Posted on 07/16/2012 3:14:30 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: A fifth moon has been discovered orbiting Pluto. The moon was discovered earlier this month in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in preparation for the New Horizons mission's scheduled flyby of Pluto in 2015. Pictured above, the moon is currently seen as only a small blip that moves around the dwarf planet as the entire system slowly orbits the Sun. The moon, given a temporary designation of S/2012 (134340) 1 or just P5 (as labeled), is estimated to span about 15 kilometers and is likely composed mostly of water-ice. Pluto remains the only famous Solar System body never visited by a human-built probe and so its origins and detailed appearance remain mostly unknown.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
Don’t worry, you haven’t hurt my felines.
Just beagle ad I’m not going to deface this topic with more puns.
I know there have been very, very few rotations of the outer planets since they were discovered ... But would a single pass explain the change as first seen?
Once started, a “ripple” in Neptune’s orbit would continue all the way through the remaining passes of every orbit due to inertia. A satellite orbiting earth, for example, once bumped by a comet or second satellite or the Space Shuttle when it was serviced, will continue orbiting, but the sideways motion of that first bump would change each subsequent orbit.
ephemeris of neptune perturbed
You must beagle ad that you fine alley got an offer tuna tea to use that one!
;’)
:”D
Yes, and aside from the dust counter and the SWAP particle instrument, the spacecraft is in hibernation until next year’s rehearsal. They just had the three-years-until-encounter party in Boulder last week.
The Mars Science Laboratory will have to tide me over for a while. 19 days and 6 hours to touchdown.
The Dawn spacecraft should be departing Vesta in a few months and heading for Ceres.
Hopefully a soft rather than hard touchdown — the skycrane scares me!
It’s also 6 weeks until Juno’s Deep Space Maneuver in preparation for the October 2013 Earth flyby.
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