Posted on 07/13/2015 5:45:36 PM PDT by radu
LAUREL, Md. — With less than a day to go before NASA's New Horizons mission zooms past Pluto, scientists reported on Monday that the dwarf planet isn't quite as dwarfish as they thought — in fact, it's the largest known solar system object beyond Neptune.
How large? Based on New Horizons imagery, its diameter is 2,370 kilometers (1,473 miles), plus or minus 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). That makes it almost 30 miles wider than Eris, the dwarf planet whose discovery led to Pluto's downfall as the "ninth planet" back in 2006. Eris' diameter has been measured to be 2,326 kilometers (1,445 miles), plus or minus 12 kilometers (7.5 miles).
*snip*
Stern said New Horizons' observations also confirmed that Pluto has a polar ice cap, and that the composition of that cap is different and more methane-rich than the dark bands and splotches of material ringing Pluto's equator. The piano-sized probe's instruments also have detected atoms of nitrogen escaping from the dwarf planet's atmosphere, Stern said.
*snip*
Because Pluto is almost 3 billion miles away, it will take 4.5 hours of travel time at the speed of light for the all-clear signal to reach Earth. If and when that moment comes, sometime around 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, it will set off a cheering, jumping-for-joy celebration at APL's Mission Operations Center.
"Tomorrow evening's going to be a little bit of drama," Stern said Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Thanks. I think I’ve seen that before.
Cool site!
Makes one feel very small in relation, doesn’t it?
“This settles it. Time to make Pluto a planet again.”
I just put a deposit down on a time share there!
Pluto is about 1473 miles in diameter. The moon is 2158 miles in diameter.
What is it for those of us who do know?
Yea, but it's easy to spot that giant neon sign saying "Last chance for gas for the next 32,000 light years"
Aaaaaaaaaah, so THAT’S how they spotted it! LOL!
and the Solar System is but a tiny tiny tiny little speck of the Milky Way.
amazing
I scrolled through his whole presentation a month ago. It was pretty interesting although interspersed with boring empty parts.
Can it go back to being a planet now?
Bookmark.
No liberals.
The speed of light, for those that DO know, is 1 million miles in about 5.3 seconds.
And the Milky Way is but a tiny tiny tiny little speck of the universe.
Lol! But light does actually “curve” around extremely massive objects due to gravitational effects. It’s called “gravitational lensing”.
The freaky part is that the light is traveling in a straight line; its space itself bending due to gravitational effect.
space-time
I certainly hope so.
Ahhh that ‘splains it!!
I saw a video someone posted this morning of the program simulation sped up about 100 times I suppose. I was hoping that the simulation would be available in real time as well.
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