Science
Related: About this forumNew Horizons spacecraft halfway to Pluto
Find out more on NASA's New Horizons Mission page: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html
Wilms
(26,795 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)If Pluo is a "planet", then so are Ceres, Makemake, Sedna and especially Eris. And whatever the hell else is out there in the Kuiper belt.
Science and scientific categorizations evolve on the basis of better understanding and new data. "Grandfathering in" shit is antithetical to how science works.
BainsBane
(53,072 posts)If Pluto isn't a planet, what happens to Scorpios?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Two, any magneto-mystico-mojo "influence" from the body that we call Pluto isn't going to care what label we use to call the thing.
Three, Pluto was discovered in 1930. Astrology has been working - or not - since well before that.
Four, No one is more disappointed than me that we don't have a Planet named Eris.
Five, I don't think you were serious when you said you were serious. But I dig scorpios, man. Not everyone does! But then I'm a Gemini, so I never know what to expect.
Six, you should ask Mr. Scorpio.
BainsBane
(53,072 posts)Geminis and Scorpios don't tend to be compatible, but there is a possibility I could get along with half of you.
I wonder when they decided Scorpio ruled the planet of Pluto?
My mom is really big into astrology, so a bit of it has seeped in.
Does Mr. Scorpio know about sciencey things?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)And the Planet or Dwarf Planet or Kuiper Belt Object or Trans-Neptunian Object in question is actually named Eris, for the troublesome (or unfairly maligned, as we Erisian devotees of our Fair Lady steadfastly feel) Greek Goddess of discord or chaos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet)
leading me to suspect that Mike Brown may be a Robert Anton Wilson fan. But I digress.
And whatever the hell it is, it's bigger than Pluto.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,368 posts)There are two ways of accounting for this. One is to say that if everyone just sat around at home nothing would ever happen - this is very simple - the other is to say, as Oolon Colluphid has at great length in his book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Guilt, But Were Too Ashamed to Ask, that every being in the universe is tied to his birthplace by tiny invisible force tendrils composed of little quantum packets of guilt. If you travel far from your birthplace, these tendrils get stretched and distorted. This compares with an ancient Arcturan Proverb How ever fast the body travels, the soul travels at the speed of an Arcturan Mega-Camel. This would mean, in these days of hyperspace and Improbability Drive, that most peoples souls are wandering unprotected in deep space in a state of some confusion; and this would account for a lot of things. Similarly, if your birthplace is actually destroyed, or in Arthur Dents case demolished - ostensibly to make way for a new hyperspace bypass - then these tendrils are severed and flap about at random. There are no people to be fed or whales to be saved; there is no washing up to be done.
And these flapping tendrils of guilt can seriously disturb the space-time continuum. We have already seen how Arthur inadvertently caused war between the GGugvuntts and the Vlhurgs, we shall shortly see how it is directly attributable to this thoroughly unremarkable Earthman, that the Heart of Gold escaping from the Vogons on Improbability Drive, has now materialized in a highly mysterious cave on the even more mysterious planet Brontitall. ...
http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/THHGTTG/THHGTTGradio10.htm
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)Neil deGrasse Tyson received hate mail, and even death threats, when he campaigned to keep Pluto from being referred to as "the ninth planet." I mean, it's not like this is football, you know!
Pluto has been demoted to the status of dwarf planet, meaning that:
- it's big enough for its internal gravity to pull it into a spherical shape, and
- not large enough for its gravity to 'clear out' smaller bodies in its orbit.
To complicate things even more, all of the dwarf planets, except Ceres, are Plutoids, which simply means the major axis of their orbits lies outside the orbit of Uranus.
Ceres and Pluto are the only dwarf planets we're likely to get close looks at in the foreseeable future; there are spacecraft on the way to each body: New Horizons to Pluto and Dawn to Ceres.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)People think "oh, asteroid belt, ho hum".. But it may be far more interesting than just a big ball of rock.
sakabatou
(42,176 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)AFAIK that's the best view anyone's had so far.
sakabatou
(42,176 posts)leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)Pluto Closest Approach In:
741...09.....56..07
Days Hours Min Sec
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)Last edited Fri Jul 12, 2013, 12:49 AM - Edit history (1)
The space payload for New Horizons includes Ralph, Alice, REX, and LORRI. Yes, it's a SWAP, but why is PEPPSI involved - things could get sticky. After all that fooling around, somebody has to cleanup - who better than a student?
Ralph: Visible and infrared imager/spectrometer; provides color, composition and thermal maps.
Alice: Ultraviolet imaging spectrometer; analyzes composition and structure of Pluto's atmosphere and looks for atmospheres around Charon and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs).
REX: (Radio Science EXperiment) Measures atmospheric composition and temperature; passive radiometer.
LORRI: (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) telescopic camera; obtains encounter data at long distances, maps Pluto's farside and provides high resolution geologic data.
SWAP: (Solar Wind Around Pluto) Solar wind and plasma spectrometer; measures atmospheric "escape rate" and observes Pluto's interaction with solar wind.
PEPSSI: (Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation) Energetic particle spectrometer; measures the composition and density of plasma (ions) escaping from Pluto's atmosphere.
SDC: (Student Dust Counter) Built and operated by students; measures the space dust peppering New Horizons during its voyage across the solar system.
Right, the theme of those acronyms is just a coincidence.
Sure, this is the story NASA tells:
...but I think those crazy science folk at NASA are just hoping that the spacecraft they launched that looks like this:
...will send back a lot of photos and data about this:
Thanks for the post, LTH. I don't recall what I was doing on Jan. 19, 2006, but this is the first time I knew that our wonderful people at NASA had a mission to understand the (now ex-) planet of Pluto.