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 ...
“maybe make Kathleen wash dishes...”
I’d pay money to be a fly on the wall for that event. :)
Having her cut up the cantaloupe would be even more fun.
Staring down through the roof lights.
Watching....
Waiting.....
Noting things down in a little book
The town offices are on the floor above the library. If the employees were replaced by rhesus monkeys, how long would it take us to notice?
Judging by the Colobus Monkeys we have in our County council, you’d never notice the difference.
Except for one thing.
The Rhesus Monkeys actually take an interest in the goings on around them. Therefore the being watched feeling.
Perhaps...it...has...really...happened!
Oh boy. Some intelligence in local government,at last.
Though Nature abhors a vacuum, it is a hostile environment for an invasive species.
Bareskin Shako, Summer Dress
box says Agesj 3 and up.)
That’s a big sink.
Kathleen could bathe in it. Some of the dishes might get clean, before they got broken.
We’ve had words for it for sometime.
It’s just that they are frowned upon in polite society... ;-)
But that's why we hang out here.
Well, yes.
“Bareskin Shako, Summer Dress”
The Vegetarian Range of Summer Hats.
When we last visited the continuing saga of the Little Red Ridingthing, I had not yet attempted to start if, but had located a replacement motor half way across PA that had been removed from a 17.5 horse carriage. Or 17.5 horses that had been removed from a deck. Or something.
I calculated the time factor, the mileage factor, the toll factor and compared all that with what the seller wanted to ship it here. To drive out, pick it up, and drive back would take the better part of two tanks of gas (PA is 300 miles across nominal) and a minimum of 12 hours on the road, so I determined if I was forced to purchase a replacement engine, I would get that one and pay him to ship it (nominal $50 shipping - two tanks of gas at NJ prices would be about $45 - more if I had to buy one tank in PA - so it’s a wash..)
Then I went to have a talk with the Red Riding Thing. Jumped the battery (which I had depleted the previous day), opened the fuel shutoff valve, advanced the throttle to the start position, turned the key, and... it started. I checked how much fuel was in the tank and determined I could finish the front, the nominal east side west of the drive, and the west side with the rose garden but in front of the fence before I needed to refill. All that was accomplished, and I rode back to the milkhouse (which hasn’t stored any milk for decades) where the suitably colured red petrol container was waiting and refilled the mower tank (without of course shutting it off - not a recommended thing but necessary.)
I ventured into the house, refilled my water container, and returned to the Redthing that was waiting. Now with sufficient petrol in the tank to complete the yard, I attacked the west side north of the fence but south of the cornfield by starting a row cut along the fence, intending to cut a perimeter swath around the entire plot of yard (or whatever you classify a space populated with Advanced Grass Substitute - which by this time was responding well to the applied growth stimulant.) I was merrily progressing along the fence through the tall luxurious growth of AGS and had progressed maybe 1/5 of the perimeter when I was greeted with a loud clunk emanating from the mower deck, a sudden complete cessation of motor activity (it stalled), and a sudden lurching stop. I had mowed into something that was not supposed to be there.
I got off the Red Riding Thing, lifted the deck, put the gear in neutral and pushed R.R.T. away from the spot which produced a bumpling rumple from the mower deck. As I pushed the R.R.T. further, the obstruction was revealed - a log about three inches in diameter that had last been located behind the milkhouse in the area occupied by Son #1’s dogs - a location some 175ish feet from where it was lurking in the tall luxurious A.G.S. ‘Not Me’ had relocated it.
Did I mention that three ‘not me’s’ are here (aka grandchildren)..
Anyway, after that sudden stoppage, the Little Red Riding Thing (as I feared) refused to start again. You know, pushing a dead Redthing with a 42”deck through a luxurious growth of Advanced Grass Substitute over terrain that is not exactly smoothly level, more on the order of convoluted, is not easy when you are 34. It’s even harder when you are 34 only in common core math and your knees know that common core math is a fraud..
So I got the LRRT out of the luxurious growth of Advanced Grass Substitute and pushed it up to the front of the was-a-barn where I covered it with a tarp (they are calling for thunderous storms this AM) and left it sit with the intent to try again in the daylight after things had cooled down..
My admittedly nonexpert opinion (there is after all no cpu, ram, or programming involved, and the circuitry such as it is is just a bunch of switches in a non-exotic configuration) is that something interior to the motor is affecting the compression release thus preventing the starter from being able to spin the works around to encourage starting. Previous to this time when that would happen and I would open the valve cover it was obvious that it needed a valve lash adjustment after which the LRRT would start up like a champ. That ‘fix’ historically was good until next mowing season (Briggs & Stratton do recommend annual adjustment). This mowing season I had already adjusted the valves once but based on how it was acting, I opened it up again as I previously mentioned. And it didn’t look or feel as if it needed any adjustment..
The compression release dodad is down in the bottom of the crankcase and as I understand it is a spring loaded thing that partially lifts a valve on the compression stroke to make it easy for the starter to crank it over. When the motor starts and the rpms increase the centrifugal force apparently overcomes the springythingy and ‘retracts’ the compression release. Or something like that. Anyway, it isn’t working properly. Either the spring unsprung, or maybe the remnants of the ingested carburetor parts are interfering, or something, but now when I spin the flywheel around by hand there is a non-usual noise coming from the interior of the motor (meaning a sound that I have not heard this machine make all the previous times I have spun it by hand). Not a scrape or grind, but a metallic sortofclank as if something is loose in there.
We shall see if I can get it started again to finish the remaining segments. I have found if I crank the flywheel around by hand eventually it will come to top of the compression stroke with less resistance indicating that on that revolution the compression release has ‘worked’. When I feel that, I then try the key. It also seems that the trick only works when the thing is stone cold so thermal expansion of the innards seems to be in play.. I am hoping to be able to complete the mowing project if I can manipulate it to start one more time.
In the meantime I was Grandpa Gruff with the Grandkids because they have been repeatedly told about tossing junk in the areas that I mow. Usually it is rocks which just clank and fling themselves out the discharge port at lethal velocities but don’t stall out the motor. This time it was a log. And of course if it wasn’t a major project just to get the mower restarted I probably wouldn’t have been quite so - grumpy. ;-)
And I ordered that replacement motor from the far side of PA. Once that is installed which at the earliest will be next weekend, I will at least open this one up and see what the ingested carb parts have wrought..
Thus ends today’s episode of the continuing saga of the Little Red Riding Thing.
Invasive Species? We's Watching you too ,Now !
Thank goodness you’ve bought that other engine.
Whatever you do, I wouldn’t dissect the old one until the new one has done at least one cut of the AGS. It is after all a B&S engine. (Shudder)
17 horses coming across PA in a week...That’s a fair bit of riding, they’re going to be hungry when they arrive.
Here’s Hoping LRRT starts this morning. (Que the John Cleese Car scene)
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