On Thursday, NASA launched the Iris spacecraft on a Pegasus rocket to examine a little-studied region of the sun that it hopes will improve space weather prediction. The satellite was air-launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Thursday evening.

The goal is to learn more about how this mysterious region drives solar wind (a stream of charged particles spewing from the sun) and to better predict space weather that can disrupt communications signals on Earth.

The mission will last two years and will cost US$182 million. Now, normally we wouldn't report on such things, but the if you click on the thumbnail of the mission patch to the left (created for each and every space mission - manned and unmanned) you will see it is a little different this time, and hints at a Pink Floyd fan within the design team of NASA... Our thanks to Tim Taylor for alerting us to this info.