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Pluto is Much Colder Than Expected
IZ Reloaded writes "Any would be travellers to Pluto should bring extra winter gear. The new temperature on Pluto according to scientists is 43 degrees Kelvin. That's 10 degrees Kelvin colder than expected. From CNN: "Astronomers think Pluto's colder than expected temperature reading involves interactions between nitrogen ice on the planet's surface and the nitrogen gas that makes up its atmosphere...Pluto is a dynamic example of what we might call an anti-greenhouse effect...""
While scientificaly intresting, I don't think 10k really makes much of a diffrence for humans at that temprature.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
First time they used an oral thermometer, the second time a rectal one.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The new temperature on Pluto according to scientists is 43 degrees Kelvin.
That's nothing, my ex girlfriend easily was the coldest object in our solar system. She had to be way colder than that.
Could I be the first to point out that it's just 10 Kelvin? no degrees here
.. scientists are working on developing a new, heavier polluting, SUV to reverse the anti-greenhouse effect on Pluto.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
= -382.27 degrees Fahrenheit
= -230.15 degrees Celsius
= really fucking cold outside.
it's just the sort of place you'd need to run a few Pentium Extreme Edition systems.
But seriously, while researchers try to find exotic materials that exhibit room-temperature superconductivity, you could take more common materials and run them at insanely fast speeds out there. Of course, it would take a while to upload your code and data and download any processing results.......
Maybe the dark side of Mercury would be more feasible.
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
so it says that Charon, Pluto's moon, is warmer than the planet. Since Charon is almost as big as Pluto, I am sure this new tidbit will add more to the deabte concerning what relation the two celestial bodies have with each other and how they came to be paired.
Is 10K really all that significant? When you get down that low, you'd better be damn sure that your equipment is resistant to much lower temperatures anyway. Imagine Pluto with a wind chill...
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I'm sure some newspaper will soon start running headlines about how Pluto is "23% colder than anticipated." In the real world, 10 K isn't that much, although it would be nice to know why our estimates are off. For reference, water freezes at 273.15 K, and the deepest darkest nook of outer space registers about 2.7 K, thanks to some background microwave radiation.
> Pluto is a dynamic example of what we might call an anti-greenhouse effect...
So does that mean scientists will continue to change what we can expect from Pluto? One decade they say it will get warmer, the next decade cooler?
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
My P4 would fix that in about 10 mins.
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
It's not so much the cold as it is the humidity.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
So with your title, Pluto, is now the 'in thing'... I so want one now.. where can I buy this cooler Pluto you so mention?
Can there be anything more cooler than Pluto? Venus is Hot... I think I want a pin up poster of that one!
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
Heinlein's classic Have Space Suit, will Travel (which I will now call HSSWT) is one of Heinlein's last jouvenille novels to have its science become dated. The other novels had such quaint things as canals and martians on Mars, or a 200 where people had the ability to make synthetic gold, yet people still had to talk to a live bank teller to withdrawl money. HSSWT, until reasonably recently, had no such quaintness to it. However, (minor spoilers follow) there is a scene in the book where the hero has to go to Pluto. In the book, Pluto has an Earth-like gravity--however, Pluto is much smaller than we thought when Heinlein wrote this book; Pluto's gravitation force is only 6% (a little over 1/20th) of Earth's gravity.
He was right about one thing though: It is very cold on Pluto.
so we're back to calling Pluto a planet again?
No. Pluto only has an atmosphere during its summer which it is currently in. (It is closer to the sun at 30AU than it will be again for a very long time) During the winter the atmosphere will give up it's heat and fall to the surface as solid nitrogen snow where it will sit for a couple hundred years until the sun once again turns it from solid to gas. But the surface will always stay at the same temperature. This is the same effect seen when you measure the temperature of water with ice cubes in it. The water will stay at 32 degrees until all the ice is gone even if you put a flame underneath. The added heat would merely make the ice melt faster rather than raise the water temperature.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Microsoft has already launched a probe to harness the power of Pluto to cool the Xbox 360.
The White House, misreading the term "global warming", immediately denied that Pluto exists. After reading the article they retracted the statement and issued another, stating that they will investigate Pluto's "anti-warmification properties".
An investigation has been opened into just who Kelvin is, and why he's allowed to practice science without a degree.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
anti-greenhouse effect? Shouldn't that be called the whitehouse effect :)
I mean, you'd be emotionally distant too if your master was never home, always away lobbying congress for copyright extensions.
I didn't really have Pluto on my "must visit" list anyway but with that announcement it's certainly never going to be on it.
Damn the Plutorians and their cold world.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Good thing I saw as I was leaving on my vacation to Pluto; I hadn't packed any winter clothing. Thanks Slashdot!
One day two Girton girls are on his bus and one remarks his age and physique, turns to the other and murmurs "Super conductor". To which the other replies "Three degrees Kelvin."
As a result of the parent post, this joke is now officially demolished.
Pining for the fjords
That's an interesting point. From the article, Pluto receives about 1/1000th as much sunlight as the Earth. From here http://www.powerfromthesun.net/chapter1/Chapter1.h tm we see that the Earth receives 1367 watts per square meter, so we can assume that Pluto typically receives only 1.367 watts per square meter. Dumping the heat from a single P4EE into Pluto's surface could be pretty disruptive, hundreds of watts over a small surface area. The rush of nitrogen vapor would be like a bomb exploding.
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
What are you talking about? I saw them together in Vegas. With those white tigers. Really a great show.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
More catchphrases:
- the redhouse effect (red is complementary to green)
- the burnthouse effect (frost will "burn" plants in a greenhouse)
- the evergreenhouse effect (it is so cold that the plants are actually frozen green forever)
- the exgirlfriend effect (it's cold, and will never get warm; shameless plagiarizing another comment)
Ok, I suck.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
Repeat after me - there are no degrees kelvin, only Kelvin. Degrees centigrade and farenheit yes, Kelvin no.
NASA seek Geordie crew for first manned flight to Pluto. (T-shirts will be provided)