NASA's New Horizons Focuses On Pluto's Largest Moon Charon 77
MarkWhittington writes: New Horizons has already discovered much of what was previously unknown about Pluto, the dwarf planet that is the former ninth planet from the sun. NASA reported that the space probe has also uncovered some of the secrets of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. It has found indications of impact craters on the moon's gray surface as well as a chasm that seems to be bigger than the Grand Canyon on Earth. Charon has a diameter of just 1440 miles. By contrast, Earth has a diameter of 7918 miles.
Bigger than the Grand Canyon Taller than Everest (Score:4, Insightful)
Really it's impressive before you think about it. The Earth has active plate tectonics and ongoing weathering. It should come as no surprise that planets which don't have more pronounced features.
Re:Bigger than the Grand Canyon Taller than Everes (Score:5, Interesting)
Really it's impressive before you think about it. The Earth has active plate tectonics and ongoing weathering. It should come as no surprise that planets which don't have more pronounced features.
Also, the Earth has much higher gravity. Surface elevation gradients are much more pronounced on bodies with lower surface gravity, even though they have higher tidal gradients. Mars' largest volcano, Mons Olympus, could not stand on Earth due to the 3x higher gravity here.
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Mars' largest volcano, Mons Olympus, could not stand on Earth
Why, would it tip over?
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While it doesn't have water near the surface (possibly a fairly deep subsurface ocean), there are liquids that could exist near the surface. The pressure fluctuates wildly, but at today's pressure, it would take about 13 meters of slightly-porous nitrogen ice (more of methane ice) for nitrogen to be able to reach its triple point. That's the equivalent of the weight of less than 1 meter of ice on Earth, so not something abnormally strong or compacted. Additionally, there's all sorts of things that can be li
What is Pluto? (Score:3, Insightful)
>> Pluto, the dwarf planet that is the former ninth planet from the sun
Thanks for the explanation - as Slashdot readers, we needed it.
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Or, Prince style: The dwarf planet formerly known as the ninth planet from the Sun.
Re:What is Pluto? (Score:4, Funny)
Or, Prince style: The dwarf planet formerly known as the ninth planet from the Sun.
If there are dwarves on that planet, it makes sense that they'd have a prince.
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But on a planet of dwarves, the short man is king.
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If there are dwarfs, where's Snow White then?
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A dwarf prince formerly known as the prince of the ninth planet from the Sun.
Come to think of it, the sun is a yellow dwarf star... *KAPOW*
We now return you to your formerly uncontroversial life, upon one of nine planets circling a sun, soundtracked by an artist toiling in rebellion against their record label.
let's go crazy... let's get nuts...
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Come to think of it, the sun is a yellow dwarf star... *KAPOW*
Yellow dwarf despite being bigger and more massive than something like 90% of all stars in the universe. (Oh and it's white too but astronomers still say it's a yellow dwarf.)
Re:What is Pluto? (Score:4, Informative)
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The planet formerly known as the planet formerly eighth from the sun?
Re:What is Pluto? (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty hilarious that the summary goes to such lengths to describe Pluto for us, but the next article with drop some acronym like DPITMD*, and everyone but a few people who happen to be in a relevant industry will scratch their heads and think "okay, but wtf is DPITMD?"
* Describing Pluto In Too Much Detail
In SI Units (Score:2, Informative)
Charon has a diameter of just 2317 km. By contrast, Earth has a diameter of 12743 km.
(FTFY - assuming statute miles, not nautical miles.)
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Short buses or long buses? Buses with hoods, or the type with the flat front?
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I believe short buses, in honor of this conversation.
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At US interstate speeds of 75 MPH, and a road going from one side to the other, you could drive through Charon in roughly 10 hours. Driving through Pluto would take roughly twice as long. According to Google, the drive from Seattle to Dallas is roughly 3 Charon diameters. Driving from Seattle to Houston would be similar to driving all the way around the surface of Charon once.
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Pictures tend to work better. Find Pluto and Charon in these:
http://i.imgur.com/5Vzof1w.png [imgur.com]
http://kokogiak.com/solarsyste... [kokogiak.com]
Then what? (Score:1)
I wonder what they have planned for the craft once it passes Pluto.
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Supposedly it will continue out into the Kupier belt. First that have to get funding to pay for Astronomers to continue the mission, meaning paying the salaries of Astronomers to reprogram and monitor the craft. I don't know if Eris or any of the other larger Kupier belt objects are within easy distance, but it will take a few years for the craft to reach whatever specific object they have planned for it to go to next. It only has a little bit of fuel left for maneuvering, but it has SOME fuel left as I
Re:Then what? (Score:4, Informative)
Anticipated arrival date: January 2019. Be patient...
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2014-06-27 - 2006-01-19 = 440 weeks.
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Your Kuiper gets belted.
Who would have thought? (Score:2)
"has also uncovered some of the secrets of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. It has found indications of impact craters on the moon's gray surface."
Wow! Who would have thought? That's a big secret for sure!
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What's more interesting is how few there are (on both bodies).
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The best hires photos are going to come 19 months from now, I read. It just takes a long time to send a lot of data that far.
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Comcast customers can relate.
On a Sirius note, I wonder how Voyager II dealt with similar conditions at Neptune. It did have a tape recorder. I think it had more power and a bigger antenna than NH. But probably in or near the same order of magnitude. Once Voyager left Neptune, it didn't have a new target such that it had plenty of time for data relay.
What are you talking about? (Score:1)
Sirius had nothing whatsoever to do with the Voyager missions - it was all XM Radio! That's why Sirius failed. They were too busy faking the moon landing while XM was exploring the Galaxy! Turn in your geek card! LUSER!
Re: Drop rate (Score:2)
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This document shows the schedule for which camera will be taking what photos, the quality of the photos, and when they will be transmitted to earth:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Missio... [jhuapl.edu]
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Some nice subtle snarks there, but yeah. 50-60 years seems like a long time for "the preliminary reconnaissance of the solar system", but hey, yeah. Historically it's not really out of line with how it has happened in the past.
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With a chasm that large (Score:3)
With a chasm that large, it should be easy to see the frozen Mass Relay. C'mon New Horizons, start melting!
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Please don't. Regardless what we do the result will be the same and our lives will end with one of 3 almost identical cut-scenes.
That's no moon (Score:2)
The center of mass in the Pluto-Charon system lies outside of either body. It's not a moon. They are a double (dwarf) planetary system.
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Not according to the IAU and their definitions that one can only presume were conceived by a flock of drunken geese.
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They're just another body of knuckleheads with nothing better to do all day than debate if Pluto is a planet. I say it is, I'm bigger than they are and I take their lunch money. Pluto wins.
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Some of those bodies may be rotating around Pluto's barymetric point (gravitational center of mass). Some of them may be moons of Pluto, but we do know Charon is not one of them.
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All of Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra orbit the barycenter.
And how do YOU know that?
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Celestial mechanics? Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation? Those would be good places to start.
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Earths moon has a name - Moon. The question is why did we start refering to the satellites of other planets as 'moons'.
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That's what I want to know!
Signed, S. Platyfish
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If the center that is orbited is inside the mass of the 'mother' planet then it's a moon/satellite.
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A double dwarf? That's twice the insult. Rub it in, why dontcha.
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The 'dwarf' was in parenthesis because I don't agree with the IAU's distinction ;)
Correction (Score:3)
PLUTO has a diameter of 1440 miles.
Charon has a diameter of 790.