http://pluto.jhuapl.edu


thoughts?

Pretty neat.

Uh.. What is this about exactly?

I do believe this is about the Pluto flyby

Link isn't working for me ;(. Although of this is about the nude pics we got of Pluto I think it's impressive.

It seems kind of weird to me why they're just sacrificing New Horizons after the Pluto Flyby. Are they expecting lots of cool data from far away or are they just gonna leave as space junk? I personally would have tried to use pluto's gravity to swing it back to earth for a nine more years.

I don't think Pluto has enough gravity to get it back to earth without getting dangerously close to Pluto's or Charon's surface. Apparently now, it is going to sail past some more Kuiper Belt objects and collect data on those. 2026 is when the NH probe will be useless due to Plutonium's decay rate.

For Raage: And that's most likely a ban for you.
Anyway, the world can't stay back for people who can't support themselves. If you want to help homeless people, go ahead, but your just wasting your time and money.'
For everyone else: I thought that decay rates couldn't take effect in space? Anyway, I guess your right about Pluto's gravity. It's not very big/dense. I wonder why the choose to make New Horizons out of Plutonium though. If they were going to explore more, shouldn't they have made it out something like iron? (Forgive if I'm sounding like a complete dumbass. I don't know much about space physics yet.)


What did you guys think was on Pluto as a child? I always imagined it dwarf floating in space because it's called a dwarf planet.

I thought it was covered in water or ice.

Younger, I was super interested in space related stuff, along with dinosaurs, so I was pretty aware of what was in the planets, how moons orbited planets, and about comets and meteors and stuff. I don't know how much scientists knew about Pluto back then, so I'm guessing that I thought the planet was either ice or just a really really cold rock.