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New Horizons' New Target: Kuiper Belt Ice Chunk 2014 MU69
Vox reports on the next target destination for NASA's New Horizons probe, an ice chunk in the Kuiper Belt designated 2014 MU69. The plan is not yet final; like any space mission, complications are bound to come up. But if this selection sticks, New Horizons should reach 2014 MU69 in 2019. (Re/Code has the story, too.)
IAU ruining everyone's fun.
When I was in school, I was taught that 2014 MU69 was a full-fledged comet.
I'm never going to go along with these self-appointed revisionists attempting to demote it to a mere "ice chunk". It will always be a comet.
Kiniper
Once again a mysterious object is claimed to be composed of ice, suggesting water ice, but perhaps methane. When we get there the object is always dry hard rock composed of minerals known to form in extreme heat; everyone is surprised.
I would like to see naming rights to minor objects and surface features auctioned off to the highest bidder, the proceeds going to research in the field. Think of it as a star registry with official status. The human ego being what it is, naming rights on all the knobs and craters we just found on Pluto might possibly pay for the mission.
Such a program already exists. And guess what - shock of all shocks, the IAU is throwing a hissy fit about it. They're basically at war with NH's director Alan Stern and are planning to refuse a large portion of the NH team's feature names for Pluto.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
... here's 19 reasons why the IAU's Pluto decision was ridiculous. But first, the definition
1. Nomenclature: An "adjective-noun" should always be considered a subset of "noun". A "dwarf planet" should be no less seen as a type of planet than a "dwarf star" is seen as a type of star.
2. Erroneous foundation: Current research suggests that individual planets do not necessarily cleared their own neighborhoods, and their neighborhoods may not always have where they are. Jupiter, and Saturn to a lesser extent, have cleared most neighborhoods.
3. Comparative inconsistency: Earth is far more like Ceres and Pluto than it is like Jupiter, yet these very dissimilar groups - gas giants and terrestrial planets - are lumped together as "planets" while dwarfs are excluded.
4. Poor choice of dividing line: While defining objects inherently requires drawing lines between groups, the chosen line has been poorly selected. Achieving a rough hydrostatic equilibrium is a very meaningful dividing line - it means differentiation, mineralization processes, alteration of primordial materials, and so forth. It's also often associated with internal heat and, increasingly as we're realizing, a common association with subsurface fluids. In short, a body in a category of "not having achieved hydrostatic equilibrium" describes a body which one would study to learn about the origins of our solar system, while a body in a category of "having achieved hydrostatic equilibrium" describes a body one would study, for example, to learn more about tectonics, geochemistry, (potentially) biology, etc. By contrast, a dividing line of "clearing its neighborhood" - which doesn't even meet standard #2 - says little about the body itself.
5. Mutability: What an object is declared at can be altered without any of the properties of the object changing simply by its "neighborhood" changing in any of countless ways.
6. Situational inconsistency: An exact copy of Earth (what the vast majority of people would consider the prototype for what a planet should be), identical down to all of the life on its surface, would not be considered a planet if orbiting in the habitable zone of a significantly larger star (harder to clear zone), or a young star (insufficient time to clear), a star without a Jupiter equivalent (no assistance in clearing), or so forth.
7. Ambiguous definition: There is still no consensus on what defines having "cleared the neighborhood" - in particular, what the "neighborhood" is.
8. Lack of terminology: Exoplanets - indeed, including any potential Earthlike planets - are arbitrarily declared to not be planets. This deprives those studying exoplanets of an IAU-acceptable term to refer to them by.
9. Inability to describe exoplanets even if not ruled out: There is no way that even if
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
Uwingu has the right idea, but it still has no official status, as your article explains. It's just another star registry like the ones in the back of magazines. We need the IAU itself, or some organization(s) it deputizes, to issue and manage the official names. Because IAU has traditionally named the important objects and features, it has to coordinate with whoever would be issuing the auctioned names.
One indicator of a need for auctioned names is that the IAU naming committee is that with today's proliferation of objects, they're running out of ideas. We're getting Inca gods so obscure that nobody has ever heard of them, so who is being honored, exactly? I would feel better knowing that Suge Knight had dropped significant coin to have the next KBO named after himself. And what in hell is "Sedna"? Are we down to Arizona Map Typos now?
damn thing sure looked like a planet. Active geology, and atmosphere. I appreciate your writing out this exposition of the case against 'demoting' Pluto to something other than one of the nine planets. I'll accept Pluto is not a planet when Jupiter is not a planet but a gas giant and we are down to 4 planets.
And what in hell is "Sedna"? Are we down to Arizona Map Typos now?
No. As it happens, Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the Sea.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
What kind of shirts are the researchers wearing today?
it'll just travel alone, advancing toward the outer reaches of the solar system until its power runs out sometime in the 2030s
and then it will just come to a stop and sit there for billions of years.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You are all Kuiper Kows, say Mu, Muuu, MU69. Perv cows say Moo 69, MU69 MU69!
An alternative candidate appeared slightly larger, but would require a lot more fuel (propellant). If it's the last target, one could argue it wouldn't matter if you use up most of your fuel. It seems they want to keep their options open and have spare fuel for unforeseen situations or problems. Who knows, if they get lucky, the probe may be able to visit a 3rd system.
Table-ized A.I.
Think of the children of the engineers and scientists who worked on this and built the components. They spend their money in their communities and pay taxes. We are not the problem.
Large corporations that use legal tricks to not have to pay taxes, and people burning oil and sending billions of dollars out of their state to cartels and evil people are the reason there is no money.
After saying that you better not be wasting money on stuff like phones, computers, clothes, washing, makeup, cars, holidays - or any other pleasure that diverts money from those starving children.
And BTW feeding those starving children now without solving all the other issues is only making more starving children for the future.. If people are having children they cannot feed the solution is contraception not more food. I'm on the left but all the poverty in the outlying 'undeveloped' world is not out fault...
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
You can make even more by auctioning the naming rights to the Earth. We can all live on Pepsi.
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"we are using both mass and distance from the Sun (more specifically, M^2 / A^1.5, where M is mass and A is distance from the Sun). That combination of mass and orbital radius gives the average time for a body to "clear its orbit". Trying to understand the argument against Pluto a bit more and did the shallow internet search for the "Stern-Levison parameter" . If I understand the equation correctly Pluto would be a planet if it were withing 0.8 AU because it would be whipping around so fast even it's puny scattering ability would have had time to clear smaller bodies over a "long period of time" whatever that is. So if it were in Mercury's orbit it would be a planet (well for about 3 seconds until it evaporated) but way out on the edge it isn't. I'm thinking for the solar system a long time may mean something else than it might to us which apparently means from the formation until now..... Is that really the deal here? Seems dumber than I thought already.