Where is BPEarthwatch when you need him? (Obscure reference back to the days of Ison which was going to destroy us all..)
Posted on 07/12/2016 8:03:24 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought.
Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700 Earth years, scientists said. (Pluto completes one lap around the sun every 248 Earth years.)
"The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the sun," discovery team member Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in a statement. "They let us piece together the history of our solar system."
...
The exact size of 2015 RR245 is not yet known, but the researchers think it's about 435 miles (700 kilometers) wide. Pluto is the largest resident of the Kuiper Belt, with a diameter of 1,474 miles (2,371 km).
The research team first spotted 2015 RR245 in February of this year, while poring over images that the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii took in September 2015 as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).
"There it was on the screen — this dot of light moving so slowly that it had to be at least twice as far as Neptune from the sun," Bannister said.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Where is BPEarthwatch when you need him? (Obscure reference back to the days of Ison which was going to destroy us all..)
Sure, I'll explain about the Habitats. Plus an editorial comment about the solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Ostensibly, we are occupying a four-year orbit in the middle of the Asteroid Belt. We came out here, stopping at Mars for a period of time, just to be a safe and sufficient distance from Earth and its potential for mayhem.
Technically, I have a contract with NASA to develop a weather control system for Earth and Mars, but they have been woefully deficient in providing the needed materials for the project, and it is in a state of hiatus.
In the meantime, we are harvesting material from the asteroid "Plymouth" which we surrounded and began hollowing out. It's a good source of raw materials, with the exception of volatile gases.
For those, we send out our shuttles to the gas giants, and collect what we need to replace gas lost as reaction mass and from leakage of our Habitats.
We set it up with three Habitats rotating about a common center. That gives us artificial gravity, and our connections allow us to travel back and forth through a spherical elevator car system and tubes to contain it.
These tubes also snake into the asteroid Plymouth, but you'd better be properly equipped for the work area!
Speaking of this structure reminds me to mention that while we have nuclear power generators, the Habitats are quite dependent on solar energy, even at this distance. We use it mainly for daylight in the Habs, and for growing plants for our shipboard ecology, (an entire subject all its own).
For that reason, I don't currently entertain the notion of moving the Habitats out beyond the orbit of Neptune. It would simply be too dark! At that range, the sun is more like an exceptionally bright star.
Should anyone wish to colonize a distant minor planet for whatever reason, we may be able to arrange some kind of wheeling and dealing about some spare nuclear capacity, just to get you set up with your own production efforts. I'd suggest that your little worldlet fiefdom should have a sufficient amount of uranium to take over when you're ready, unless you've cracked that nasty little conundrum called fusion for us.
You stocked up on tinfoil hats, yes?
String theory is absolutely correct. Anyone who has ever snagged a Woolly Jumper on a Barbed wire fence can testify to that.
Oh...
Wait a minute. That delusional person in that EweToob video says you need a padded lead lined helmet.
We’re all dooooomed..
And if you’re interested in Jupiter, you should know that Pat, the weirdest of all, already has it staked out, has renamed it Zeus, and is planning to settle his Hellenists there.
Got it, doomed. Not a cheerful diagnosis, but simple!
Jupiter is awesome! The Galilean satellites have harmonic ratios in their orbits. They should be stable for a long time.
Of course, they orbit Jupiter with one face fixed permanently adoring the majestic visage, just as our moon orbits Earth.
But since Jupiter is almost like a sun out there, their orbits are faster, allowing a decent view of the rest of the system.
Assuming you could deal with the reduced gravity, and could handle the extreme radiation, any of those large moons would be a cool place to be!
If Pat wants to be a pilot for us, he can bring us fresh water ice and liquid ammonia and other stuff. We can sort out what to do with it after he gets it delivered.
Grokthraggians, and the remnants of old Silangia with its Battle Flies will be most hungrily interested.
Tell them to get their own liquid ammonia.
Yeah, not cheerful. And all for the want of a padded lead lined helmet...
If things don’t change in November, maybe we can get a group together to colonize a distant minor planet. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can do about the uranium. What would we do without you?!?
Activity in the solar system will depend initially on — surprise! — solar power.
Think about it. If you had enough power to not need sunlight for your habitat, then you wouldn’t need to even stay in the solar system.
That’s why I think Venus could potentially be more important out there than Mars.
Down the corridor, a long-disused door slid hesitantly open. A muttering figure strode through mildly cursing the stubborn mechanisms that had prevented his small craft docking properly for the better part of the “afternoon.” Now he was late for Happy Hour, which made no improvement to his demeanor.
Still, the gravity felt good, artificial though it was, and the solid, unyielding feel of the deck beneath his worn boots brought to his soul a sense of anchorage, of place, even of home. Nearing the lounge, the murmur of familiar voices reweaving old refrains became step-by-step more articulate upon his ears, invoking an irresistible force that tugged at the stoic corners of his mouth.
Drawing a treasured bottle of rare double malt from the folds of his cloak, he paused at the doorway to the lounge to savor the totality of the moment, took a long, deep breath, and stepped through.
“You forgot the Diet 7-up!”
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