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Science (non-SETI) :
Pluto is a Planet!
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Eldart Send message Joined: 11 May 15 Posts: 4 Credit: 39,762 RAC: 0 |
Pluto and Charon capturing all those moons. They probably have a real strong gravitational pull together acting as a sort of binary system, Me too. Greetings . |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Welcome to the boards Eldart! |
Eldart Send message Joined: 11 May 15 Posts: 4 Credit: 39,762 RAC: 0 |
I am delighted to be part of this. Thank you very much Lynn! |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34054 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
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Eldart Send message Joined: 11 May 15 Posts: 4 Credit: 39,762 RAC: 0 |
Thanks Julie, best regards. ACK!! ACK!! AAACK!! |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
Welcome. Maybe Aliens are annoying... Close Encounters of the Annoying Kind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGJK5xFqm7Q |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Pluto in the 3 images has dark patches all over it's surface. Which could indicate, geological processes at work. It also looks like there could be snow/ice, etc to. It doesn't look like it will be dull. NASA’s New Horizons Sees More Detail as It Draws Closer to Pluto What a difference 20 million miles makes! Images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft are growing in scale as the spacecraft approaches its mysterious target. The new images, taken May 8-12 using a powerful telescopic camera and downlinked last week, reveal more detail about Pluto’s complex and high contrast surface. These images show Pluto in the latest series of New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) photos, taken May 8-12, 2015, compared to LORRI images taken one month earlier. In the month between these image sets, New Horizons’ distance to Pluto decreased from 68 million miles (110 million kilometers) to 47 million miles (75 million kilometers), as the spacecraft speeds toward a close encounter with the Pluto system in mid-July. The April images are shown on the left, with the May images on the right. All have been rotated to align Pluto’s rotational axis with the vertical direction (up-down), as depicted schematically in the center panel. Between April and May, Pluto appears to get larger as the spacecraft gets closer, with Pluto’s apparent size increasing by approximately 50 percent. Pluto rotates around its axis every 6.4 Earth days, and these images show the variations in Pluto’s surface features during its rotation. These images are displayed at four times the native LORRI image size, and have been processed using a method called deconvolution, which sharpens the original images to enhance features on Pluto. Deconvolution can occasionally add “false†details, so the finest details in these pictures will need to be confirmed by images taken from closer range in the next few weeks. All of the images are displayed using the same linear brightness scale. http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34054 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
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Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
Thank's Lynn that is interesting only 2 months and then we can see what it looks like |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Wanted to wait for an update. Julie & Glenn, your welcome. Pluto's moons tumble in orbit, Hubble measurements reveal Pluto’s moons have been tracked closely for the first time, showing that they tumble unpredictably rather than keeping one face fixed on their host planet. Astronomers also observed that Pluto, whose status was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, might be better regarded as a binary dwarf as it is locked in orbit with its largest moon, called Charon. The twin system creates an imbalanced and shifting gravitational field, which sends the tiny outer moons spinning chaotically, the measurements from the Hubble space telescope showed. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/03/plutos-moons-have-chaotic-orbits-hubble-measurements-reveal |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
NASA’s Hubble Finds Pluto’s Moons Tumbling in Absolute Chaos If you lived on one of Pluto’s moons, you might have a hard time determining when, or from which direction, the sun will rise each day. Comprehensive analysis of data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows that two of Pluto’s moons, Nix and Hydra, wobble unpredictably. “Hubble has provided a new view of Pluto and its moons revealing a cosmic dance with a chaotic rhythm,†said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “When the New Horizons spacecraft flies through the Pluto system in July we’ll get a chance to see what these moons look like up close and personal.†http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-hubble-finds-pluto-s-moons-tumbling-in-absolute-chaos |
betreger Send message Joined: 29 Jun 99 Posts: 11366 Credit: 29,581,041 RAC: 66 |
Great read. I would also say the the only reason we see chaos in these moons is our measurements and modeling power are not up to the scale of solving these observations using the Kepler model. |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30734 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
Great read. I think you misread it. It isn't the orbits of the moons that they were describing as chaotic (Kepler's law), but their rotation on their axis. Like our moon is tidally locked so one side faces earth, these moons can't lock because Pluto and Charon are orbiting each other, constantly shifting the center of mass and hence the point at which they could lock. As to their orbits, three were described as in resonance, so they have settled down for long term. This isn't unexpected given the large mass difference between the small moons and Pluto / Charon. If they (Pluto / Charon / moons) were all about the same mass, the orbits would be chaotic enough to eject several. |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34054 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
Wanted to wait for an update. Julie & Glenn, your welcome. Might say that sounds about right as Charon's size is rather large compared to the size of Pluto. rOZZ Music Pictures |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
Might say that sounds about right as Charon's size is rather large compared to the size of Pluto. Charon and Pluto. What next? Hel:) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hel_(being) http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_Charon_Moon_Earth_Comparison.png |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Fuzzy pictures. NASA not much better. In living color. Pluto in Color: Movie Shows Dwarf Planet's Orbital Dance With Moon Charon Pluto and its moon Charon have been captured in full color and, well, slightly jerky motion by NASA's New Horizons probe. At a distance of around 30 million miles (50 million kilometers), the duo are little more than a handful of pixels wide, but already the color and shape of each can be discerned, as well as the complex orbital dance they perform every week or so. Because Charon is nearly an eighth of Pluto's mass, the two worlds are locked in an orbit around a shared center of gravity in space. They both rotate once every 6.4 Earth days. New Horizons is designed to study the particulars of that pattern and address many other questions about mysterious Pluto and its surroundings. https://youtu.be/wrqjsM-QBY4 Color Video. http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/pluto-color-movie-shows-dwarf-planets-orbital-dance-moon-charon-n378856 |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34054 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
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Michael Watson Send message Joined: 7 Feb 08 Posts: 1385 Credit: 2,098,506 RAC: 5 |
Both Earth and Pluto have large moons, in proportion to their own diameters, which lie notably close to their primaries. In both cases this seems to be the result of a primordial collision with another sizable body. It is sometimes suggested that that such a large moon is necessary for a stably rotating planet that could foster complex life, and further, that the collisions that produce such moons are rare. As we have two apparent examples of such moon-planet parings in our own solar system, I submit that, on this basis, the conditions favorable for advanced forms of life in the universe need not be rare. |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34054 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
Both Earth and Pluto have large moons, in proportion to their own diameters, which lie notably close to their primaries. In both cases this seems to be the result of a primordial collision with another sizable body. If we have two of these systems in our solar system only, and as there are a quintillion or even more solar systems in our universe, how can ETI be rare throughout the cosmos, I should wonder. rOZZ Music Pictures |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34054 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
If we have two of these systems in our solar system only, and as there are a quintillion or even more solar systems in our universe, how can ETI be rare throughout the cosmos, I should wonder. I miscomprehended Michael's post. I thought he meant finding life would be rare, looked over the word 'not' oops rOZZ Music Pictures |
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