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Pluto's "Thick" Air Isn't Going Anywhere
astroengine writes "When the proposition for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto was put forward, there was an air of urgency. The dwarf planet is moving away from the Sun in its eccentric orbit, so astronomers were concerned that the Plutonian atmosphere would freeze out and collapse onto the surface as fresh nitrogen-methane snow before they could get a spacecraft out there to observe it. But according to new research [arXiv], it appears there's little risk of a Pluto air freeze-out. From recent occultation measurements, it appears the atmosphere is becoming denser and more buoyant, meaning it will remain as an atmosphere all (Pluto) year 'round — 248 Earth years long."
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Pluto's "thick" air is too much of a lazy lard ass to move.
And Pluto's air prefers the term "big-boned."
Isn't "denser and more buoyant" a contradiction?
It will be interesting to see if DH spots any snow...so far as I know we haven't spotted active snowing on any body other than Earth.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
Oh, the indignity--using the tag "stillnotaplanet" for this story. C'mon, guys, you don't have to pick on this little 'old planetoid when it's down!
Before it turns into a tropical paradise with a race of 36-24-36 sex-starved tribewomen who live next to lakes of single malt scotch.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
So now the probe can stop for an extended break at Uranus. Check out the mall, have drinks with the Uranians, make fun of Neptune's name, get an instrument boom manicure, etc.
The NASA shutdown furlough may last that long anyhow.
Table-ized A.I.
Here is the New Horzens website http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
English: "Thick air"
German: "dicke Luft"
To
they can still plan a mission to Pluto! All those government employees who are currently at home, unable to earn money to pay the rent and bills must be thrilled to bits with this news!
at that distance from the sun, even less light will get true. Waste of money.
With a denser atmosphere (rather than none), it'll become easier indeed to brake and land.
When for instance you compare atmospheric entry and landing within the Earth atmosphere and the Martian one, the main difficulty on Mars is the much less dense atmosphere: aerobraking, transonic parachute deployment, end-of-trajectory thrusters all happen in a matter of dozens of seconds on Mars, while on Earth you have many minutes at least.
The denser atmosphere the best for safe arrival ;-)
(and that explains, too, the many crashes on Mars)
I participated in the Titan landing for Cassini/Huygens : I clearly remember the Titan atmosphere as a "thick" one, like on Earth (now we had other issues at the time, among others the terrible uncertainty on gas composition itself).
But I'm close to consider landing on Mars, though, is harder than on Titan.
How exactly will it be on Pluto, I hope to see ;-)
Herve S.