Pluto Probe Makes Discoveries at Jupiter

Riding with Robots writes "No, it's not an accident due to a metric-to-English-units error. In February, the New Horizons probe passed through the Jupiter system on its way to Pluto, and we saw some spectacular pictures. Now, the science teams have published detailed scientific results, along with new images and movies. The probe's instruments saw clouds form from ammonia welling up from Jupiter's lower atmosphere, and heat-induced lighting strikes in the polar regions, and fresh eruptions on the volcanic moon Io. New Horizons also captured the clearest images ever of the tenuous Jovian ring system, where scientists spotted clumps of debris that may indicate a recent impact inside the rings, or some more exotic phenomenon." I bet Neil DeGrasse Tyson will be on 7 Discovery channel specials talking about these new discoveries inside of the week. Hope he's nicer than he was to poor Pluto :)

Comments

yeah, I'l say

[jollyreaper]

bet Neil DeGrasse Tyson will be on 7 Discovery channel specials talking about these new discoveries inside of the week. Hope he's nicer than he was to poor Pluto :) Or those poor frozen chickens.

Re:yeah, I'l say

[mrami]

It takes a tough man to make a tender planet

Oblig

[$RANDOMLUSER]

All these worlds are yours.
Except Europa.
Attempt no landings there.

Re:Oblig

[Phanatic1a]

Did you catch a look at those Io shots?

Jesus. We've sent, what, 5 probes close enough to get a look at Io, and every one of them saw significant vulcanism? Pretty safe bet then that it's erupting like that constantly, huge lakes of glowing lava and sulfur plumes 200 miles high.

I'll take my chances with Europa.

Re:Oblig

[$RANDOMLUSER]

...huge lakes of glowing lava and sulfur plumes 200 miles high.

It's not that warm there. The vulcanism is due to tidal forces. More like lakes of liquid water and 200 foot plumes of vaporous methane.

Re:Oblig

[BadAnalogyGuy]

More like lakes of liquid water and 200 foot plumes of vaporous methane.

Sounds like a great place, eh!

Re:Oblig

[locofungus]

From the linked article:

In addition, New Horizons spotted the infrared glow from at least 36 Io volcanoes, and measured lava temperatures up to 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit, similar to many terrestrial volcanoes.

Tim.

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they have hockey there!

Re:Oblig

[aldo.gs]

It's always better than "All your worlds are belong to us".

Re:Oblig

[innerweb]

I'm going to solve the Earth's energy problem and get rich at the same time. All I need to do is build a trans-solar-system pipeline from that moon to the Earth to bring all of that beautiful methane here. Voila. No concerns for a very long time. As far as global warming goes, its a double win. Soon all of my Alaskan and Canadian beach front property on the northern shores will be prime warm vacation land. And to top it all off, I have a pipeline to attach a space elevator to to bring people up to the hotel/mid-stations in orbit for extra profit!!!

InnerWeb

[idiot tag]This is humor[/idiot tag]

Re:Oblig

[volcanopele]

I should point out that the "at least 36 Io volcanoes" number comes from the LEISA instrument, a near-infrared detector on the New Horizons spacecraft and does not include the field of bright spots seen near the sub- and anti-Jovian points (the points on the surface of Io that point directly toward and away from Jupiter, respectively). These spots are likely caused by gases above volcanoes in this area excited by Jupiter magnetic field. They could still be active volcanoes, but their thermal emission is too slight to be seen by the LEISA instrument.

Re:Oblig

[JohnVanVliet]

A very short game . The radiation will kill you in 5 min.

Re:Oblig

[jagdish]

All these worlds are belong to us.

A Classic

[bostons1337]

Ah yes, yet another metric to english/english to metric error........

Twin planets

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Neptune and Uranus are twin planets in our solar system, in that they very closely resemble each other.

Unfortunately, Uranus has a ring of dust, so the Pluto probe wasn't going to be risked checking out Uranus.

Uranus Uranus Uranus

Re:Twin planets

[paleo2002]

All together now: yur-en-us - Uranus.

Re:Twin planets

[stdarg]

Interesting! I didn't know you could get urine out of Uranus.

Re:Twin planets

[paleo2002]

Do you people have any idea how hard it is to teach astronomy when half the class snickers every time the 7th planet is mentioned?

In light of the public's growing familiarity with anatomy and diminishing mental age, the IAU should rename Uranus.

Re:Twin planets

[butterwise]

Interesting! I didn't know you could get urine out of Uranus.

It's true. Know something else? If you're American when you go in the bathroom, and American when you come out, what are you when you're in the bathroom? European.

Re:Twin planets

[pnewhook]

Do you people have any idea how hard it is to teach astronomy when half the class snickers every time the 7th planet is mentioned?

Just pronounce it YUR-uh-nus

Re:Twin planets

[TriggerFin]

Pass on "Your-anus" and "Urine-us" and try "UHR-uh-nuss'". Not all words that start with U need a "you" sound.

money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever a camera is hurled near solar system big planets, it catches something interesting. We should establish permanent automatic research stations in orbit(s) of at least Jupiter, if not all of them. It is scientific treasure-trove.

Re:money well spent

[quanticle]

Well, we already have something like that in the Cassini probe for Saturn. The issue with having a "permanent" research stations is lack of power. That far out, there is very little solar radiation, so power has to come from nuclear batteries, which have a limited lifespan.

Re:money well spent

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a better idea would be to do what the Brits did, and send all of our convicts off to found a colony on the Moon or Mars.

Then they can come back a hundred years later, dressed in outlandish Martian crocodile-skin, and start beating us at every sport....

Re:money well spent

[aproposofwhat]

Apart from rugby, that is...

Only the French and the Boks to knock over, and it'll be Swing Low Sweet Chariot all the way home :-)

Re:money well spent

[icebrain]

And we used to have Galileo around Jupiter. The problem is not just lack of power (RTG's aren't the only things solar panels degrade, too...), but the spacecraft as a whole wears out. Micrometeoroid impacts, radiation (especially around Jupiter), and Mr. Murphy all take their toll. And sometimes, they just run out of fuel.

Re:money well spent

[bytedruid]

The point of the new horizons craft is to get out the Kuiper belt, Jupiter is just being used as a sling shot. Of course while your there why not take a few pictures...

Re:money well spent

[GodfatherofSoul]

Speaking of which, why don't probes ever have true color cameras? What's with all the false color images from probes?

Re:money well spent

[rbanffy]

Galileo was pretty much a "permanent" monitoring station, at least as far as space probes go. It was around Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 and gathered a whole lot of information. So is Cassini around Saturn and Mars has a good couple of them orbiting it.

That said, I agree it would be clever to design and assemble generic space probes with a generic instrument package and launch them towards some promising targets. If we can assemble a dozen of simple probes (or modular ones - i.e. inner solar system solar power module x deep space RTG power, custom instrument packages) instead of one twelve times more complex and launch them towards interesting targets it would give us a lot of coverage on a lot of other nearby objects for the same price (and in far less time). If something turns out to be more than an uninteresting lump of rock or ice, we could always send another probe with a custom instrument package. And, if the original one still has propellant on board, it could always be re-missioned to something else.

Maybe we could focus not on "Back to the Moon", "See Pluto" and "Probe Mars" specific projects and create a continuous exploration infrastructure that could serve us well for decades. If we focus too much on learning how to build a better spacecraft while building the spacecraft, the exploration becomes the least interesting thing in the project. If we focus more on the destination than on the vehicle, chances are we will get spacecrafts out to the launch pad on less time, within budget and more frequently than today. And by building more of them, launching more of them and testing more of them, we will end up learning just as much about how to build a better spacecraft.

This one-off custom-designed space probe business can become costly real quick.

Re:money well spent

[Pearson]

I absolutely don't understand their approach at all. Putting a satellite into orbit around each and every planet in the solar system should be one of their top priorities. The costs are small enough that it should be an ongoing process to replace each one as they wear out, without affecting any of the other programs at NASA. And as you mention, the return on investment is ridiculously high.

Compare that with the ISS which, while cool, can't compare on ROI.

Re:money well spent

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Permanent is a bit much. Sending new missions from time to time would be a good idea. Permanent is kind of like saying that the computer you buy today is the one you will use indefinitely. After a while, you don't get the returns as you used to.

Science instruments improve at a rapid pace, and I think this is why New Horizons found things that Galileo did not.

I think there is something going there in the 2010s that will replace the Galileo mission. It's going to have 10x the scientific payload, 10x the power, 10x the bandwidth and will be able to move between the moons, orbit one for a while, then another.

Re:money well spent

[oatworm]

I don't know, but I would suspect it would be due to the relatively low levels of light out there. Since there isn't an atmosphere in space to diffuse light and since there is less sunlight out there anyways, I would think that looking at Jupiter with a normal camera with normal coloration would be akin to looking at a model of Jupiter at night in your bedroom.

Re:money well spent

[Tablizer]

Galileo was pretty much a "permanent" monitoring station, at least as far as space probes go. It was around Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 and gathered a whole lot of information.

But Galileo did have a big antenna problem that greately reduced the amount and detail of images it could send back. Bleep happens.

But as far as "more permanent", there are two major limiting factors. The first is propellant to navigate the moons. Without navigation propellant you are limited from the different targets you can examine up close, stuck in a fixed orbit. The second limiter is radiation. Jupiter cooks the crap out of probes with its heavy radiation. After a few years, radation is bound to take its toll. It may be cheaper to send multiple fresh probes than send a single super-hardened one.

Re:money well spent

[Tablizer]

Speaking of which, why don't probes ever have true color cameras? What's with all the false color images from probes?

Most probes don't use the same kind of color capture technique that "house cameras" offer. They use filters. If you want color, you take images under different filters (select a given wavelength to "see" with). This increases the sensativey range. New Horizons is certainly capable of using many filters to produce color images, but it may have had to weigh different factors. For one, NH does not have independent instrument platforms like Voyagers did. Instead, it has to rotate the whole probe body to aim many of its instruments. This was done to cut costs and increase reliability (stuck joints were common in the Voyagers).

Thus, the camera may have had to share time with other instruments, meaning they may have had to sacrafice multi-wavelength imaging. Generally they will very roughly make one in ten images be multi-wavelength as a compromize, or pick a single "best" wavelength most of the time. It just may be that most of the interesting events happened between the multi wavelength images.

When you are the fastest probe ever launched, you risk missing something when you "blink".

Re:money well spent

[CodeBuster]

That is basically what the probes are albeit in a limited way. They cannot survive indefinitely because of the intense radiation in the space immediately around and out to a large distance of Jupiter. Even if the radiation problem could be solved, the orbit of Jupiter is too far out for solar panels to be very effective (i.e. extremely large area of panels would be needed) and nuclear batteries, while compact and long lasting, are none the less a finite energy resource. The current technology does not allow for permanent research stations or probes.

Re:money well spent

[dbIII]

This one-off custom-designed space probe business can become costly real quick.

Compare it to launch costs. It's worth spending a bit extra so you have exactly what you want and no more instead of spending a lot extra getting extra mass out there. A "standard model" also implies that you have a very good tried and tested design and not continous improvement.

Re:money well spent

[4D6963]

Speaking of which, why don't probes ever have true color cameras? What's with all the false color images from probes?

They often do have red/green/blue filters so that we can make true colour pictures out of them, but the thing is, true colour isn't very pertinent from a scientifical point of vue, the point of true colour is more to know what one would see there. It's more interesting to have filters that filter light at key wavelengths matching to absorption or emission of method or hydrogen, whatever makes the atmosphere or surface composition of these bodies.

For example, in the case of Titan, true colour is useless, all you see is a big orange fuzzy ball. As if you use Cassini probe's CB3 filter, a near infrared (938 nm) filter, you can see the ground through the thick atmosphere, which is obviously much more interesting, and using other filters that reveal aerosols or methane, you can learn more about the atmosphere.

So that's why we have so few true colour images coming from space probes, they present much less scientifical interest than certain infrared or ultraviolet images, because if you look at the spectrum of light, the visible spectrum is fairly narrow compared to the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum, and that's why more interesting things are found over there.

Re:money well spent

[Shadowmist]

That's also why Cassini took a lot longer to get to Saturn as opposed to the flyby Pioneers and Voyagers. It actually had to approach Saturn slowly enough so that it could perform orbital insertion with the deltav it could manage and still have fuel remaining for orbital maneuvers.

Re:Is it just me, or?

[MyLongNickName]

Why is this description making me think of porn movies? What's wrong with me?

Do you want the list alphabetically or in order of importance?

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[somersault]

It would have sounded a lot better if this were about Uranus:

"In February, the New Horizons probe passed through Uranus system on its way to Pluto, and we saw some spectacular pictures. Now, the science teams have published detailed scientific results, along with new images and movies. The probe's instruments saw clouds form from ammonia welling up from Uranus's lower atmosphere, and heat-induced lighting strikes in the polar regions, and fresh eruptions on Uranus' moons. New Horizons also captured the clearest images ever of the tenuous Uranian ring system, where scientists spotted clumps of debris that may indicate a recent impact inside the rings, or some more exotic phenomenon."

Kind of difficult to take space seriously since Uranus was named.

And as a result of these new findings...

[dpbsmith]

... the IAU has decided that Jupiter is not a planet.

Re:And as a result of these new findings...

[Billosaur]

Actually, many people have called Jupiter a failed star.

Re:And as a result of these new findings...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

LEAVE JUPITER ALONE!!!

(yes, just like yelling)

Re:And as a result of these new findings...

[sharkey]

You're lucky Jupiter even showed its red spot for you! If anybody has a problem with Jupiter, you deal with me!

Re:And as a result of these new findings...

[Shadowmist]

I really hate the "failed start" term that some folks use for Jupiter.

It's a sloppy term really. Jupiter isn't even close to what you need for fusion mass is something on the order of 50-100 Jupiters, 2010 not withstanding to initiate fusion. Jupiter is a gas giant, a planet, something considerably different from even a brown dwarf which is a lot more appropriate for that label. It's not a "failure" at anything it is what it is, and it's helped clear out a lot of junk which would have hit this planet otherwise.

Planets != People

[JudgeSlash]

Hope he's nicer than he was to poor Pluto :)

Look this whole Anthropic Principle is getting ridiculous...

Re:Planets != People

[mooingyak]

Careful... anthropomorphic doesn't like it when you confuse it with anthropic.

Re:Planets != People

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, how did you made that leap from Anthropomorphism to Anthropic Principle? Agreed, both begin with "Anthrop...", but that is about all that there is to it.

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Kind of difficult to take space seriously since Uranus was named.

OMG... Who told you it was named??

Re:Is it just me, or?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You've been watching too many porn movies instead of reading more astrology magazines... or possibly vice versa.

unlikely

[someone1234]

This stuff is new only for us, otherwise it has been happening for millions of years.
So, if a permanent automatic system was installed there, it would give us exactly the same day by day, year from year.

Re:unlikely

[Dachannien]

Actually, a research satellite in orbit around Jupiter would be useful for studying atmospheric processes there, which change on the order of days to decades.

Re:unlikely

[camperdave]

So, if a permanent automatic system was installed there, it would give us exactly the same day by day, year from year.

Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't. We don't know. Does the vulcanism on Io go through seasonal variations? Does it only happen on Io, or are there other geologically active moons in orbit? The Cassini probe showed that we can park a satellite in orbit around these far planets, and obviously a permanently stationed device is going to give far more detailed data than one that's whizzing past. I think it's wasteful to launch these probes and have them leave the solar system when they could be inserted into orbit around a planet and give us years worth of useful data. As far as I know, apart from Earth, the only planets we have probes around are Mars and Saturn... and maybe Venus.

Re:unlikely

[thsths]

> Actually, a research satellite in orbit around Jupiter would be useful for studying atmospheric processes there

Ok, but who is going to listing to the Jupiter weather forecast? I would much rather have a reliable prediction for the weather right here during the week to come.

Re:unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

did anyone else read that as;

So, if a pneumatic system was intalled there, it would give us exactly the same day by day, year from year.

Re:unlikely

[quanticle]

We did have a probe parked around Jupiter for a while. It was called Galileo. It spent 8 years documenting Jupiter before it was decommissioned by sending it into the Jovian atmosphere.

Re:unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's wasteful to launch these probes and have them leave the solar system when they could be inserted into orbit around a planet and give us years worth of useful data.

Inserting them into an orbit around the planet is not free. It requires significant added complexity and cost. Without doing a thorough cost-benefit analysis you can't say whether it's wasteful to put the probe into orbit or to let it go flying past.

Re:unlikely

[Hucko]

lisp programmers?

Re:unlikely

[iamlucky13]

I think it's wasteful to launch these probes and have them leave the solar system when they could be inserted into orbit around a planet and give us years worth of useful data. As far as I know, apart from Earth, the only planets we have probes around are Mars and Saturn... and maybe Venus.

While I agree with the first part of your post about the value of long-term observation, the quoted part of the comment is much easier said than done, especially for such a distant target as Pluto. New Horizons will fly by Pluto at about 13.8 km/s. Escape velocity from the surface of Pluto is only 1.2 km/s, meaning it would have to decellerate at least 12.6 km/s. This compares to the 16.2 km/s of delta-v achieved by the entire 1.2 million pound, 190 foot tall Atlas rocket that launched it originally. Obviously you don't have to get there so fast, but it already is a 9 year flight.

As is, however, New Horizons will provide data and images hundreds of times more detailed than what we currently have, even though it will only be obtained over a short couple of weeks. See the wikipedia page on Pluto to get an idea how little we can see from earth. The best pictures are about as good as a Windows desktop icon. In comparison, New Horizons will map almost the entire body at 1.6 km/px and parts of it as detailed as 50 m/px

Assuming I converted the scales right, the above links to Google Mars show approximately the equivalent resolution from Mars images. Assuming everything works, we'll be seeing that from Pluto in 8 years.

Of course, you were talking about Io, but that wasn't New Horizon's destination. It's much easier (although not trivial) to place a probe in orbit around Jupiter, which NASA did with Galileo. Jupiter and Saturn are the only outer planets that have had orbiters, and both of those were very expensive missions.

There are currently orbiters circling Mars (Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and ESA Mars Express), Venus (ESA Venus Express), and the moon (JAXA SELENE), plus one on the way to Mercury (Messenger), and one on the way to the asteroid Vesta (Dawn).

Re:unlikely

[StikyPad]

On the serious side, studying atmospheric phenomenon on other planets can give us a better understanding of our own weather.

Re:Is it just me, or?

[Stooshie]

... instead of reading more astronomy magazines ...

Ahem! There, fixed that for you.

As any astronomer would tell you, mixing up the two is a capital offence.

I propose a name change

[Anonymous Coward]

Urectum seems like a pretty good choice.

Re:I propose a name change

[somersault]

I dunno - Sphincter Majoris has a certain ring to it

(pun not actually intended, but hey, it works)

Monolith?

[couch_warrior]

Yes, but where's the monolith? It has the opening to the wormhole that leads to the solar system where we achieve enlightenment. It must be true, I saw it on TV.

Re:Monolith?

[Tablizer]

Yes, but where's the monolith? It has the opening to the wormhole that leads to the solar system where we achieve enlightenment. It must be true, I saw it on TV.

I saw lots of little monoliths with white spots on a table in Vegas. Vegas is where the enlightenment is. They free you from your money so that you can focus on your inner self.

You know

[JanneM]

I bet Neil DeGrasse Tyson will be on 7 Discovery channel specials talking about these new discoveries inside of the week. You know, if he would happen to disappear, a victim of foul play, and his body found long after the crime, the forensic people need to be thourough. If they want to determine when he died by looking at the amount of mold on the body they need to turn it over; DeGrasse is always greener on the other side.

Re:You know

[argStyopa]

Even if they found he was beaten to death by a wolflike humanoid, they'd deny it or cover it up, because the government knows that nobody believes theories about DeGrasse gnoll anyway.

Re:You know

[JoshJ]

You know, sometimes you should just keep your mouth shut and not make the bad pun. Take the high ground instead, it's not like everyone can be as good a comedian as Carlos Mencia. ...maybe I'm being a bit too harsh?

Re:You know

[Anonymous Coward]

>>DeGrasse is always greener on the other side.

That was truly horrible. I congratulate you.

COG

Re:You know

[WilliamSChips]

David Morgan-Mar, is that you?

Re:You know

[Anonymous Coward]

You are being a bit harsh. It was a great setup and pun.

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[Nimey]

We should give up and rename Uranus to Goatse.

All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[decipher_saint]

I mean, each paper sounds completely intriguing:

Polar Lightning and Decadal-Scale Cloud Variability on Jupiter
Kevin H. Baines, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Io Volcanism Seen by New Horizons: A Major Eruption of the Tvashtar Volcano
John R. Spencer, Southwest Research Institute

Clump Detections and Limits on Moons in Jupiter's Ring System
Mark R. Showalter, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute

Jupiter Cloud Composition, Stratification, Convection & Wave Motion: A View from New Horizons
Dennis C. Reuter, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Io's Atmospheric Response to Eclipse: UV Aurorae Observations
Kurt D. Retherford, Southwest Research Institute

Energetic Particles in the Jovian Magnetotail
Ralph L. McNutt Jr., Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Diverse Plasma Populations and Structures in Jupiter's Magnetotail
David J. McComas, Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons Mapping of Europa and Ganymede
William M. Grundy, Lowell Observatory

Jupiter's Nightside Airglow and Aurora
G. Randall Gladstone, Southwest Research Institute

These are all highly fascinating subjects each worth a read let alone the fantastic gallery: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos.html

I completely support the New Horizons team, they're doing amazing things from behind a computer screen. Something I honestly wish I could do.

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[Hatta]

So here's what I don't understand. They captured some beautiful images the fluid dynamics of gasses mixing in jupiter's atmosphere. How is it that these gasses can keep mixing and not reach equilibrium? I see the same schlieren patterns if I add some glycerol to some H2O and invert the tube a couple times. But invert it a little more and they're gone. What is jupiter doing to keep its atmosphere from doing the same? Are some of the gasses in its atmosphere immiscible or something?

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[volcanopele]

And of course the most interesting is Io Volcanism Seen by New Horizons: A Major Eruption of the Tvashtar Volcano :) Not that I am biased or anything ;) (in the interest of full disclosure, I'm author number 11).

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[rbanffy]

They probably will. It will just take a couple more billion years, so, be patient.

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[sighted]

Fascinating, all of it. Keep up the great work.

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[decipher_saint]

Excellent! I can't wait to get home and start reading.

I have to say that all of you folks keep putting the stars in our eyes, great job!

Re:All irreverance aside, fantastic stuff!

[StikyPad]

Get yourself a Jupiter-sized test tube, a few billion years to observe, and you'll have your answer.

Funny.

[pionzypher]

I'm watching 'Passport to Pluto.... and Beyond' on the Science channel, they've been talking about the Jupiter flyby for the last five minutes or so. Interesting stuff. No... Dr. Tyson wasn't a part of the program. ;) It's towards the end, so if any of you have TSC, keep an eye out for it.

heat-induced lighting strikes

[OrangeTide]

Are obviously a result of global warming. You can now understand the impact our cars have on the environment.

Re:Is it just me, or?

[hyades1]

What's wrong with you? Hmm. Let's see...Ammonia...Polar (which has gotta mean snowy and white)...Got it! You're gay for Mr. Clean! Or straight for girl polar bears, maybe.

Just trying to help.

New name under consideration

[Namlak]

Do you people have any idea how hard it is to teach astronomy when half the class snickers every time the 7th planet is mentioned?

In light of the public's growing familiarity with anatomy and diminishing mental age, the IAU should rename Uranus.

I heard the IAU is considering "Urasshole"...

Re:New name under consideration

[slugstone]

DAMN IT! I got coffee all over my shirt. Thanks you very much.

Re:New name under consideration

[thelibrarian]

I think your source is wrong on that one.

They've going to rename it Urectum.

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[fr4nk]

Fry: Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus.
Leela: I don't get it.
Professor: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Professor: Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you.
Fry: Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here.

The Jupiter System?

[Boronx]

Jupiter's not a system, he's a god ... a scoundrel. He'll smite you for calling him a system.

Perhaps the most facinating thing

[agrippa_cash]

is the contrast between the amazing photos and sophisticated graphics and the Powerpoint 95 quality of the rest of the presentation. This slide (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/pictures/100907_pressGraphics/files/Stern/SternHi-Res/Stern_11.jpg) could almost be a cat macro.

Oblig Futurama

[burtosis]

Kind of difficult to take space seriously since Uranus was named.

I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.

Re:Oblig Futurama

[burtosis]

Professor: "I'm going to build that smelloscope!" *later* "Eureka!"

Fry: "Did you build the smelloscope?"

Professor: "No, I remembered that I built one last year."

Fry: "Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus." *laughs*

Leela: "I don't get it."

Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."

Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"

Professor: "Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you."

Fry: "Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here."

Re:Oblig Futurama

[burtosis]

Professor: "I'm going to build that smelloscope!" *later* "Eureka!"

Fry: "Did you build the smelloscope?"

Professor: "No, I remembered that I built one last year."

Fry: "Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus." *laughs*

Leela: "I don't get it."

Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."

Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"

Professor: "Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you."

Fry: "Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here."

Demoted

[PPH]

Did the creators of this probe know of Pluto's demotion from planetary status at the time of its launch? Maybe they should just turn it around and bring it home.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Re:Is it just me, or?

[Gr8Apes]

I'm sure if he's watching porn movies, astrology magazines would be the more commonly associated reading material....

Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter

[yet another coward]

http://www.resurrectdead.com/

http://www.toynbee.net/

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=40111350

Juno mission planned for 2011

[sighted]

A mission is now being planned to orbit Jupiter and study its weather and other features over a sustained period: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-090

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Asterra]

I used to add documentaries to my DVD collection quite regularly. But then I discovered that the once sacred world of the documentary is gradually being overtaken by the plague of the lowest common denominator. And this fellow, Tyson, seems to be the go-to guy for covering that bracket of the audience. His narration and explanations are always, ALWAYS simplistic - the sort of dialog anyone who watches the Science Channel could have provided if prompted. It never fails to make me feel dumb just watching it. And so now I make it a point to avoid this guy and any documentary he has any involvement with.

Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Abcd1234]

In other words, you disapprove of documentaries targeted at the layman, and presume to judge anyone who would create one. How very elitist of you. I can only assume you take issue with individuals such as Carl Sagan?

Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Asterra]

Wrong, chief. Putting words in others' mouths is fruitless. Carl Sagan's presentation is a perfect example of how documentaries _should_ be presented, if aimed at a general audience. If you can't tell the difference between Cosmos and a typical Tyson dialog, then welcome to your own little world.

Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[The Wicked Priest]

I find Michio Kaku annoying in much the way as you describe for Tyson, though (so far?) I have no problem with Tyson himself.

Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Asterra]

Poor Michio Kaku. He does tend to get requisitioned for much the same work. But unlike Tyson, he has vindicated himself in several ways: 1) His popular TV presence makes sense in the context of having achieved entire series by himself, 2) his professorship is legitimized since he continues to teach at university, and 3) he is not given to inarticulate or unprofessional dialog, in the manner of Tyson when instructed to describe, for example, the destructive properties of a top 10 catastrophe countdown.

Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Shadowmist]

That's not a fair comparison. Cosmos was a major series production (for PBS standards) with a major budget from top to bottom with a large creative staff involved, not in the same vein as standard interview which is what your "Typical Tyson dialogs' are. If you've ever seen one of Sagan's similar off the cuff interviews, they're not that much different. Commedians and Ted Koppel used to get a lot of mileage on his pronounciation of "millions and billions".

Re:Is it just me, or?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha..... that's almost as clever as placing a numeral in one's name as a substitute for... oh, sorry.

Re:Pluto probe makes discoveries at Uranus

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Solar System, Uranus renames YOU!

Re: Planets = People

[Kelsey-GrammerNazi]

>> anthropomorphic doesn't like it when you confuse it with anthropic.

... as he slowly turns into Anthracite.

Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

Tyson is horrible. The thing you have to remember is that he's not really a scientist - he's a planetarium director. OK, he has some name-brand degrees (Columbia PhD in Astrophysics), but then George Bush has a degree from Yale, so that's not a good measure of anything. Tyson claims to do research, but someone needs to point me to a paper he's written to demonstrate that he can legitimately be called a scientist.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Abcd1234]

Will this do? Hell, I all I had to do was type '"Neil DeGrasse Tyson" papers' into Google. So, are you dumb, or just lazy?

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Shadowmist]

An astrophysics degree isn't something to brush off, and neither is Columbia University. and the Rose center isn't just any planetarium if you've seen what they've done to the place. Tyson is a good presence on camera and a good storyteller. It was kind of amusing to have him show the letters he was getting from all the schoolchildren trying to convince him to bring Pluto back to planet status. I'm with him and the IAU on this one, as I have a strong suspicion that when we take a good look at the Kuiper belt we're going to find dozens of Pluto-sized objects there with a bunch of them larger than the former ninth planet. Although even Tyson agrees that Pluto is still worth looking up close.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

I'm neither dumb nor lazy, but I'm critical. Examine the papers at the link you gave. Numbers 13 and 11 have a long list of contributors not listed in alphabetical order, and Tyson is last, implying the least significant contribution. The last paper he's listed as a primary author on is in 1993, two years after he received his PhD. At best, you could say he had a very short career as a scientist of minimal significance, after which he became a planetarium director and moved into science popularization (all his books and TV appearances).

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

I think Tyson is a pretty good planetarium director, judging by the Rose Center. Although even that, for me, has a feel of style over substance, which matches Tyson's personality (but I don't know to what extent he was directly responsible for the nature of the overhaul). I appreciate the architectural and design elements, but the target audience of both the planetarium and Tyson's science popularization seems to be relentlessly stuck at a low grade-school level.

I think if Tyson were a real scientist, he'd recognize that the fuss over the designation "planet" is too arbitrary to be worth worrying much about, and it's silly to take a strong position on one side or the other *except* for tradition's sake. His position thus makes little sense, and it's telling that this is an issue that he chooses to take a stand on.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Abcd1234]

At best, you could say he had a very short career as a scientist of minimal significance

No, at best you could say you're wrong, and apparently incapable of admitting it. The fact is, he is a scientist, and he does have published papers. Whether you consider his contributions suitably "significant" is a separate and unrelated matter. Nice try attempting to reframe the debate, though.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

Not "is" a scientist. "Was" a scientist, briefly. Perhaps we have different definitions of "scientist", but in my book a planetarium director is not ipso facto a scientist, even if he manages to get his named tacked onto the end of some papers presumably as a kind of favor to the PR guy from the real scientists.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Abcd1234]

even if he manages to get his named tacked onto the end of some papers presumably as a kind of favor to the PR guy from the real scientists.

So now you're going to start doling out baseless accusations? Nice. Very "scientific" of you.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

They're not baseless, they're based on his body of work. What do *you* think it means when someone is listed last as an author on a paper with 22 authors? When the majority of someone's published output is popular work aimed at children, or adults with absolutely zero knowledge of the subject?

That's not to say science popularism is a bad thing - done well, it can be very useful. And science popularizers are sometimes also serious scientists: Carl Sagan was. But Tyson's science popularization is very low on content (see the comment, not mine, that started this subthread). His scientific career matches that.

Technically, I suppose I have to acknowledge that he qualifies as a scientist, in the same sort of way that George Bush qualifies as a leader. But there comes a point at which quality of performance is so low that you can reasonably say that someone is not a "real" scientist. That is the claim I am making about Tyson.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Shadowmist]

I think if Tyson were a real scientist, he'd recognize that the fuss over the designation "planet" is too arbitrary to be worth worrying much about, and it's silly to take a strong position on one side or the other *except* for tradition's sake. His position thus makes little sense, and it's telling that this is an issue that he chooses to take a stand on. If you've listened to him speak on various occasions, he's said repeatedly that this whole thing is much more about politics than science. (the biggest push to keep Pluto's old status comes from the USA which doesn't want to lose the distinction of the only planet to be discovered by an American)

You're wrong however that he should ignore it. The American Museum is one of the most prestigous faces of science to the general public. As he and others have pointed out, the Pluto controversy is an enormous learning opportunity and the Museum would be doing it's mission a great disservice by simply ignoring it. Which means the Museum is obligated to take a stance on it. And I think he did the right thing on this. It's a hell of an insight on how science, politics, and the public interact on. And for a change it's not on an issue on which our personal health or planetary ecology is at stake.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

As he and others have pointed out, the Pluto controversy is an enormous learning opportunity

If it's necessary to use something as irrelevant as this as an excuse to inform the public about science, the battle is already lost. This sort of thing is an example of, if you'll excuse the cliche, "the soft bigotry of low expectations". If you don't challenge your audience and don't expect them to know or want to learn more than they should have learned by fourth grade, you're not achieving anything useful and are actually doing them a disservice. This is increasingly true of mass media in general: it's become dumber as the market grows bigger. Tyson is a perpetuator of this: they're catering to a level so low as to be valueless, except possibly to five-year olds.

It's a hell of an insight on how science, politics, and the public interact on.

That might be great if it were an issue of any significance, and could be considered representative. But in fact, it's nothing like what usually happens between science, politics and the public. Better and more realistic examples would be global warming, or funding for certain projects (space exploration, telescopes, supercolliders...)

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Shadowmist]

Then there's the bigotry of "minimum expectations" an issue does not need to be of cosmic dire significance to be a learning opportunity. There's a tremendous amount of public interest in Pluto's status, irregardless of it's scientific significance. As an institution of public learning, it's an appropriate forum for this issue. Tyson had Pluto removed from the planetary display in response to the IAU stance on Pluto. This led to a lot of local and not so local response to his action. It would be the height of hubris to ignore it just because it's "not worthy enough" to merit response.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[alienmole]

Then there's the bigotry of "minimum expectations" an issue does not need to be of cosmic dire significance to be a learning opportunity.

No, but it should be worth learning about. There may have been public interest in Pluto's status, but there's also public interest in Paris Hilton and OJ Simpson. Tyson catered to that public interest in exactly the same way as any media whore responds to public attention, with no noticeable attempt to redirect the conversation to anything more substantial. The alleged "learning opportunity" was just an excuse for him to get his face on TV, for a variety of reasons that have little to do with educating anybody.

In any case, regarding the bigotry of minimum expectations, I expect interlocutors to know that irregardless is not a real word. I bet Tyson uses it too. ;-P

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Shadowmist]

At this point, I think we've both have come to the unbridgeable gulf wherein no further progress can be made in this thread, so I'll simply agree to disagree.

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Nefarious Wheel]

Darn! And just when I was hoping someone would post an equation or two in their defense. (/humourous quip)

Although you both disagree, I have to say the thread has given me pause to contemplate the ethics of professionalism, how we term ourselves and how such things are measured. It's a real concern for me, who must honestly admit my best work was done when I was considerably younger. At what point must I characterise myself as "once was..." on my resume?

Re:Tyson is not a scientist

[Shadowmist]

That's the nature of physics in general. the pioneering work you do is generally done in the pre-40 range with most of the rest of your life spent refining your own work or others. I think someone on Nova once categorised the Institute of Advanced Physics at Princeton as a "retirement home for great minds".

As to the answer on your resume. I think the "once was" is still bs despite what I said. People like Einstein, Sagan, and Tyson in thier dotage still manage better than many in thier prime. It's not a label worth hanging yourself about. I would advised that if you do have a significant professional career, you should get professional help in composing your resume.

Re:Is it just me, or?

[Shadowmist]

Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and many other respected astronomers of thier time paid thier rent as professional astrologers.