Hubble finds fifth moon orbiting Pluto The Hubble Space Telescope has found yet another moon orbiting what used to be the last planet in the Solar System. The moon, the fifth that's been spotted orbiting Pluto, is an irregularly shaped lump around 6 to 15 miles across and orbits in a plane 58,000 miles around the dwarf planet. It was spotted in nine images taken …
"Eventually the New Horizons probe ... will become the furthest man-made object to travel from Earth".
Nope. It's velocity is already less than that of Voyager I by 2 km/s and it will only slow down further as it goes through termination shock and loses the solar wind from its' sails. It will never catch up with Voyager.
"Eventually the New Horizons probe ... will become the furthest man-made object to travel from Earth".
Nope. It's velocity is already less than that of Voyager I by 2 km/s and it will only slow down further as it goes through termination shock and loses the solar wind from its' sails. It will never catch up with Voyager."
Not unless a galactic zargon beam intercepts Voyager 1 and destroys it - with all life on board.
@Dave Ross
>>Always has been.. a planet, always will be.
What about Eris? similar size to pluto, similar orbit, is that a planet? and then there's the slightly smaller Makemake, is that a planet? smaller still, but of a similar factor, then there's Haumea, Sedna, 2007 OR(10), Quaoar and Orcus, are they planets? do we have 15 planets? in the solar system (and still counting)?
According to New Scientist, "Pluto may not be a planet any more, but the discovery of its fifth moon means it can boast more satellites than the inner four planets combined."
-- http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22052-discovery-of-fifth-moon-reignites-pluto-planet-debate.html
I agree it should be a planet, but that doesn't make it one.
Looking at "Charon (green) rocks Pluto's world". Why does it look like the two repel each another? Shouldn't Pluto be @ the other side of the red circle? (180° further along its orbit, yadda yadda).
I'm no scientist and this won't really affect at what time I break open my lunch tin. But .... Enquiring minds must know.
<=== Boldly go where no-one else bothered to go before.
The definition of planet is that it is in orbit around the Sun, has sufficient mass to assume aroughly spheroid shape and has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.
Where there are two bodies rotating round each other, the planet is the one where the centre of gravity is below its surface. (another nail in the coffin for pluto).
So imagine the scenario where there are two jupiter sized bodies orbiting each other. With the centre of gravity between them, neither is a planet? Since neither is orbiting a planet, neither is a moon? Does that make them fekin giant asteroids? (If so, how many shots does it take to make them disappear on my Atari?)
Actually that's still under contention. The definition you quote was made up by astronomers (those who study stars), but a lot of the the planetologists (those who study _planets_) don't agree with that new definition. See http://greatexperiments.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/what-is-a-planet-the-planetologists-speak/ There are other places out there that discuss this, I first heard about the controversy in an interview of a planetologist.
to investigate objects in the Kuiper Belt with its infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, a multi-colour camera, two particle spectrometers and a space-dust detector.» Not a chance ! When it discovers those «Russian dolls», it's not going to go anywhere, but break out the samovar and invite the dolls to tea....
Henri
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