Pluto probe about to be launched.

Here is an interesting news article about the Pluto probe that is going to be launched

news.yahoo.com...


[edit on 09/19/2005 by swampcricket]

mabye when they get there they can enlighten us on the 10th planet. who knows we will just have to wait and see.

Originally posted by swampcricket
mabye when they get there they can enlighten us on the 10th planet.

Pluto is only the ninth planet. An easy way to remember is My Very Elegant Mother Just Serves Us Nine Pizzas... For Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Also, the "nine" for Neptune helps you remember that there are only nine planets.

Otherwise... Good find! It's about time something be launched. I believe ironjello had been saying this probe was being delayed.

I am talking about the supposed Planet X or the tenth planet, I figure if they make it to Pluto just look a little farther out and tell us what they see.

There is actually some controversy as to the validity of Pluto's classification as a planet

The "tenth" planet is another comet/asteroid, large though it may be, in the Kuiper belt.

And this has been covered

Hopefully the probe will answer alot of questions regarding Pluto and Planet X such as are they a kupier belt object or not and mabye even shed more light into the kupier belt itself.

If Pluto was discovered today I doubt it would even be classified as a planet. Its really just the largest object in the Kuiper Belt rather then a planet.

Prediction for probes results:

Robert: "Well Jim, we found out that Pluto is really cold and-"

Hatley: "Really cold!"

Robert: "... yes... and the chemical compasition is mostly space dust, rocks, water, and carbon."

Hatley: "Like it was some kind of comet or something!"

Robert: "Which it is... what a shock there..."

Hatley: "I was surprised, weren't you?"

Robert: "No, not really."

Hatley: "Oh"

--------------------------------------

Aside from that, I don't think we're going to actually learn too much from this probe - assuming it actually gets there (been a string of malfunctions lately in the space industry). We might. Maybe I'm dead wrong... but the last big thing was Cassini-Huygens, and I had big expectations, and what did we find out?

Robert: "Ummm... mud!"

Hatley: "MUD!"

Robert: "And rocks THIS BIG!"

Hatley: "And rocks!"


Seriously, that was about it. Oh, mind you, the geological pictures were STUNNING! Amazing what water-like substances can do to change the features of a planet/moon. Mars doesn't look like that because erosion's turned it all flat - but erosion (and I guess subsequent mountain-building) have really made some stunning features on Titan.

Maybe that's what we'll learn from a Plutonian probe - good pictures of what a comet looks like and their structure/density.

Yarium,
I'm betting you're wrong about what we find out about Pluto..
Just as you under-exaggerated the findings on Titan.

Pluto, is probably more similar to Triton, a moon of Neptune.
Which in turn may be a captured Kupier belt object. (with weather, and nitrogen geysers, BTW). Pretty surprising for something so far out there..

The important thing, is to go.. to never stop learning.
We may find nothing of Earthly importance.
We may find something of Earth shattering importance..

Well, at the end I did mention taking a look at Pluto's composition and structure. After posting this I then went to the other thread dealing with this ("Pluto Rediscovered") and found out that is actually one of the main points of the mission!

While this may not be incredibly awesome, you are right, I did not pen the project, and I am not in control.

But I'll take your bet . Too bad it'll take so long to get there. Neither of us might still be visiting these boards when it gets there. Otherwise, I would take your bet. Unofficial bet of 5 000 ATS forum points!

Actuall, if I were in command of NASA projects, I'd really be trying to rush through a probe to melt through the surface-ice on Europa. I consider Europa to be the best chance we have in our solar system of finding life. We know there's movement underneath the ice - whether it be liquid water, or some kind of semi-liquid "slush" we do not know. If it is water (perhaps kept warm by geothermal vents) then it's so incredibly likely that we could find life there.

Imagine a probe that melts into the waters - starts "swimming" around - and then the most wierdest kind of fish-like creature swims by! Incredible...