as a "makeover." The Space Shuttle Endeavor, which launched last week, is adding another toilet and sleeping quarters.

The most interesting addition to the ISS is the new recycling system, which will recycle the Carbon dioxide and waste water. This has already filtered urine into pure water.

The ultimate goal of the new additions is to increase the number of people living on the station from 3 to 6.

First ever image of an Exoplanet!!!

I'm sure some of you heard already, but for those who didn't, there was a major breakthrough in Astronomy last week. Last Thursday, scientist released first ever images of planets outside of our solar system!

Published in the journal Science, four papers detailed many of the techniques used to find these planets. To detect planets, scientists would find the change in brightness of a star and determine if a Jupiter size object in front of the star caused it. That method can only infer that a gas giant is orbiting a star, which they couldn't see because of the brightness.

In the Hubble space telescope image, seen above, astronomers came up with a clever idea to see the planet. They used Hubble's coronagraph, which blocks out the light emitted for the star, to capture a picture of the faint planet.

Although this is a huge breakthrough, the scientists main goal is the find earth-sized planets.

How cool would that be!

Hot Air Balloons in Space?

Sounds like a silly idea, but this might be a reality in terms of studying Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

With the success of Cassini, a space probe that's studied Titan for over 4 years, an astrophysicist named Athena Coustenis is drafting plan to send a hot air balloon, an orbiting satellite, and a surface probe on the mysterious moon. Called the Titan and Saturn System Mission, TSSM, their goal will be to continue where Cassini left off.

Coustenis said that Titan would be a great place to use a balloon because of the atmosphere, which contains a high amount of nitrogen. She, and other scientists, are also believe this method would better discover properties of Titan that may resemble prehistoric Earth. This mission is only in the research stage though, with a possible launch in 10 years.

Team in lunar X-Prize has big plans for future.

Private firm Astrobiotic Technology announced Thursday that it plans to land a rover near the Apollo 11 landing site in May 2010 to win the Google lunar X prize competition. This challenge will award $20 million to the first team to complete all required tasks on the moon. This would seem like a worthy endeavor on its own, but their next plan is even more daring.

After that launch, they plan to launch FIVE more study possible ice deposits on the lunar poles. This will no doubt cost more than what they would get form the competition, but the president of Astrobotic, David Gump, acknowledge that these mission to the poles and other areas would benefit their investors, with all the data gathered from the rovers sent to many customers and researchers with access.

Their first post X prize plans are to send two rovers to NASA's Tranquility base to search for water (more specifically, ice) in 2011 and 2012. Other ice hunting rovers are expected to launch afterwards, with a "moon dozer" to follow past 2013.

It's also worth noting that they have an idea for a rocket to use, *cough, SpaceX!, Cough*