Eye's on the New Horizons and the Kuiper Belt

rockytopva

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I have been eying the New Horizon mission (New Horizons Web Site) ever since it launched in 2006. Too bad it could not set its path to 'Xena' after it explores Pluto!

146571main_xena_size_330.jpg
 

florida2

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I have been eying the New Horizon mission (New Horizons Web Site) ever since it launched in 2006. Too bad it could not set its path to 'Xena' after it explores Pluto!

146571main_xena_size_330.jpg

That pic is a bit out of date. 'Xena' is known as Eris and was officially named that in 2006. Interesingly, it's about 25% more massive than Pluto so if people want Pluto to still be a planet then they'd have to make Eric one, too!

The two objects with the partly numeric names are now known as Makemake (the brownish one) and Haumea (one with two moons).

You'd probably also want to add Orcas and Veruna, bigger and smaller than Quaoar respectively.
 
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AV1611VET

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Charon would also be a planet. And AV would be complaining that suddenly we have all of these new planets.
As Laurele pointed out in her threads, refusing to call Pluto a planet for fear of having to name all these other things planets doesn't wash.

After all, there are now over 100 elements in the Periodic Table, and you don't see anyone complaining about that.
 
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Michael

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New Horizons communicates with NASA at the speed of light... At this rate their spacecraft is only three hours away!

New Horizons Web Site

It's really hard for me to wrap my head around light taking a total of over 6 hours (6 hours, 14 minutes and 29 seconds) to make the round trip from this distance. Wow. Light is really slow. ;)
 
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Strathos

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As Laurele pointed out in her threads, refusing to call Pluto a planet for fear of having to name all these other things planets doesn't wash.

After all, there are now over 100 elements in the Periodic Table, and you don't see anyone complaining about that.

But we knew about Charon and Ceres, etc. before this, you'd be complaining that what were once called asteroids and moons were now planets.
 
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AV1611VET

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But we knew about Charon and Ceres, etc. before this, you'd be complaining that what were once called asteroids and moons were now planets.
Here's a picture of the Aricebo message, sent into space by S.E.T.I. in 1974:



Notice the part in yellow?

It's a depiction of our sun and our nine planets, with the earth elevated.

It's no wonder them boys at M13 haven't responded.

They are either ROFL at our scientists saying we have nine planets, or they are out roaming the galaxy looking for a star with nine planets circling it.

It takes a scientist to broadcast our ignorance into intergalactic space! :thumbsup:
 
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Michael

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Assuming there is some universally applicable definition of "planet" that would be known by aliens.

It seems to me that any advanced civilization is likely to be able to figure out which solar system it came from simply based on it's trajectory and speed. I seriously doubt they'll have a hard time figuring out where it came from. :)
 
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AV1611VET

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It seems to me that any advanced civilization is likely to be able to figure out which solar system it came from simply based on it's trajectory and speed. I seriously doubt they'll have a hard time figuring out where it came from. :)

As post #2 shows however, it make a left turn at Saturn.
 
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rockytopva

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As post #2 shows however, it make a left turn at Saturn.

Gravity assist. They used Jupiter as a slingshot to propel it to a faster speed towards pluto. If you could measure the speed of a planets orbit around the sun (if I remember right), that is the rate of gain of speed you get by slingshotting past it.

I have been covering this story off and on since the day the launched the probe. I think it is exciting!

nhov20131001_0551.jpg
 
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Notice the part in yellow?

Yeah, notice the parts in white between the blue double helix and on the left hand of the red figure?

It's a depiction of our sun and our nine planets, with the earth elevated.

In 1974 Pluto was still considered a planet. In the early 1800s, Ceres was considered a planet. As more information came in, the nomenclature was changed to reflect that new information.
When did the asteroids become minor planets?
To ignore all the information availible would be like claiming that "scientists" were responsible for the Challenger Disaster without ever having read the Rogers Commission Report.

And if you'd actually read all the informatio on the Wikipedia page (since that's from where that image comes), you'd see other things that were correct in 1974, but are no longer.
- The white line between the double helix representes the 4.3 billion bases thought to comprise the human genome (it's actually 3.2 billion).
- The red line on the left hand side of the figure represents the 4.3 billion humans alive at the time (it's 7 billion now).

It's no wonder them boys at M13 haven't responded.

They are either ROFL at our scientists saying we have nine planets, or they are out roaming the galaxy looking for a star with nine planets circling it.

Or, here in the real world, the message - assuming it has any transmission power left after nearly 40 years - is only .003% of the way.

It takes a scientist to broadcast our ignorance into intergalactic space! :thumbsup:

As the Wikipedia entry shows, it was only a test and never expected to be received. Contrast that with Creationists broadcasting their ignorance on the Internet every hour of every day for real human beings to read and expecting to be taken seriously. :wave:
 
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rockytopva

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I am curious as to where the New Horizons space probe goes after Pluto. The following conference will be an interesting one to keep tabs on. It is interesting that the Hubble Space telescope will be in position to get some shots of Pluto and beyond.


20130617_newhorizons_conference_flier_f537.jpg
 
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Standing_Ultraviolet

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I am curious as to where the New Horizons space probe goes after Pluto. The following conference will be an interesting one to keep tabs on. It is interesting that the Hubble Space telescope will be in position to get some shots of Pluto and beyond.

I kind of doubt that there's going to be anything of significant interest within a distance that would make for photos that would have a widespread appeal. The majority of the research after it gets past Pluto is probably going to be more for the scientific community than for anyone else, unless it makes a particularly important discovery or you really like looking at slowly moving pinpoints of light.

That's probably the one unfortunate aspect of space travel. Everything out there is so huge that, if you want to get close to anything at any substantial distance, you have to aim for it several years out and hope that nothing goes wrong. You can do interesting research without getting close, but Pluto is probably going to be the only Kuiper Belt object that we have a detailed photograph of for a while.
 
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