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Pluto has 4 moons

post #1 of 30
7/20/11 at 8:37am
Thread Starter 
Last time I heard, admittedly long ago, Pluto only had one moon, and it was more of a double-planet kind of thing as Charon was basically half of Pluto's diameter.

Now this. Scientists spot Pluto's fourth moon



WTH! When did the news that Pluto had a 2nd and 3rd moon break?
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post #2 of 30
7/20/11 at 8:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

WTH! When did the news that Pluto had a 2nd and 3rd moon break?

About three years ago.

I guess you could say...

...you were...

*sunglasses*

...lost in space.

(SIIIIIIIIIIIIIILEEEEEEEEEENCEEEEEEEEEE)
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
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post #3 of 30
7/20/11 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

Last time I heard, admittedly long ago, Pluto only had one moon, and it was more of a double-planet kind of thing as Charon was basically half of Pluto's diameter.

It's been hiding behind Uranus for a while.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike

WTH! When did the news that Pluto had a 2nd and 3rd moon break?

Let's suppose it had 10 moons, is it really newsworthy to know which rocks are floating around billions of miles away? What is the immediate impact of such a discovery?
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post #4 of 30
7/20/11 at 2:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Let's suppose it had 10 moons, is it really newsworthy to know which rocks are floating around billions of miles away? What is the immediate impact of such a discovery?

If one's a naturally-occurring monopole, sure. Or if it's rich in something we could mine.

The immediate impact of the discovery of Eris (then 2003UB313) was the demotion of Pluto from its planetary status (COMPLETE FALLACY, SCREW YOU, IAU), so it's occasionally rather important.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
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post #5 of 30
7/20/11 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

... Or if it's rich in something we could mine.
...

Except the idiots in power on this planet can't even get back to the moon... they're even loosing ground on access to LEO. They'd rather throw chemical explosives back and forth at each other than to actually do something constructive for the long-term survival of the species. (Their ego's being more important than the society as a whole, of course!)
The lack of interest in this sort of thing by the masses is more a symptom than a cause (in my opinion.)


oops!... did that sound kinda jaded and cynical???
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #6 of 30
7/20/11 at 3:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

oops!... did that sound kinda jaded and cynical???

It's fine when it's agreeable.
PhilBoogie
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PhilBoogie
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post #7 of 30
7/21/11 at 4:25am
+1 to all the above posts
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post #8 of 30
7/21/11 at 4:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

It's been hiding behind Uranus for a while.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Let's suppose it had 10 moons, is it really newsworthy to know which rocks are floating around billions of miles away? What is the immediate impact of such a discovery?

It's rather cruel, isn't it. We've mapped out, what, an unfathomable distance of stars and galaxies, yet we can't even set foot on our nearest planet (which is actually Venus, not Mars, at their nearest distances... Though distances to Venus and Mars vary a lot because of their elliptical orbits).

That said, astronomy still lacks a decent ability to discern planets around even our nearest stars. However the beginning is promising with the Kepler mission:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...pler-nasa.html

So there's lots of space for astronomy to improve ie. what are the planets and their composition around our nearest stars.

And there's lots of space (wow, pun unintended) for travel to other planets and stars to improve.

But yeah if we can stop killing each other and wasting all those resources, that could help.
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post #9 of 30
7/21/11 at 8:35am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

It's been hiding behind Uranus for a while.

Genius! Walked right into that.

Quote:
Let's suppose it had 10 moons, is it really newsworthy to know which rocks are floating around billions of miles away? What is the immediate impact of such a discovery?

Sure its newsworthy. I'm actually rather surprised at the arrangement and wonder what the gravitational dynamics of such a system is.

Who knows what the immediate impact is. 99.9% of news of the world can essentially be reduced to no impact whatsoever, yet, here we are, drowning in it.
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post #10 of 30
7/21/11 at 5:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

Genius! Walked right into that.

Sure its newsworthy. I'm actually rather surprised at the arrangement and wonder what the gravitational dynamics of such a system is.

Who knows what the immediate impact is. 99.9% of news of the world can essentially be reduced to no impact whatsoever, yet, here we are, drowning in it.

Saw a documentary the other day, part of it showed the theory and simulation of our moon forming due to another planet colliding with the Earth. That's pretty new to me. I wonder how many people have heard about it.
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post #11 of 30
7/22/11 at 11:22am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

Saw a documentary the other day, part of it showed the theory and simulation of our moon forming due to another planet colliding with the Earth. That's pretty new to me. I wonder how many people have heard about it.

This has been the theory or hypothesis for the origin of the Moon since I can remember. A Mars sized body collided with the Earth, the ejecta formed a ring around the Earth and coalesced into the Moon.

Here is another interesting theory: some people think Venus was a rogue planet or a captured planet early in Sol system's life. Venus rotates in the opposite direction as Earth, so the sun will rise in the west and set in the east. All other planets rotate like Earth. (Have to double check with Neptune which is actually tilted almost 90 degrees I think.) So, some speculate, conspiracite that Venus was a captured rogue planet. Seems crazy to me. If the Moon was created when a Mars sized body collided with the Earth, I can easily imagine a significant chunk of rock hitting Venus in someway and flipping it upside down.
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post #12 of 30
7/22/11 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

(Have to double check with Neptune which is actually tilted almost 90 degrees I think.)

Uranus. 92 degrees, I believe.

Quote:
So, some speculate, conspiracite that Venus was a captured rogue planet. Seems crazy to me. If the Moon was created when a Mars sized body collided with the Earth, I can easily imagine a significant chunk of rock hitting Venus in someway and flipping it upside down.

I've never heard this before. I think that a large (meaning Ceres-size object on Ceres-size object) VERY early in the coalescing stage makes more sense, but we can't ever have any evidence either way anyway.
PhilBoogie
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PhilBoogie
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post #13 of 30
7/22/11 at 1:04pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

Uranus. 92 degrees, I believe.

Wikipedia says Uranus is tilted 97.77°. The jokes just write themselves! 97.77°! Accurate to two decimal places? Hmm...

Quote:
I've never heard this before. I think that a large (meaning Ceres-size object on Ceres-size object) VERY early in the coalescing stage makes more sense, but we can't ever have any evidence either way anyway.

Since the rotational period on Venus is so long (243 days), some kind of complicated tidal locking between the planets and the Sun could explain the rotation. Amazing that it's surface temperature stays relatively the same all across the planet. Those clouds are thick.

For terra-forming Mars and Venus - and Earth even down the road - I always wonder if we could go direct lots and lots of comets and change their orbits and crash them onto the planets. Then, seed it with designer bacteria to eat the CO2, sulphur and generate O2. I'm not sure how we can get see level densities to be Earth-like.
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post #14 of 30
7/23/11 at 1:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

For terra-forming Mars and Venus - and Earth even down the road - I always wonder if we could go direct lots and lots of comets and change their orbits and crash them onto the planets. Then, seed it with designer bacteria to eat the CO2, sulphur and generate O2. I'm not sure how we can get see level densities to be Earth-like.

Apparently comets didn't bring water to Earth, but asteroids. That's because when they landed (crashed) a probe into a comet they found the water to be different from Earth:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news008.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth

So there's an existing theory that lots of ocean water came from asteroids or "protoplanets". Which is a bit weird, to be honest, you'd have to have lots of asteroids or protoplanets with significant amounts of water to give you the massive and very unique amount of water on Earth.

But going back to whether we could direct comets into planets, would it matter then if it was heavy water not regular water? Could we instead find/direct these asteroids or "protoplanets" with water in them?
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post #15 of 30
7/26/11 at 8:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

Apparently comets didn't bring water to Earth, but asteroids. That's because when they landed (crashed) a probe into a comet they found the water to be different from Earth:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news008.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth

So there's an existing theory that lots of ocean water came from asteroids or "protoplanets". Which is a bit weird, to be honest, you'd have to have lots of asteroids or protoplanets with significant amounts of water to give you the massive and very unique amount of water on Earth.

Nice info!

Quote:
But going back to whether we could direct comets into planets, would it matter then if it was heavy water not regular water? Could we instead find/direct these asteroids or "protoplanets" with water in them?

One problem at a time. You could land a big asteroid onto Mars, but it will take a while. And by land, I mean crash. Send up an ion drive based pusher truck. You'll need to do something about stabilizing the rotation rates on the asteroid. Fire up the ion drive and put it into an orbit to crash on Mars. Also use the drive to slow it down as much as possible. Wait decades, maybe centuries, for it to arrive. Wait decades for things to settle down. Then, I don't know.

Then you'll have to figure out how to keep it there in a liquid state. Mars may not be big enough to hold a thick enough atmosphere to keep it from boiling away.
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post #16 of 30
7/26/11 at 8:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

Then you'll have to figure out how to keep it there in a liquid state. Mars may not be big enough to hold a thick enough atmosphere to keep it from boiling away.

Harvest a cubic meter of neutron star, dig a hole to the center of Mars, plop it in. Instant extra gravity!
PhilBoogie
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PhilBoogie
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post #17 of 30
7/26/11 at 9:42am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

Harvest a cubic meter of neutron star, dig a hole to the center of Mars, plop it in. Instant extra gravity!

Well, I was thinking if you land enough asteroids on Mars, its mass would naturally go up, but it aint going to be pretty.
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post #18 of 30
7/26/11 at 5:12pm
Tallest Skil and Shrike ...

Read "Building Harlequin's Moon" by Larry Niven .. available in iBooks.
It's fiction, but an interesting treatise on terraforming.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #19 of 30
7/26/11 at 6:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

Tallest Skil and Shrike ...

Read "Building Harlequin's Moon" by Larry Niven .. available in iBooks.
It's fiction, but an interesting treatise on terraforming.

Interesting. I love Niven's work; thanks for the suggestion.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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post #20 of 30
7/26/11 at 8:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

Nice info!

Cheers... Two things I don't like about how water is currently viewed in planetary science and astrobiology:

A.
As mentioned, still no clear explanation how so much darn liquid water formed or came to Earth.

B.
Looking for "intelligent life" solely based on liquid water as a key ingredient of life. What about non-carbon, non-water-based liquid, gaseous or solid entities, etc. that may have formed more complex structures and somehow... sentience?

You can see where the Intelligent Design believers are coming from... They're smart enough to grasp theories of physics and planet formation but there's also not enough data to demonstrate Earth and sentient life as a definitive, logical, random, inevitable occurrence.
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post #21 of 30
7/26/11 at 9:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

B.
Looking for "intelligent life" solely based on liquid water as a key ingredient of life. What about non-carbon, non-water-based liquid, gaseous or solid entities, etc. that may have formed more complex structures and somehow... sentience?

While we have the ability to speculate about non-water/carbon based life, we haven't ever observed such a thing. We have no idea what to even start looking for as indicators of such life. Especially difficult at interstellar distances

So we look for the things we know how to look for.

While we may not have enough evidence to demonstrate that life as we know it is definitive or inevitable, there is certainly plenty of evidence to show how it is possible withOUT divine intervention.
ID assumes something for which there is NO physical evidence whatsoever. That doesn't mean you aren't welcome to look for some evidence... But no-one's presented any YET.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
Reply
post #22 of 30
7/27/11 at 5:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

While we have the ability to speculate about non-water/carbon based life, we haven't ever observed such a thing. We have no idea what to even start looking for as indicators of such life. Especially difficult at interstellar distances

What do you think of the red rain from Kerala? Why search for aliens when they might come to us?
PhilBoogie
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PhilBoogie
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post #23 of 30
7/27/11 at 7:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

What do you think of the red rain from Kerala?

Don't really feel like looking it up right now... But wasn't that shown to be something like an atmospheric algae bloom?? ... Completely terrestrial and carbon/water based. Nothing at all alien about it.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #24 of 30
7/27/11 at 7:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

Don't really feel like looking it up right now... But wasn't that shown to be something like an atmospheric algae bloom?? ... Completely terrestrial and carbon/water based. Nothing at all alien about it.

Well, it was carbon/water, but it could live under conditions that we'd never found things living before.

We should try to engineer our own silicon-based life. How hard could it be?
PhilBoogie
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PhilBoogie
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post #25 of 30
7/27/11 at 8:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

While we have the ability to speculate about non-water/carbon based life, we haven't ever observed such a thing. We have no idea what to even start looking for as indicators of such life. Especially difficult at interstellar distances

So we look for the things we know how to look for.

While we may not have enough evidence to demonstrate that life as we know it is definitive or inevitable, there is certainly plenty of evidence to show how it is possible withOUT divine intervention.
ID assumes something for which there is NO physical evidence whatsoever. That doesn't mean you aren't welcome to look for some evidence... But no-one's presented any YET.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

We should try to engineer our own silicon-based life. How hard could it be?

King, fair enough... But I wonder if just next door within the gaseous soup of Venus sentient lifeforms are observing us and laughing their asses off at us looking for "life".

On a more serious note, it is true that there is no "smoking gun" for Intelligent Design. But I reckon in a 100 years you could fiddle with DNA bits on a computer and then churn out your own physical invertebrate lifeforms. Kinda like the game Spore but in real life. Assuming this whole line of research isn't banned completely or said organisms fail to be contained and run amuck.
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post #26 of 30
7/28/11 at 8:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

Cheers... Two things I don't like about how water is currently viewed in planetary science and astrobiology:

A.
As mentioned, still no clear explanation how so much darn liquid water formed or came to Earth.

B.
Looking for "intelligent life" solely based on liquid water as a key ingredient of life. What about non-carbon, non-water-based liquid, gaseous or solid entities, etc. that may have formed more complex structures and somehow... sentience?

You can see where the Intelligent Design believers are coming from... They're smart enough to grasp theories of physics and planet formation but there's also not enough data to demonstrate Earth and sentient life as a definitive, logical, random, inevitable occurrence.

It doesn't matter if everything was fully and thoroughly explained with cold, hard evidence. People will come to their beliefs in whatever manner and will try to fit the evidence to get there. One what hope the majority of the population can be taught structured, rational thinking, but I'm not sure it is possible.
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post #27 of 30
7/28/11 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

But I reckon in a 100 years you could fiddle with DNA bits on a computer and then churn out your own physical invertebrate lifeforms. Kinda like the game Spore but in real life. Assuming this whole line of research isn't banned completely or said organisms fail to be contained and run amuck.

We're going to need genetic manipulation to become a space-faring people. Well, for the people who choose it.
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post #28 of 30
7/28/11 at 8:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

We're going to need genetic manipulation to become a space-faring people. Well, for the people who choose it.

oh!... oh!... pick me! PICK ME!! (hand waving wildly in the air)

In reality, I'm probably too old to be chosen for such things, but even so, there would be no shortage of volunteers for that mission. Some people are still willing to take great risks to help accomplish great things.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
Reply
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #29 of 30
8/1/11 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

Then you'll have to figure out how to keep it there in a liquid state. Mars may not be big enough to hold a thick enough atmosphere to keep it from boiling away.

Wikipedia says Saturn's moon, Titan, has a surface pressure of about 1.45 Earth atmospheric pressure at about 93° K. 98% nitrogen. Cold cold cold. It's atmosphere also appears to be larger. So, yeah it appears a body of such size can support a thick atmosphere.
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post #30 of 30
8/7/11 at 3:46am
Possible flowing water on Mars:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14408928

BTW how much water is at the Martian ice caps?

"If just the top meter of ice deposits around the martian north pole were melted, there would be enough liquid water to fill Lake Michigan."
http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Mar...t/MarsIce.html

Problem is, it is extremely cold at the ice caps. A semi-permanent human colony at the north ice cap could give access to water but harvesting that water would be challenging.

The weather at the Martian equator is peachy compared to the poles and compared to earth orbit.
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