Posted on 09/13/2022 8:00:23 PM PDT by BenLurkin
ExploreIGO, a Twitter fan account devoted to icy worlds, asked its community yesterday what to call a spacecraft visiting the big blue world.
Embedded with the tweet is a 2021 proposal by three scientists led by Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The group told the U.S. decadal survey of planetary science that a spacecraft to Uranus is a "journey whose time has come."
Uranus was voted the top destination by the community in April after this proposal process, which was led by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The decadal committee called for a $4 billion flagship mission combining a Uranus orbiter and probe, to examine the icy giant's wild weather and enigmatic features from up close. It would be the first time a smaller icy gas giant gets a detailed mission, after others visited the much larger Jupiter and Saturn.
The mission, if accepted, would leave Earth in 2031 or so and take 13 years to move to the outer solar system, but unlike Voyager, it would orbit Uranus for many years instead of just swinging by. But the mission is by no means a done deal. It requires funding and a measure of scientific and technical will to get the ambitious spacecraft proposal together.
In the meantime, observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory continue to observe Uranus from afar to look at its atmosphere, rings and moons.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
I'm disappointed.
I vote for The Bruce Longstaff.
“Stinky”
Gaseous.
Skid Mark.
Callipygian.
Dingleberry
Colonoscopy, of course.
The Patrick Fitzgerald or Gerald Fitzpatrick
The answer is, shall we say, probative? 😁
V_GI_ER.
“BUTTPLUG 1?”
I’m a babe in the woods. Is there such a thing as a plug that’s inserted in the butt for some sexual reason?
Preparation H
Deep Sphincter 1.
This. Why is one planet named using the Greek moniker, and all the rest are Roman? There’s even an alternate spelling in Greek (Ouranos) that is not nearly as scatological sounding.
Yes.
They should call it: The “Enema 1”
Lightbulb I
Astroglide I.
Space Hamster.
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