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Five New Neptunian moons
cyclop writes "It's a new time of discoveries in the Solar System. Just when Cassini discovered two news moons on Saturn, old Earth-based astronomy strikes back by revealing five small bodies around Neptune. The faint moons seem to have eccentric and inclined orbits, and to have been captured by Neptune."
Planetary scientists would LOVE a galileo/cassini type mission to neptune. The planet and its moons are just bizarre. It has normal looking full sized moons in retrograde orbit - which normally implies captured bodies...but they are usually irregularly shaped. It has goofy looking moons in normal orbits, which would normally imply a body formed with the planet...but those aren't usually irregularly shaped. And the big moon, Triton, is amazing...huge geyser/volcanic-like plumes of frozen black-stuff. There's theories as to what it is, but the underlying mechanisms aren't well understood. An amazing outer planet.
Moo.
Ground based astronomy isn't as sexy as space based astronomy, but has one big advantage -- light gathering power. We can build 8-meter (SUBARU and GEMINI), 10-meter (KECK), and in the near future 30 to 50-meter telescopes. The JWST, by comparison, is only 6.5 meters, and that's still 7 years away (at least). It's expensive to get telescopes into orbit, first off, and to send a probe up, well, you only get one look at the system with that! Additionally, launching anything drives the cost up by tens of millions of dollars. Ground based telescopes are easier to service, last virtually forever, and only have the disadvantage of having the atmosphere to fight with. Adaptive optics, and camera technology have significantly advanced in recent years, so that ground based telescopes with adaptive optics have huge advantages over those without it. They haven't caught the space telescopes yet, but the gap is closing. I'm a huge advocate of hubble, chandra and other space-based missions, but what can be accomplished on the ground (such as this) should NOT be overlooked!
well thats a valid argument, but it has a flaw. the money spent on science is unlikely, if pulled, to feed and clothe the poor. its more likely to be funneled into defense projects.
the other problem with the "money better spent" on feeding the hungry and clothing the poor argument is that its simply impossible to practically do that. there are too many hands the money and food must cross, and corruption is a given. Sure, we must try, but not at the expense of that which furthers other industries. And science isn't the biggest waste of money. What about the millions paid to sports stars? that should be given to the poor. How about the millions you spend on entertainment? surely you could sacrafice a little fun for someone to eat. maybe you should sacrafice all your fun. work hard and only keep what you need to live. not live comfortably, or happily, just live -- donate the rest to the unfortunate. It's a slippery slope. Sadly, feeding and clothing the poor is simply not an easy problem to fix -- diverting funds from science research is surely not the answer.
Moo.
I just hate that kind of reasoning.
Money spent on science is not wasted. And the less practical is the science, the more I'm sure that money is not wasted.
I work in science (molecular biology), and I don't do it to help people (although I love if my research can help,of course). I do it primarily because I want to understand the Universe. I do it primarily because I think one of the most important, amazing and noble things humankind can do is trying to understand the universe we have the luck to live within. It is at least as noble as helping the poorest. If not noblest, because we will all die (poor or not poor). But knowledge will last.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
So what exactly do you do to help the world's hungry?