Pluto is no longer a planet. Children all over the world are grieving. Professional mnemonicists are looking forward to the business opportunity. Meanwhile, Jimmy and the Keyz sing “They Demoted Pluto” with the plaintive chorus “God, I hate the IAU!” The IAU needs to take better care of its planets. If we lose one more, the solar system will end, much like the gastrointestinal tract, at Uranus.

The Catholic Church appears to be reconsidering evolution under Pope Benedict XVI. Even his arch-conservative predecessor, John-Paul II, officially pronounced evolution to be “more than a hypothesis,” but Benedict this week said that people who follow the standard scientific understanding of evolution have been “fooled by the atheism that they carry inside of them, imagine a universe free of direction and order, as if at the mercy of chance.” His close colleague, Cardinal Schönborn, wrote a column for the New York Times last year aligning himself with the intelligent design evangelism of the Discovery Institute, and has stated as if a bald fact that “Neo-Darwinism is wrong” and claimed that John-Paul’s pronouncement on evolution was “rather vague and unimportant.” Soon Benedict, Schönborn, and other hand-picked Catholic scholars will convene to discuss the role of evolution in creation. In response, a correspondent to The Register wrote, “I too am confused as to why we need the Catholic Church to form a committee of MEN to decide what GOD thinks. Surely the answer will magically appear in a piece of burnt toast somewhere in France or Italy?”

Some time on Saturday or Sunday, the SMART-1 space probe will crash into the Moon at a velocity of 2 km/sec. The resulting crater will only be about 10 metres wide, but it should kick up an impressive dust cloud that may be visible through low-powered amateur telescopes or even binoculars. The impact site has been chosen for maximum visibility. For details on how to view it, check the ESA’s online advice here. Unfortunately, Australia may be in too much sunlight to appreciate the view. Still, the joy of smashing expensive equipment into celestial bodies cannot be overstated. This should be fun.

Addendum: How could I forget? The Hugos! The Huuuugooos! The Hugo Awards ceremony took place over the weekend. Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin won for Best Novel, when I had earlier declared it didn’t have the populist credentials to go far in ballots. I was wrong. Delightfully wrong. Over and over again the Hugos have shown that a popular award can be a better reflection of quality than an industry award. If you want to educate yourself about the recent history of science fiction, your best bet is to read all the old nominees and winners in the Hugo or the LOCUS Awards. Our own Margo Lanagan’s “Singing My Sister Down” won the first round of ballots and then garnered nothing in the subsequent rounds, which suggests to me that anyone who read it thought it was the best story, but not enough people read it because it was published in a personal collection rather than one of the majors. Well, that’s my biased take on it anyway. Connie Willis played the role of Master of Ceremonies and awarded herself Best Novella. The Hugo committee tried to take it off her, but the animal glint in her eye was enough to scare them off and they decided to let the result stand. (OK. OK. I’m making it up.) Harlan Ellison came on to present an award and, for a joke, groped Connie Willis’s breast. Sadly, this one actually happened. Ellison quickly offered a full public apology. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity. It’s a complete mea culpa. But you know, an apology is meant to be more than sincere. An apology is meant to be contrite as well. Meanwhile, Greg Egan’s Distress won the Seiun Award (not a Hugo, but presented at the same cermeony) for Best Translated Novel in Japan, which Sean McMullen accepted. This is how it went down according to a witness who was on another continent at the time.