Slashdot Mirror
Hubble Discovers 5th Moon of Pluto
Stirling Newberry writes "This image shows 'P5,' the placeholder name for a fifth natural moon of Pluto, a tiny sliver that orbits ~29,000 miles from its primary in a circular orbit. Other than Charon, Hubble has been the means by which astronomers have found all of the known moons of Pluto. 'The new detection will help scientists navigate NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft through the Pluto system in 2015, when it makes an historic and long-awaited high-speed flyby of the distant world. The team is using Hubble’s powerful vision to scour the Pluto system to uncover potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft. Moving past the dwarf planet at a speed of 30,000 miles per hour, New Horizons could be destroyed in a collision with even a BB-shot-size piece of orbital debris.'"
That's no moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor-planet_moon
Lots of asteroids have moons.
NASA is going to drive a 650 million dollar spacecraft through a system @40AU away at 30,000 miles per hour - and that spacecraft could be destroyed by a BB.
The phrase "That thing could put your eye out" brings on a whole new meaning...
According to Wikipedia:
A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called its primary.
Technically, Pluto fits the definition of "planet or smaller body". A moon doesn't necessarily need to orbit a planet; it can orbit a very, very dense hunk of rock that doesn't fit the definition of planet, but has a sufficiently strong gravitational pull to keep it in orbit.
There... are... four... moons!
Insert self-referential sig here.
2 isn't enough?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
A moon doesn't necessarily need to orbit a planet; it can orbit a very, very dense hunk of rock that doesn't fit the definition of planet, but has a sufficiently strong gravitational pull to keep it in orbit.
Must... resist... urge... to make yo mama joke.
"NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was unexpectedly destroyed today when it crashed into a previously unknown 6th moon of Pluto..."
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
A probe in orbit around every planet or dwarf planet in the solar system would seems like a fairly basic NASA objective to me.
I know that New Horizons will be using its velocity to also attempt flybys of one or more other Kuiper belt objects after it shoots through the Pluto system, and that is very worthwhile indeed, but we also seriously need a probe in orbit around Pluto itself.
I hope that they're working on such a mission already, so that when New Horizons returns Pluto data in 2015 they just need to tweak a few parameters and be ready to launch an orbital mission. Such new data could even be sent to an orbital mission that's already en route to Pluto.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Because space is big...
Imagine there were only 19,000 people on Earth, roughly evenly distributed. What's the chance you'd ever run into another person? Now, instead of just the land area, make sure that 3/4ths of those people are on the ocean. What are the odds of running into one of them now?
Now, imagine that, instead of just the surface of the Earth, you stack up about 500 layers, each one of them the surface of a sphere wrapping the entire Earth, each one a mile higher than the last and starting about 160 miles up. Now instead of just the surface of the Earth, spread those 19,000 people across those 500 spheres evenly and evenly spread them around the surface of the sphere they're on. And all of those spheres have more area than the surface of the Earth.
Now, would you consider that area "dangerously heavily populated?" On top of that, you need to shrink the people down for most of the debris.
Now, to be fair, the real test is that many of these "people" are moving really, really fast, although most of them are moving in roughly the same direction. But a few of them are going in different directions. And some of those are jumping between spheres. But it's still areas larger than the whole surface of the Earth. There have been only a tiny number of collisions between these objects. (I think the number is actually -- one.)
Like I said, space is big. Really big. Bigger than the biggest thing you can imagine. You may think it's a long way down to the pharmacy, but that's peanuts compared to space. (With apologies to Douglas Adams)
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Conservadroids
o.O Is that a new phone?
Could be! A phone that dials the same number over and over again without any algorithms to determine why that number is disconnected from reality. Or a phone that automatically orders and pays for stuff with your credit card that is never delivered or is delivered to rich people that don't need it. (Oh ya, I'm going to get flamed...)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Or you could buy the iLiberal that also automatically orders and pays for stuff with your credit card that is never delivered or is delivered to poor people that don't need it. It's all fun and games as long as its someone else having their money taken. Any one else bloody sick of the primary difference between liberal/conservative being whom you think its OK to steal from? And the only person they both agree its OK to steal from seems to be me.
primary difference between liberal/conservative being whom you think its OK to steal from? And the only person they both agree its OK to steal from seems to be me.
I think it boils down to two different groups of people:
1. Those that have more than they need.
2. Those that need more than they have.
I am one of the first and I give to the second. In the six years since my wife died, I have given $50+ K to my friends in need and another $15+ K to charity - and I plan to keep on giving as needed. My conscience is clean.
Oh, and I don't hide money in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, like Mitt (potential Weasel in Chief) to avoid paying my fair share of taxes...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Which is a pretty damn hokey and arbitrary distinction. The Earth's orbit is significantly affected by the Moon's gravitation: its path around the Sun is sinusoidal, quite far from a true elipse, far enough that the locations of perihelion and aphelion shift from year to year depending on the Moon's phase in early January and early July, and these points cannot be predicted without accounting for the Moon's influence.
The points of perihelion and aphelion of the barycenter of the Earth - Moon pair can be predicted using the same simple formula that works for all the other visible planets, plus Uranus and Neptune. But the Earth itself is sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes closer to the Sun, sometimes further away than the barycenter, all due to its partner's influence. That is the mark of a double planet, not a planet that has a Moon.
That the most unique feature of the Earth, the presence of our kind of life, could not have come about without the Moon's action as a constant stirring rod is an entirely separate and equally valid argument for regarding the Earth and Moon as parts of a binary planet system.
Will