Posted on 07/14/2015 4:52:26 AM PDT by kidd
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft aimed to get up-close and personal with Pluto on Tuesday, on track to zoom within 7,800 miles of the small icy world left unexplored until now.
It’s the final destination on NASA’s planetary tour of the solar system, which began more than a half-century ago. Pluto was still a full-fledged planet when New Horizons rocketed away in 2006, only to become demoted to dwarf status later that year.
The 3 billion-mile journey from Cape Canaveral, Florida, culminates Tuesday at 7:49 a.m. EDT. That’s when the spacecraft is due to fly past Pluto at 31,000 mph.
The New Horizons team gathered at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, won’t know for many hours if everything went well. The spacecraft will be too busy taking photographs and collecting information to “phone home.” A confirmation signal is expected at around 9 p.m. EDT.
New Horizons already has beamed back the best-ever images of Pluto and big moon Charon. Pluto also has four little moons.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
Which set of goofballs decided Pluto wasn’t a planet?
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a requirement to be a planet is that it orbits the sun. Pluto was discovered in 1930. It is estimated that it takes 248 years for pluto to orbit the sun. We will not have been able to observe that for another 163 years.
Who’s the goofball?
Something like eight hours for a signal to be sent? Takes that long to reach Earth?
Looks like a giant footprint on it!.......................
YEC much?
Why Pluto is not considered a planet:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184
Arguments that Pluto is a planet:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3298118/posts
http://www.space.com/29571-why-pluto-is-a-planet-and-eris-is-too.html
My thoughts are reflected in the excerpt of the above FR post: "Some planetary astronomers would argue that were the Earth placed in the Kuiper Belt, it would not be able to clear its neighborhood and thus would not be considered, by the IAU definition, a planet; apparently location matters. Here a planet, there not a planet..."
IMHO, the current IAU definition of a planet is a poor one.
The Speed of Light is way too slow...............................
Yep. It's about a third of a light-day distant from here...
They arbitrarily changed the definition of “planet” so as to meet their new narrative. Typical of science lately.
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So you’ve witnessed pluto orbiting the sun?
an orbit of the sun is a requirement for a planet (among several other well documented criteria), and pluto’s orbit (that we’ve never fully observed) is 248 years, and pluto was discovered in 1930.
Orbits can be calculated, without actually seeing and observing the phenomena....................
Orbits can be calculated, without actually seeing and observing the phenomena....................
Of course they can, but the proof is in the pudding.
That is about what the Earth would look like up against Jupiter.
Okay, I’ll start watching now. Let me know when the time is up.....................
Okay, I’ll start watching now. Let me know when the time is up.....................
I don’t know why these posts are getting doubled. I’m not doing it...............
LOL.
Its busy gathering info on the aliens....
an orbit of the sun is a requirement for a planet (among several other well documented criteria), and pluto’s orbit (that we’ve never fully observed) is 248 years, and pluto was discovered in 1930.
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If Pluto weren’t in orbit around the sun, we wouldn’t have been able to send a spacecraft there with such precision.
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