Pluto

[TravelGal]

Anyone watching? http://www.space.com/

NB, Dando, this is not about the dog. :gomer:

[Napoleon]

I love it - "Watch Live". Of course there is a 4 1/2 hour delay due to the time it takes for the signal to travel from the spacecraft.

[dando]

Anyone watching? http://www.space.com/

NB, Dando, this is not about the dog. :gomer:

:p

[dando]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589

[cameraman]

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJ4cySfUcAAJSdh.jpg


The real kick is the best photographs will take several weeks to download from New Horizons. All we are seeing at the moment are the compressed thumbnails.

[cameraman]

Can't embed twitter video:irked:

http://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CJ4MRJdUYAAWt98.mp4

[nrc]

Looks like a planet to me.

[KLang]

Looks like a planet to me.

Yup.

[Gnam]

The new view of Pluto reminds me of the Allheart symbol Will Smith painted on the Moon in that movie 'Hancock'.

http://s3.postimg.org/muzgwfjab/hancockhm_8321.png

[dando]

773

Meh. ;)

[TravelGal]

^^^ Expected that. :laugh:

From Space.com ....."July 14 will not mark the end of the $700 million mission; New Horizons will continue beaming flyby data home for months afterward, and it may cruise past a second distant object in 2019, if NASA approves and funds a proposed mission extension."
"IF" :thumbdown: :shakehead:

Still, I'll take what we have today and cheer. Resolution improving by two orders of magnitude. Hooray!

[G.]

and it may cruise past a second distant object in 2019, if NASA approves and funds a proposed mission extension."
"IF" :thumbdown: :shakehead:

This is actually pretty cool.

They launched the craft 9 years ago (or whatever) with the intent of doing a flyby of "something" in the Kuiper belt. They didn't have the ability to identify which "something" they wanted to look at in the belt at launch time.

Now they can.

I believe that there are 3 choices for the next flyby. They haven't figured out which one they want yet.




"Hey, let's launch this sucker. We'll figure out what to do with it later." - NASA Mission Statement

[G.]

when New Horizons hit its target nearly 3 billion miles (4.8 billion km) from Earth, a feat Fountain likened to sinking a hole-in-one on a golf shot from New York City to Los Angeles.

I would liken it to launching a craft from an imperfect launchpad, and hitting a target 3 BILLION ****ing miles away.

Don't they use this stupid LA-to-NY thing for every launch?




"The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness, its alien beauty," Stern said Tuesday (July 13) during a NASA news conference. "We are already seeing complex and nuanced surfaces that tell us of a history for these two bodies [Pluto and Charon] that is probably beyond our wildest dreams on the science team."

Translation: "Yep. Looks pretty boring to us, as well. The geology geeks are pretty pumped though.":gomer:
:laugh:


Are any of the scientists wearing a shirt with pinup girls on it?
Have the internet sleuths discovered any man-made artifacts yet?

[dando]

http://www.space.com/29929-pluto-flyby-new-horizons-spacecraft.html

Is it a planet or not?

[Napoleon]

Is it a planet or not?

Not - I will defend the decision to de-planetize Pluto. Heck, its not even the biggest dwarf planet. Mercury, the smallest planet, is much larger then it, our moon in fact is a lot larger then it (in fact 7 moons in the solar system are larger than it). One of its moons is large enough compared to it that basically it operates as a binary planet, whereas the Earth's Moon just causes tides on Earth.

Its a dwarf planet.


:tony:

[Napoleon]

PS, This was interesting and may help explain why people considered Pluto a planet in the first place. This is the NY Times story announcing its discovery where it is mentioned that Pluto maybe a big as Jupiter. (by the way, I love looking at the other stories in that same paper. There is one mentioning Gov Roosevelt and of course prohibition).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/07/science/space/march-30-1930-pluto-is-discovered.html?rref=science/space

[dando]

For TG...

http://blogs.disney.com/oh-my-disney/2015/07/14/breaking-new-video-of-pluto-on-pluto/?CMP=SOC-TWITTER20150714210452

:D

[Gnam]

If it's round and goes around the sun in a mostly circular orbit, then it's a planet.

http://s2.postimg.org/whftyd389/187363223_640.jpg

[Napoleon]

If it's round and goes around the sun in a mostly circular orbit, then it's a planet.

Thing is, there are dozens and dozens of such objects.

There are 19 such objects that are not moons that are bigger than 400km across. Doing a quick and dirty count, between 200km and 400km in diameter are 57 objects that appear to circle the sun in a mostly circular orbit, which according to Wiki "most" are likely round (29 would be most of 57). That gives you a total of 48 such objects. Unless your definition is used some kind of somewhat arbitrary line needs to be drawn, and if they let Pluto in they have to call Eris a planet (remember, its discovery, and a bunch of other objects in the mid 2000s around Plutos size was what basically set off the move to de-planetize Pluto) and likely a few more, and Pluto and Eris are just the perfect place to draw the line just before (weird orbits, noticeably smaller, etc).

[cameraman]

If it's round and goes around the sun in a mostly circular orbit, then it's a planet.

Aaaaah nope. Not unless you're calling Ceres a planet.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2015/01/15/dawn-ceres/assets/150507-PIA19558.jpg

[TravelGal]

Nappy, facts are so tiresome. I learned it was a planet so it's a planet. [spoken like the true TG :tony: ]

[cameraman]

What we often forget is how small Mars is.

http://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9d/db/29/9ddb29e809287b1cd18fc1854dde1b64.jpg

[TravelGal]

Beautiful illustration cameraman. Thanks. Reading all those names, "moon" is pretty mundane, isn't it?

[Napoleon]

774

[Napoleon]

775

776

[Napoleon]

That gives you a total of 48 such objects.

Awesome, I have PBS news on and they ran a clip from a Nova program on Pluto where the guy who pushed to demote Pluto says regarding the discovery of Eris something like (and the number is the number he gave) "so what were we to do, call Eris the 52nd planet?"

[Gnam]

Thing is, there are dozens and dozens of such objects.

There are 19 such objects that are not moons that are bigger than 400km across. Doing a quick and dirty count, between 200km and 400km in diameter are 57 objects that appear to circle the sun in a mostly circular orbit, which according to Wiki "most" are likely round (29 would be most of 57). That gives you a total of 48 such objects. Unless your definition is used some kind of somewhat arbitrary line needs to be drawn, and if they let Pluto in they have to call Eris a planet (remember, its discovery, and a bunch of other objects in the mid 2000s around Plutos size was what basically set off the move to de-planetize Pluto) and likely a few more, and Pluto and Eris are just the perfect place to draw the line just before (weird orbits, noticeably smaller, etc).
Eris' orbit is not round. It's not a planet.

http://s22.postimg.org/4brc3phoh/Eris_Orbit.gif

Also, if an object orbits in the asteroid belt, like Ceres does, it's an asteroid.

[Napoleon]

Eris' orbit is not round. It's not a planet.

Neither is Pluto's, which crosses Neptune's orbit

[datachicane]

Ruh roh.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-voe7ufHKRfE/VabpW2ouytI/AAAAAAAAF4I/w5CZH1OMEWo/s800-Ic42/11707543_10153510725272265_9097203344462555825_n.j pg

[SteveH]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/15/science/space/new-horizons-pluto-flyby-photos.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

[chop456]

Ruh roh.


That's no moon.

[chop456]

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pluto-observations-through-the-years.gif


This animation combines various observations of Pluto over the course of several decades. The first frame is a digital zoom-in on Pluto as it appeared upon its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 (image courtesy Lowell Observatory Archives). The other images show various views of Pluto as seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope beginning in the 1990s and NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The final sequence zooms in to a close-up frame of Pluto released on July 15, 2015.

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto

[nissan gtp]

really interesting mission, last of the "first look" missions. too bad the data transmission rate is so low.

[SteveH]

really interesting mission, last of the "first look" missions. too bad the data transmission rate is so low.

Well it is moving away from us :tony: