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Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Ends Hibernation To Start Mission
An anonymous reader writes NASA's New Horizons spacecraft awoke from hibernation on Saturday and sent a radio confirmation that it had successfully turned itself back on one and a half hours later. The spacecraft has been traveling for nine years across the solar system towards its destination, Pluto. From the article: "In 2006, with New Horizons already on its way, Pluto was stripped of its title as the ninth planet in the solar system and became a dwarf planet, of which more than 1,000 have since been discovered in the Kuiper Belt. With New Horizons approaching Pluto's doorstep, scientists are eager for their first close-up look at this unexplored domain."
The article confuses Kuiper Belt Objects (more than one thousand discovered), and dwarf planets. To quote Wikipedia: "The IAU recognizes five bodies as dwarf planets: Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake".
2015 will be a great year for looking at two of these. As well as New Horizons, there is also the Dawn probe on its way to orbit Ceres.
That freeloader got what was coming to him.
Will this give us some higher resolution photos of the surface to ogle over? It is true that we have yet not had high resolution photography of pluto? What is currently known about Plutos composition and is this mission planned to refine knowledge on that?
Rather than try to make sense of the broken English in TFS...
Here's the quote from TFA:
Doing the math, then, there was a two-hour delay between when New Horizons awoke and when it launched its first message. As opposed into traveling in the future by 1.5 hours.
I am not a cartoon character.
- Pluto, ruler of the underworld
When Pluto got demoted, I thought they were supposed to send a self-destruct signal to the probe.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft awoke from hibernation on Saturday
Apparently isn't a Linux-based system then...
can't wait to see what kind of photos (regular and color enhanced) that New Horizons will send back to NASA. Cool
it might have originated in the Kuiper belt, but it isn't there any more.
It never left it, it is still there. It is practically the definition of the belt's location in some cases, with its orbit spanning 30-50 AU which is the definition of the Kuiper belt region to some authors.
Sure, it might have originated in the Kuiper belt, but it isn't there any more.
That's not the point. The point is it has three moons of the same size as itself, and a lot of other debris. It's not dominating its environment.
You can choose: Either we have 8 planets, or you have to learn 19 names, and new ones every year or two. 9 is not an option anymore.
Anyways, I don't understand why "dwarf planet" was not made a subclass of "planets" along with "major planets" (where the others go). But no, it is "planets" and "minor planets", which are by definition not a "planet".
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
How the mighty have fallen. First, a Roman god, 2000 years later, you live in a doghouse and take orders (confusingly) from *another dog* - and a dimwitted country hick dog, at that.
Trying to convince people that Pluto isn't a planet is about as sensible as trying to convince people that a kilobyte isn't 1024 bytes. Deal with it, and come up with a different name for whatever wacky definitions you want to use in future.
> Anyways, I don't understand why "dwarf planet" was not made a subclass of "planets" along with "major planets" (where the others go). But no, it is "planets" and "minor planets", which are by definition not a "planet".
The purpose of technical terminology is to be as clear and efficient as possible. Imagine having to say 'major planet' every time you wanted to talk about Earth or Mars or Jupiter. "Earth is the third major planet from the Sun." It's tedious.
But in informal speech you can say that Pluto is a 'dwarf planet, which is a kind of planet'. Nothing wrong with that. I think that's what a lot of people don't understand about technical vs. informal communication.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
It's somewhat of an unfair definition, though, as it's much easier to dominate a narrow orbit. If Earth was out in the Kuiper Belt even it would struggle to remove all competing large bodies. And there's supergiants where you could put Earth even into the habitable zone and still not have it able to dominate its orbit. On the other hand, large asteroids that don't even have enough gravity to fully collapse into spheres (Vesta, Pallas, Hygiea, etc) could clean up in a close orbit to a low-mass brown dwarf.
You look beautiful! Incidentally, my favorite artist is Picasso.
Pushing the limits of exploration. Also a great argument for having a focus and not trying to be all things to all people.
I really have problems with the "dominating its environment" rule in the IAU definition of a planet. Much more objective (and non-heliocentric criteria) should be used for defining a planet. Thank goodness the Kepler team has chosen explicitly to ignore the IAU rules when defining what is and is not a planet with their discoveries.
For myself, using a definition of a planet as something which forms a sphere due to gravitational influence and hydrostatic pressure is more than sufficient to define a planet. For that matter, I would even go so far as to suggest a "terrestrial" planet (aka something "Earth-like") as having an atmosphere above 1 millibar on its surface but less than 10% of its mass as the atmosphere would be plenty sufficient. And yes, that would include Titan as a terrestrial planet. I don't even mind that the Earth's Moon should be classified as a dwarf planet either.
And fortunately, it is more like about a thousand names of planets if you include the planets of other star systems that have been legitimately identified with specific orbital parameters and size characteristics. We are indeed living in exciting times and an era of massive discovery, where the definition of a planet should reflect that scope of potential candidates for what is a planet.
Trying to convince people that Pluto isn't a planet is about as sensible as trying to convince people that a kilobyte isn't 1024 bytes. Deal with it, and come up with a different name for whatever wacky definitions you want to use in future.
Trying to convince people that Pluto isn't a planet is about as sensible as trying to convince people that a kilobyte isn't 1024 bytes. Deal with it, and come up with a different name for whatever wacky definitions you want to use in future.
For most people, it's not an issue at all. For the remainder, I'd imagine it still would not be an issue if the discoverer of Pluto had been anyone but an American. That's the sticky wicket if they were truly being honest. What we finally have, that's been long neglected is a concise definition of what a planet is, and Pluto doesn't fit the bill. Any redefinition of the word planet to include Pluto would mean having to include hundreds of other bodies and that would mean that the Solar System would have planets that were in the main, nothing more than oversize snowballs.
And here I thought the purpose of "technical terminology" was to improve communications between experts within a field by assigning strict definitions to certain words. In the field of linguistics, this is called a "jargon", and can be used to refer to the trade talk of nuclear physicists or that of plumbers or carpenters, etc. Of course astronomers don't study linguistics so it is not surprising that they don't know this term.
Within their jargon, astronomers can mangle, mutilate, extend, or transmogrify whatever words they feel is necessary. But they have no business attempting to dictate anything about language to the general population. Going so far out of their area of expertise just demonstrates that some astronomers are know-it-all assholes.
Astronomers can have their "dwarf planets", and can define a planet such that anything like a planet that happens to orbit another star has to be called something else. But trying to make the common English language conform to their jargon is as silly as their current definition of what a planet is.
By the way, a more succinct and valid definition of "planet" within the current accepted jargon of astronomers is this: "A planet is a member of the following set: { Mecury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune }".
Will
I really have problems with the "dominating its environment" rule in the IAU definition of a planet. Much more objective (and non-heliocentric criteria) should be used for defining a planet. Thank goodness the Kepler team has chosen explicitly to ignore the IAU rules when defining what is and is not a planet with their discoveries.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Kepler folks have been following IAU rules with the designation of planets, they're not naming them.
Astronomers are now adding more and more epicycles to the definition of "planet" as used in their jargon. That's stupid.
The Keplerian solution is apparently too simple to grasp: A planet is one the set of {Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune}. Everything else is not a planet. That is a reasonable and sufficient definition of "planet" in the current astronomical jargon.
Meanwhile, those who wish to communicate in English can talk about planets without bothering to be so specific. There is a value in this. English is capable of handle concepts like regarding the Earth and Moon as a binary planet, where the gravitational interplay between the two bodies has uniquely shaped both, and given rise to significant activity not found elsewhere in the solar system. Such as tides, the effects of tides on ocean currents and weather, the influence tides have had on the evolution of life, the influence of tides and weather on human cultures, and so on.
Apparently none of these phenomena are of any interest to astronomy (despite Fred Hoyle's great book from many years ago) since they have defined their jargon in such a way that astronomy is excluded from participating in exploring such exciting concepts.
Will
My own hypothesis is that Pluto was only ejected because it was discovered in Arizona.
Sure, it might have originated in the Kuiper belt, but it isn't there any more. Besides, it's the first object to be named after a cartoon character, which kind of made it fun (and easy to remember) when we were kids.
Wasn't Uranus named after the judge in the Trial segment of The Wall? That was also technically a cartoon (as in animated), and Uranus was discovered long before Pluto...long before The Wall even, which makes the planet's naming even more remarkable.
This space unintentionally left blank.
And a jealous one, at that (Exodus 20:5 and other places).
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Astronomers are now adding more and more epicycles to the definition of "planet" as used in their jargon. That's stupid.
The Keplerian solution is apparently too simple to grasp: A planet is one the set of {Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune}. Everything else is not a planet. That is a reasonable and sufficient definition of "planet" in the current astronomical jargon.
At least Astronomers are trying to come up with formal definitions of stars and their orbiting bodies. Just saying the following in this particular list are planets without asking "why" is no more different to saying that the Earth is in the centre of the Universe and all opposed to this are heretics.
... etc to say nothing of the different types of stars Astronomers do agree on certain criteria however they may have to refine or even redefine those criteria in the light of new discoveries.
Astronomers have been applying the Scientific Method to orbiting solar bodies for a few centuries now and have arrived at what we would call a reasonable agreement on the scientific definitions of what each type of solar body is. Are these absolute?. No they are not however if you just take a reasonable scientific view of what a planet is and the best one is ours (the Earth) then knowing what criteria (excluding life and size although it does have to be spherical in shape) defines our planet within our solar system we then apply that criteria to other bodies orbiting our star and come up with the names of which we humans have named of the planets you have listed.
As for other bodies in the cosmos such as Extrasolar planets, wandering planets, asteroids comets
Will things change in the future? I would be saddened if they didn't because we would be heading into another "Dark Age".
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
The purpose of technical terminology is to be as clear and efficient as possible. Imagine having to say 'major planet' every time you wanted to talk about Earth or Mars or Jupiter. "Earth is the third major planet from the Sun." It's tedious.
As far as I can tell, the solar system has two major planets[1], two medium planets[2], two minor planets[3], and various microplanets[4].
1: Jupiter, Saturn
2: Uranus, Neptune
3: Earth, Venus
4: Mars, Mercury, Ceres, Pluto/Charon, Eris etc.
The new definition of a planet is very arbitrary:
A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit
According to that definition, other stars cannot have planets, since they don't orbit around the Sun. What a blooper. Then again, considering how few astronomers actually voted for this resolution, who cares?
Also, when talking about "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, just how clear is "clear"?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
We might look upon the Moon, then, as neither a true satellite of the Earth nor a captured one, but as a planet in its own right, moving about the Sun in careful step with the Earth. From within the Earth–Moon system, the simplest way of picturing the situation is to have the Moon revolve about the Earth; but if you were to draw a picture of the orbits of the Earth and Moon about the Sun exactly to scale, you would see that the Moon's orbit is everywhere concave toward the Sun. It is always "falling toward" the Sun. All the other satellites, without exception, "fall away" from the Sun through part of their orbits, caught as they are by the superior pull of their primary planets – but not the Moon.
— Isaac Asimov
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Thanks for bringing up SKOS. This kind of semantic thesaurus has become an increasingly important tool in researching the literature of any field. This is especially true when the researcher might be following citations that lead him/her outside their particular area of expertise or into a natural language where he/she is not fluent.
Of course if the thesaurus is wrong, then literature that might otherwise be very important to a research project might well be overlooked. So building taxonomies-- classification hierarchies-- that are compatible with SKOS concepts is quite important. Especially at this time in the history of science where the most profound discoveries are no longer those that build the silos higher or deeper, but those that find the connections between silos. Such as the work that is being done by geologists and biologists into the role of some clays in the protobiotic formation of some proteins.
The IAU definitions of "planet", "dwarf planet", and other denizens of the solar system is not SKOS compliant. It should be, but it cannot be. The IAU defined this terminology in 2006. But SKOS did not become a completed W3C Recommendation until 2009; it had not even reached the stage of Recommendation Proposal in 2006.
So evidently the astronomers did as best they could with the tools available to laymen in the information management field in 2006. I think we can expect that the astronomers will revise their schema to better fit with the worldwide community of scholars when they next meet. Almost certainly they will bring some expertise in information management to that upcoming meeting. In the meantime, it is useful to keep in mind that the current definitions and taxonomy are not necessarily going to be regarded as valid, or even useful, a few short years from now.
Will
The definitions do define the scope of research, especially research by persons in other fields who are visiting the astronomy silo but are not residents of it.
SKOS does not work well with murky or badly designed definitions or classification schemes. See comment #48550243.
Astronomy isn't just about stars and planets any more. At least, it shouldn't be, it should be part of the larger community of scientists and contributing its share to the common goal of greater understanding.
Will
Also, when talking about "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, just how clear is "clear"?
A Stern-Levison paramter over 1? Take your pick, as there are several parameters related to the amount of stuff a body shares it s orbit with or connected to ability to clear and dominate the orbit, and they all show a several order of magnitude jump between the dwarf planets and planets.
Here's what Stern now has to say about that:
Stern, currently leading the NASA New Horizons mission to Pluto, disagrees with the reclassification of Pluto on the basis that—like Pluto—Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have not cleared their orbital neighbourhoods either. Earth co-orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Jupiter has 100,000 Trojan asteroids in its orbital path. "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", he now says
Nice to know I don't live on a "real" planet according to tha IAU.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Nice to know I don't live on a "real" planet according to tha IAU.
Well, if you want to be purposely dense and not pay attention to any actual numbers or details, don't be surprised if the world passes you by. The IAU and astronomers are quite aware that orbits are not perfect vacuums, that there is every thing from gas and dust to comets and rocks passing by. But if you look at some of the actual numbers referred to, you will see how insignificant they are.
If you add up all of those NEAs crossing Earth's orbit, they are less than one part per million, especially if you eliminate the ones that are resonant with Earth's orbit (i.e. being controlled by Earth's presence). Same with all of the other planets, where the other stuff with overlapping orbits is less than one part in a thousand for all of the planets under current definition, while all of the dwarf planets are completely out-massed by the stuff they share orbit with. Even if you ignore Neptune and Charon, there 12 Pluto masses worth of stuff sharing its orbit.
Stuff like this is incredibly clear cut compared to classification and definitions in a lot of other fields of science or even within astronomy (e.g. try dealing with the classification of pulsars, or stars in general based on spectroscopy, where there are subtle differences between categories). There are orders of magnitude difference between Pluto and larger planets in this regard. As far as our solar system, the bodies very neatly fit into two well divided categories in that regard: those that have more (than a thousand times...) mass than everything else in their orbit, and things that have less mass than everything else sharing their orbit.
Stuff that just passes through on it's way to and from the Oort cloud obviously doesn't count, but the fact is that "clearing an orbit" is a poor definition - some planets have, others haven't.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Stern, currently leading the NASA New Horizons mission to Pluto, disagrees with the reclassification of Pluto on the basis that - like Pluto - Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have not cleared their orbital neighbourhoods either. Earth co-orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Jupiter has 100,000 Trojan asteroids in its orbital path. "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", he now says.
So it's not just "because you continue to declare it so without actually giving much arguments that way doesn't make it so." You could have easily found this if you had first done a rudimentary search. It's the first result for "planet clearing the neighborhood."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Exactly. I'm sure that sooner or later the IAU will talk it over with the semanticists and fix the problems. I'm thinking it would be better if that would happen sooner rather than later. And I strongly believe that, committee inertia being what it is, poking at the problem will help it get addressed sooner.
Will
Well, easy solution, we find two crappy-ass Kuiperbelt objects and name them Yahveh and Jesus.
A few months later there will surely be some silly Disney character (a roach or a siphilitic duck for instance) called Jesus and Yahveh and this will be the end of Christianity (and Islam as they have the same Yahveh guy as God).
Never fails!
-- 29A the number of the Beast
The Kepler folks have been calling them planets though, which is my point. As for naming the planets, it has been historically up to the discoverer to propose a name.... but they've discovered so many planets (in admittedly a team effort) that it is sort of pointless to bother trying to give them names at this point. Enough data is being obtained from the Kepler mission that it is possible for you to discover a planet yourself, and the team is even encouraging private individuals to try and do just that too.
Still, re-read the IAU rules, and note that it requires something to be called a planet as something which orbits the Sun, and only the Sun instead of any other star. That is only one part of my criticism as other things like orbit clearing and domination have much more to do with the age of the planetary system, the number of stars in the whole stellar system, and a good many other factors that come into play that think eventually the whole definition as it stands is going to break down without significant revision to acknowledge that things which are planets may or may not even be near stars at all and certainly can be found in varieties far more complex than the IAU rules currently permit without dealing in a pure physical description language of the celestial object to form the definition.
This still wouldn't change the status of Pluto or make most asteroids fit the definition, but it might make considering Europa, Callisto, and the other Gallelean moons as dwarf planets in their own right as well as Triton and a few other things in the Solar System.