Pluto Flyby

[Stratoblaster]

The New Horizon probe got very close to Pluto today and sent back an amazing picture of the surface; it's pretty cool to see a detailed image of Pluto for the first time ever...

Pluto mission: NASA's New Horizons 'phones home' - CNN.com

I still consider it a planet heh...

 

[KG MD]

It's my understanding the high resolution pictures from the closest approach haven't even been sent yet. Tomorrow may have some truly amazing images.

 

[Stratoblaster]

It's my understanding the high resolution pictures from the closest approach haven't even been sent yet. Tomorrow may have some truly amazing images.

Oh yea I'm really looking forward to those...it's 'cosmic' that this Pluto flyby comes on the 50th anniversary of the first flyby of Mars by the Mariner 4 probe which was the first to capture close up images of another planet...neatly bookends the start and finish of probe missions to visit every planet in our solar system.

 

[bammbamm]

Too bad we won't be able to flyby to another solar system in my lifetime.

 

[guitarded]

It may be common knowledge, but I just read it yesterday...
The craft it carrying the ashes of Pluto's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh on board.
Just and interesting FYI.

 

[Robboman]

I still consider it a planet heh...

Wait, something's not right...

 

[Stratoblaster]

^^^^ that's no planet...it's a....space station....!

Love the pic...funny...

 

[Stratoblaster]

Too bad we won't be able to flyby to another solar system in my lifetime.

Yea I agree that would be incredible, but in my lifetime we've probed all the planets in our solar system which is an accomplishment of epic proportions so I'm content with that....amazing discoveries and pictures.

 

[mnemonic]

It's my understanding the high resolution pictures from the closest approach haven't even been sent yet. Tomorrow may have some truly amazing images.

IIRC it will take about 16 months for all the pictures to be transmitted back to earth. NASA's pictures are pretty high resolution, and when you're transmitting using a 10 watt radio transmitter that's billions of miles away, well... not the fastest transfer speed.

 

[axifist]

Cool mission, totally useless for our daily life, but well, since we can do it, we seem to be somehow forced to do it. Still, it's better for scientists to use their knowledge to do such missions than to focus on stuff like new weapons etc. From that point of view I'm ok with it.

But still, Pluto isn't a planet, never should have been one and hopefully never will be one again! Or do you think it makes sense to have hundreds of tiny objects called "planet" and on the other hand also call Jupiter, which almost became a star, "planet"? Pluto is a big asteroid, big enough to be spherical, no more, no less.

 

[mnemonic]

Cool mission, totally useless for our daily life, but well, since we can do it, we seem to be somehow forced to do it. Still, it's better for scientists to use their knowledge to do such missions than to focus on stuff like new weapons etc. From that point of view I'm ok with it.

But still, Pluto isn't a planet, never should have been one and hopefully never will be one again! Or do you think it makes sense to have hundreds of tiny objects called "planet" and on the other hand also call Jupiter, which almost became a star, "planet"? Pluto is a big asteroid, big enough to be spherical, no more, no less.

you mad?

 

[BigD1977]

Cool mission, totally useless for our daily life, but well, since we can do it, we seem to be somehow forced to do it. Still, it's better for scientists to use their knowledge to do such missions than to focus on stuff like new weapons etc. From that point of view I'm ok with it.

But still, Pluto isn't a planet, never should have been one and hopefully never will be one again! Or do you think it makes sense to have hundreds of tiny objects called "planet" and on the other hand also call Jupiter, which almost became a star, "planet"? Pluto is a big asteroid, big enough to be spherical, no more, no less.

Oooo, I don't know about it being a useless mission. Science thrives on experimentation and happy accidents! After all, penicillin was an accidental discovery and who knows what these probes will find.

What intrigues me is the sheer scale involved. Pluto is over 5 billion km away, which is a number that people throw about. After all, there's over 5 billion people on the planet and it can become quite blasé to throw these numbers around. However, when you consider that it takes about 8 minutes for the suns light to reach us here.... but light from Pluto takes 4 hours..... it's a sharp reminder of how big 5 billion actually is and our place in the solar system.

Right, I'm back to my Saturday drinks.

 

[Jul]

Cool mission, totally useless for our daily life, but well, since we can do it, we seem to be somehow forced to do it. Still, it's better for scientists to use their knowledge to do such missions than to focus on stuff like new weapons etc. From that point of view I'm ok with it.

But still, Pluto isn't a planet, never should have been one and hopefully never will be one again! Or do you think it makes sense to have hundreds of tiny objects called "planet" and on the other hand also call Jupiter, which almost became a star, "planet"? Pluto is a big asteroid, big enough to be spherical, no more, no less.

As a result of this mission, Pluto diameter recalculated to be 1470 miles and it has a few moons as well... hardly an asteroid!
Opinionated + Ingnorant = Troublesome

 

[Zwiebelchen]

What intrigues me is the sheer scale involved.

Scale has always been the fascinating thing about space.

It's amazing how uneducated people underestimate astronomical distances and scales. Often to the factor of millions.


Pluto was the last bastion of our solar system before entering the Kuiper Belt. And we can't even start to imagine what wonders will wait for us there. We already know of the existance of at least 4 more planets of the scale of Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. I hope we will eventually also see pictures of Eris and Makemake over the next decade, when New Horizons actually dives deep into the Kuiper Belt.

Beyond that... is just endless darkness. No manmade object will ever reach the Oort Cloud in it's lifetime, which is probably still the biggest mystery of our Solar System.


Douglas Adams put it best:
"Space is big. Really big. I mean, you might think it's a long way down to the street to the chemist, but that's peanuts compared to space, listen!... "



Another fascinating thing about Pluto that puzzles me: how does Pluto have alpine-like mountains? Pluto is only 100.000.000 years old. Way too young for mountaints that large to form naturally. Also, it has no hot core to fuel any tectonic plate movement.
Asteroid impacts? But then where are all the craters?

 

[axifist]

No I'm not mad and my opinion just happens to be the same as the IAU when they downgraded Pluto. In fact, back when I was a child and learned about planets, I always wondered, why Pluto seems so different (small, strange orbit). Now I know it better Like I said, Pluto really is very small, it's big among asteroids, but too small for a planet. The new definition of "planet" is: It has to be big enough to have spherical form and big enough to "clean" its orbit around the sun. The first criteria is met by Pluto, the second one isn't. That's why the term "dwarf planet" was defined for those objects, which are spherical, but still surrounded by other objects. I think this term "dwarf planet" isn't really necessary, but well ... ok fine

Another argument for not calling Pluto "planet" is its actual orbit. All real planets orbit the sun in one layer, Pluto has a completely different layer. Just look, how planets come into existence and you'll see, that Pluto cannot be a planet!

Still, despite everything, the pictures are fascinating! Those mountains (most probably made of pure ice afaik) seem very unlikely to be there. Let's wait and see, what theories the scientists come up with

 

[Zwiebelchen]

No I'm not mad and my opinion just happens to be the same as the IAU when they downgraded Pluto. In fact, back when I was a child and learned about planets, I always wondered, why Pluto seems so different (small, strange orbit). Now I know it better Like I said, Pluto really is very small, it's big among asteroids, but too small for a planet. The new definition of "planet" is: It has to be big enough to have spherical form and big enough to "clean" its orbit around the sun. The first criteria is met by Pluto, the second one isn't. That's why the term "dwarf planet" was defined for those objects, which are spherical, but still surrounded by other objects. I think this term "dwarf planet" isn't really necessary, but well ... ok fine

Another argument for not calling Pluto "planet" is its actual orbit. All real planets orbit the sun in one layer, Pluto has a completely different layer. Just look, how planets come into existence and you'll see, that Pluto cannot be a planet!

Still, despite everything, the pictures are fascinating! Those mountains (most probably made of pure ice afaik) seem very unlikely to be there. Let's wait and see, what theories the scientists come up with

Actually, the inclination does not matter in the definition of planets of the the IAU, which are:
1. is in orbit around the Sun,
2. has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
3. has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.

The reason why Pluto has a different inclination is actually just a theory yet. It's assumed that Triton, a large moon of Neptune, catapulted it out of it's original path. The reason why all planets are complanar is due to conservation of angular momentum; basicly, all planets inherited the angular momentum of the solar system when it was formed. Any large enough influence from the outside can distort this orbit.

 

[Stratoblaster]

Another fascinating thing about Pluto that puzzles me: how does Pluto have alpine-like mountains? Pluto is only 100.000.000 years old. Way too young for mountaints that large to form naturally. Also, it has no hot core to fuel any tectonic plate movement.
Asteroid impacts? But then where are all the craters?

I'm also finding the formation of mountains fascinating as well as the fact they are not finding meteor craters. There are large, deep canyons discovered in one of the moons as well. It would seem the geological processes forming these features is a bit mysterious.

Also, considering the Kuiper belt has over 100,000 objects that can be considered 'worlds' some additional discoveries and surprised no doubt await.

I was reading about the data transfer rates from the probe -> Earth and it's a whopping 125 Bps!! Takes ~40 minutes to send a single image back. I think it's amazing they can even do that.

Very cool pictures indeed...incredible to see the details of objects 4 billion miles away. I love the human spirit and drive for exploration...

 

[mnemonic]

One other important thing we can learn from studying Pluto and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, even if they're not planets, is how planets in our solar system were formed. The idea is that all the stuff in the Kuiper Belt is left over from when the planets originally formed, kind of in suspended animation, how things were however many billions of years ago when the planets formed.

Thats one thing that I don't believe we've been able to study with the probes sent to other planets in our solar system.

 

[mr_fender]

 

[axifist]

[...]is actually just a theory yet.

In physics, EVERYTHING is theory. Some theories have been better proven to be NOT WRONG (yet!), some are just too new. In physics, there is no "This is right!".

Btw, that's one reason why "After all we know from Einstein, Newton was totally wrong!" doesn't make sense. They were both right!