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there was a mars orb which was loss in the 90's because the engineers incorrectly converted from english to the metric system lol
Pluto Flyby powered by a Playstation 1
- Thread in 'General' Thread starter Started by crcballer55,
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there was a mars orb which was loss in the 90's because the engineers incorrectly converted from english to the metric system lol
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^gravity son. I forget what the number is, but once a silicate (rocky) object reaches a certain mass, it's own gravity is strong enough to shape it into a sphere.
Jupiter has more mass than anything in the solar system, except the sun of course, yet is mostly hydrogen/helium which are the two lightest elements in the universe making it VERY easy for Jupiter to make itself spherical.
Jupiter though isn't a perfect sphere because it spins so fast (11hr days), so it actually bulges at the equator.
Space
That's what I'm sayin, this stuff is just remarkable. Space is just amazing.
Word, that's better than waiting 9 years for it to come back in order to get the photos. These photos got me excited like I'm waitin for a package to come in the mail.
AIR J XIII
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Pluto is cool and all, but it must have been downright AMAZING when the two Voyager probes returned the first pictures of the gas giants back in the late 70s/80s.
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Still is amazing! IMO, I'm still amazed that it's only been 50 years since we saw the other side of our own moon.
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Thanks for upping...
View media item 1643120
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solid nitrogen...
View media item 1643120
View media item 1643121
View media item 1643122
solid nitrogen...
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Imagine the Sub Zero ice cream you could make!
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NASA has always had the best tech cameras. Even the Apollo photos still look crisp. Smh at textbooks coloring Pluto blue.
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Cool article on the complexities of the Pluto system.
http://space.io9.com/pluto-is-something-way-more-awesome-than-a-mere-planet-1719807379
Stop hoping that Pluto will regain its former designation as a planet. It isn’t going to happen. But the good news is, Pluto is something much cooler than a mere planet. It’s the largest dwarf planet we know, and one half of the first binary planet system. Pluto didn’t get demoted, it got promoted.
We’re all feeling the Pluto-love, with all the new data flowing in from the New Horizons probe. I keep getting asked, “When will we get the ‘Pluto is a planet again!’ article? Or is it silly and nostalgic to hope?” That article isn’t coming—but instead of sorrow over Pluto losing its old title, I’m celebrating all the awesome titles getting piled on to this little world after its reclassification.
I am in love with Pluto and all its moons. I love the weirdly young surface. I love its strange thermal-driven geomorphology. I love that I’m constantly surprised by all its mysteries. But Pluto isn’t a planet, and I’m happy for it. Ever since Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet, it’s been piling on far cooler titles. See for yourself!
[h4]The Largest of the Dwarf Planets, and the King of the Kuiper Belt[/h4]
Instead of being the very smallest planet, Pluto is confirmed as the largest dwarf planet. We had trouble measuring the world’s size from afar due to the haze of its thin atmosphere creating a fuzzy mirage. The New Horizons probe finally pinned down its size: 2,370 kilometers (1,473 miles) in diameter with a potential error of ±20 kilometers (12 miles). This means that Pluto is the undisputed largest dwarf planet. The next in line is Eris, with a diameter of 2,336 kilometers (1,451 miles) with an error of ±12 kilometers (7 miles). Even if Pluto is at the very smallest end of its potential size range and Eris at the very top of its range, Pluto still comes out bigger as the largest dwarf planet.
It’s close, but Pluto narrowly edges out Eris for title of the largest dwarf planet. It also gets a more interesting moon system, even if it is less dense. Image credit: NASA
This also means Pluto is slightly larger than our earlier estimates—which means that it is a bit less dense, with a larger proportion of ice layered onto the active world. A deeper layer of ice means, in turn, that the troposphere is lower than our previous atmospheric models. The weirdest bit is that this also means that Pluto is less dense than Eris, which is smaller yet heavier. For all the strange wonders we’re finding at Pluto, whatever is going on at the next-largest dwarf planet Eris is going to be entirely different.
The dwarf planets in our solar system are located in two places: in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. Like the main asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt is full of dwarf planets, jagged asteroids, and shards of ice. Being largest of the dwarf planets also makes Pluto the de facto King of the Kuiper Belt.
[h4]The Namesake of Both the Plutoids and the Plutinos[/h4]
Classifying objects serves a function by organizing similar objects together to make them easier to analyze. Despite our nostalgic affection for classifying Pluto a planet, its dramatically eccentric, inclined orbit makes it stand out as the outlier in a game of, “Which of these is not like the others?” Instead, the dwarf planet is the namesake for an entirely new class of solar system objects: the plutoids.
Pluto’s orbit is far too eccentric and inclined to match the planets in the rest of the solar system. Image credit: NASA
Plutoids are dwarf planets outside of Neptune’s orbit. These trans-Neptonian objects have highly elliptical orbits that send them on journeys outside the plane defined by the rest of the planets in our solar system. As dwarf planets, these bodies are massive enough to be near-spheres, but not so massive that they clear out their orbit. In a more technical definition, every plutoid is massive enough that their self-gravity overcomes rigid body forces so they’re in hydrostatic equilibrium (aka, spherical), but not massive enough to gravitationally dominate their orbit.
While some moons are big enough to border on dwarf planets, any satellite of a plutoid is a moon, not a plutoid.
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Pluto is the namesake of the plutoids, dwarf planets in trans-Neptunian orbits. Image credit: NASA
Pluto and Eris are both plutoids with orbits farther out than Neptune. But Ceres isn’t a plutoid because it’s located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Haumea and Makemake are also plutoids, and Quaoar might be one. Sedna may be a plutoid, but it doesn’t have a moon so we won’t know its mass (and thus if it’s massive enough to be a sphere) unless we send a probe out to investigate. It’s also possible that Neptune’s largest moon Triton is actually a former plutoid that was captured into orbit around the gas giant.
Pluto is also the namesake of plutinos, which are any trans-Neptonian object of any size that are in orbital resonance with Neptune. Most plutinos have an orbital period about 1.5 times that of Neptune, clustering with an average of 247 years to make a complete trip around the sun. Along with Pluto, other plutinos include Orcus, Ixion, Huya, and an entire scattering of objects that still wear more dull monikers like 2002 VR[sub]128[/sub], 2004 UX[sub]10[/sub], and 1999 TC[sub]36[/sub].
[h4]Our First Binary Planetary System[/h4]
By far the coolest title Pluto has earned isn’t a solo title, but a joint honor shared with Charon. Charon is Pluto’s largest moon: at half the diameter of Pluto and 10% of its mass, Charon is the largest moon in relation to its primary world in our entire solar system. Charon is big enough that if it weren’t orbiting Pluto, it’d be a dwarf planet in its own right.
The mass ratio between parent and moon for Pluto and Charon is 10:1, far closer to parity than the usual hundreds to one of terrestrial planet-moon systems, or the thousands or even tens of thousands to one of the mass of gas giants to their diminutive moons.
Pluto and Charon mutually orbit their barycenter in these photographs taken b the New Horizons spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
That’s where things get interesting: Charon orbits Pluto, and Pluto orbits Charon. The center of mass between the two worlds — the barycenter — is in empty space, not nestled within Pluto’s rocky core. This goes beyond the distinct wobble that our moon induces in Earth’s orbit—instead, this creates a distinct point that both Pluto and Charon orbit around.
When it comes to stars, any time the barycenter of two stars’ orbit is beyond the surface of the primary object, and is instead out in space somewhere, that’s enough to declare them a binary star system. The same is true for asteroids — we’ve found asteroid pairs with barycenters outside both rocks, and declared them binary asteroid systems. Since the barycenter of Pluto and Charon is an empty point in space, surely that means that Pluto-Charon a binary planetary system. This would make Pluto and Charon not only the first binary planet system in our solar system, but the first one we’ve found among the literally hundreds of Kepler exoplanet worlds.
Pluto and Charon are tidally locked in orbit around a mutual barycenter. Image credit: Stephanie Hoover
One final argument in favor of listing Pluto and Charon as a binary dwarf planet system is that they are the undeniable pair dominating all the little moons. Nix and Hydra are the larger of the remaining moons, but are just a tiny fraction of a percent of the size of Charon. Styx and Kerberos are even smaller yet. This family of tiny moons doesn’t even orbit Pluto directly: they all orbit the barycenter between Charon and Pluto.
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Pluto, Charon, Nix, and Hydra to scale in both size and distance. Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/SwRI/Emily Lakdawalla
The dance of the tiny moons is even stranger than just the fact that they orbit Pluto-Charon: they also interact with each other, inducing severe gravitational wobbles when they get too close in a bizarre dance we’re just starting to understand.
The smaller moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra orbit the gravitational center between Pluto and Charon. Image credit: NASA/STScI/Showalter
We’re not the only ones making this argument. The notorious International Astronomy Union (IAU) who originally redefined Pluto away from being a planet are open about their receptiveness to reclassifying Charon from moon to dwarf planet:
Pluto is far cooler than a mere planet. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto doesn’t need to be a planet to be cool. We already have eight planets. Instead of being the smallest of the four rocky, terrestrial worlds, Pluto gets to be something truly special. It’s a geological mystery, the first Kuiper Belt object we’ve ever studied, and a constant source of scientific surprises. With all these awesome titles — the most massive dwarf planet, the namesake of an entire classification of solar system objects, and the primary body in the first binary planetary system of any variety — Pluto was never downgraded. Instead, it was upgraded to become something far more interesting.
http://space.io9.com/pluto-is-something-way-more-awesome-than-a-mere-planet-1719807379
Stop hoping that Pluto will regain its former designation as a planet. It isn’t going to happen. But the good news is, Pluto is something much cooler than a mere planet. It’s the largest dwarf planet we know, and one half of the first binary planet system. Pluto didn’t get demoted, it got promoted.
We’re all feeling the Pluto-love, with all the new data flowing in from the New Horizons probe. I keep getting asked, “When will we get the ‘Pluto is a planet again!’ article? Or is it silly and nostalgic to hope?” That article isn’t coming—but instead of sorrow over Pluto losing its old title, I’m celebrating all the awesome titles getting piled on to this little world after its reclassification.
I am in love with Pluto and all its moons. I love the weirdly young surface. I love its strange thermal-driven geomorphology. I love that I’m constantly surprised by all its mysteries. But Pluto isn’t a planet, and I’m happy for it. Ever since Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet, it’s been piling on far cooler titles. See for yourself!
[h4]The Largest of the Dwarf Planets, and the King of the Kuiper Belt[/h4]
Instead of being the very smallest planet, Pluto is confirmed as the largest dwarf planet. We had trouble measuring the world’s size from afar due to the haze of its thin atmosphere creating a fuzzy mirage. The New Horizons probe finally pinned down its size: 2,370 kilometers (1,473 miles) in diameter with a potential error of ±20 kilometers (12 miles). This means that Pluto is the undisputed largest dwarf planet. The next in line is Eris, with a diameter of 2,336 kilometers (1,451 miles) with an error of ±12 kilometers (7 miles). Even if Pluto is at the very smallest end of its potential size range and Eris at the very top of its range, Pluto still comes out bigger as the largest dwarf planet.
It’s close, but Pluto narrowly edges out Eris for title of the largest dwarf planet. It also gets a more interesting moon system, even if it is less dense. Image credit: NASA
This also means Pluto is slightly larger than our earlier estimates—which means that it is a bit less dense, with a larger proportion of ice layered onto the active world. A deeper layer of ice means, in turn, that the troposphere is lower than our previous atmospheric models. The weirdest bit is that this also means that Pluto is less dense than Eris, which is smaller yet heavier. For all the strange wonders we’re finding at Pluto, whatever is going on at the next-largest dwarf planet Eris is going to be entirely different.
The dwarf planets in our solar system are located in two places: in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. Like the main asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt is full of dwarf planets, jagged asteroids, and shards of ice. Being largest of the dwarf planets also makes Pluto the de facto King of the Kuiper Belt.
[h4]The Namesake of Both the Plutoids and the Plutinos[/h4]
Classifying objects serves a function by organizing similar objects together to make them easier to analyze. Despite our nostalgic affection for classifying Pluto a planet, its dramatically eccentric, inclined orbit makes it stand out as the outlier in a game of, “Which of these is not like the others?” Instead, the dwarf planet is the namesake for an entirely new class of solar system objects: the plutoids.
Pluto’s orbit is far too eccentric and inclined to match the planets in the rest of the solar system. Image credit: NASA
Plutoids are dwarf planets outside of Neptune’s orbit. These trans-Neptonian objects have highly elliptical orbits that send them on journeys outside the plane defined by the rest of the planets in our solar system. As dwarf planets, these bodies are massive enough to be near-spheres, but not so massive that they clear out their orbit. In a more technical definition, every plutoid is massive enough that their self-gravity overcomes rigid body forces so they’re in hydrostatic equilibrium (aka, spherical), but not massive enough to gravitationally dominate their orbit.
While some moons are big enough to border on dwarf planets, any satellite of a plutoid is a moon, not a plutoid.
Pluto is the namesake of the plutoids, dwarf planets in trans-Neptunian orbits. Image credit: NASA
Pluto and Eris are both plutoids with orbits farther out than Neptune. But Ceres isn’t a plutoid because it’s located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Haumea and Makemake are also plutoids, and Quaoar might be one. Sedna may be a plutoid, but it doesn’t have a moon so we won’t know its mass (and thus if it’s massive enough to be a sphere) unless we send a probe out to investigate. It’s also possible that Neptune’s largest moon Triton is actually a former plutoid that was captured into orbit around the gas giant.
Pluto is also the namesake of plutinos, which are any trans-Neptonian object of any size that are in orbital resonance with Neptune. Most plutinos have an orbital period about 1.5 times that of Neptune, clustering with an average of 247 years to make a complete trip around the sun. Along with Pluto, other plutinos include Orcus, Ixion, Huya, and an entire scattering of objects that still wear more dull monikers like 2002 VR[sub]128[/sub], 2004 UX[sub]10[/sub], and 1999 TC[sub]36[/sub].
[h4]Our First Binary Planetary System[/h4]
By far the coolest title Pluto has earned isn’t a solo title, but a joint honor shared with Charon. Charon is Pluto’s largest moon: at half the diameter of Pluto and 10% of its mass, Charon is the largest moon in relation to its primary world in our entire solar system. Charon is big enough that if it weren’t orbiting Pluto, it’d be a dwarf planet in its own right.
The mass ratio between parent and moon for Pluto and Charon is 10:1, far closer to parity than the usual hundreds to one of terrestrial planet-moon systems, or the thousands or even tens of thousands to one of the mass of gas giants to their diminutive moons.
Pluto and Charon mutually orbit their barycenter in these photographs taken b the New Horizons spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
That’s where things get interesting: Charon orbits Pluto, and Pluto orbits Charon. The center of mass between the two worlds — the barycenter — is in empty space, not nestled within Pluto’s rocky core. This goes beyond the distinct wobble that our moon induces in Earth’s orbit—instead, this creates a distinct point that both Pluto and Charon orbit around.
When it comes to stars, any time the barycenter of two stars’ orbit is beyond the surface of the primary object, and is instead out in space somewhere, that’s enough to declare them a binary star system. The same is true for asteroids — we’ve found asteroid pairs with barycenters outside both rocks, and declared them binary asteroid systems. Since the barycenter of Pluto and Charon is an empty point in space, surely that means that Pluto-Charon a binary planetary system. This would make Pluto and Charon not only the first binary planet system in our solar system, but the first one we’ve found among the literally hundreds of Kepler exoplanet worlds.
Pluto and Charon are tidally locked in orbit around a mutual barycenter. Image credit: Stephanie Hoover
One final argument in favor of listing Pluto and Charon as a binary dwarf planet system is that they are the undeniable pair dominating all the little moons. Nix and Hydra are the larger of the remaining moons, but are just a tiny fraction of a percent of the size of Charon. Styx and Kerberos are even smaller yet. This family of tiny moons doesn’t even orbit Pluto directly: they all orbit the barycenter between Charon and Pluto.
Pluto, Charon, Nix, and Hydra to scale in both size and distance. Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/SwRI/Emily Lakdawalla
The dance of the tiny moons is even stranger than just the fact that they orbit Pluto-Charon: they also interact with each other, inducing severe gravitational wobbles when they get too close in a bizarre dance we’re just starting to understand.
The smaller moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra orbit the gravitational center between Pluto and Charon. Image credit: NASA/STScI/Showalter
We’re not the only ones making this argument. The notorious International Astronomy Union (IAU) who originally redefined Pluto away from being a planet are open about their receptiveness to reclassifying Charon from moon to dwarf planet:
The IAU considered a proposal to name Pluto and Charon as a binary system in 2006. It was neither accepted nor rejected, but instead was merely abandoned, as they went on to more pressing issues of nomenclature and classification. That leaves the organization open to giving Pluto and Charon their rightly-earned title as the first binary planetary system, and the first binary dwarf planets.
Pluto is far cooler than a mere planet. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto doesn’t need to be a planet to be cool. We already have eight planets. Instead of being the smallest of the four rocky, terrestrial worlds, Pluto gets to be something truly special. It’s a geological mystery, the first Kuiper Belt object we’ve ever studied, and a constant source of scientific surprises. With all these awesome titles — the most massive dwarf planet, the namesake of an entire classification of solar system objects, and the primary body in the first binary planetary system of any variety — Pluto was never downgraded. Instead, it was upgraded to become something far more interesting.
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One question I've always had is how does ice not form on the camera of the spacecraft? Does the Plutonium combine with the lack of warmth to regulate the spacecraft?
AIR J XIII
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Ice can't form from nothing, the temperatures don't really matter in a vacuum.
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pluto images from over the years...
View media item 1655921
here are 2 of plutos small moons...
View media item 1655922
View media item 1655921
here are 2 of plutos small moons...
View media item 1655922
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Even though we can't make out Styx and Kerberos, it's pretty cool to see we can actually see them now especially since that used to be the resolution we had of Pluto. Not to mention they're 2.6 Billion miles from earth and they're about the size of my morning commute.
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Man, how I'd love to have an opportunity to travel through out the solar system.
I wish space technology allowed people to travel that far.
I wish NASA scheduled another trip to the moon.
I wish space technology allowed people to travel that far.
I wish NASA scheduled another trip to the moon.
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Buzz Aldrin is lobbying pretty hard to send people to Mars.
Sidenote, he's a pretty good follow on Facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/buzzaldrin
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T Lo Sweater
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Cool as it is being in space that long is so bad for the human body. They gotta find a way to make the trip faster
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If they land on Mars, the gravitational effects should offset some of the zero G's They'll experience on the way there and back.
Pretty sure they're working on it. They already made the Pluto trip about a year faster than planned, but I think that may have had something to do with Jupiter's gravity.
