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Domain: nineplanets.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to nineplanets.org.
Stories · 4
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IAU Demotes Pluto to 'Dwarf Planet' Status
davidwr writes "It's official. Pluto's been demoted. It's now one of several 'dwarf planets.' I guess we can drop the 'Period' from 'Mary's violet eyes make John stay up nights.'" (Of course, no one says you have to privately agree with the International Astronomical Union.) Several readers have contributed links to the BBC's coverage of the downgrade, as well as the usefully illustrated story at MSNBC. -
Russia Planning Double Mission to Mars
dylanduck writes "Apparently Russia has revived a previous plan to send a spacecraft to Phobos, a tiny Martian moon. Turns out it's a cool place to land - much easier than the surface as far less deceleration is needed, it should have plenty of Mars rocks spattered on the surface and it's just 9000km above the surface. Some think it the perfect place for a Mars moonbase." From the article: "A mission devoted to the moons could explain how the satellites are held together - whether they are piles of rubble loosely held together by gravity or solid chunks. Most scientists assume the heavily cratered moons are captured asteroids, Christensen told New Scientist. But it is actually quite hard for a planet to capture an object into its orbit - most things just skim by. 'So how it got there is a bit of an enigma,' Christensen says." -
Martian Moon Phobos in Detail
neutron_p writes "Today we can see the highest-resolution pictures so far of the Martian moon Phobos. These images show new detail that will keep planetary scientists busy for years, working to unravel the mysteries of this moon. The images show the Mars-facing side of the moon, taken by Mars Express from a distance of less than 200 kilometres with a resolution of about seven metres per pixel." -
Phoebe Pictures Released
EccentricAnomaly writes "NASA has begun to release some pictures from Cassini's Phoebe flyby last Friday. If you look at the thumbnail of this image or if you look at the right of these images, you can see a group of craters that look like a skull just south of the equator and something that looks like George Washington (wearing his wig) near the north pole. Come up with some good names for features, and you can submit your ideas to the IAU. There's a process for naming a newly discovered crater, fossa, or sulcus. By the way, the naming convention for Phoebe is people associated with Phoebe or the Greek islands."