Topic: Astronomers Go For Broke; Pluto?
started by: forumwhore
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 14 2002,21:26
They're getting it together to finally visit the last "unvisited" planet and maybe take a closer look at Europa where there may be a lot of water.... and maybe life?
The kicker is that the money is there, but the Feds may cut it.
"Now is the time for all good men...."
If the money is cut, these guys may never see a mission to Pluto. Right now it still has a gaseous atmosphere, about to freeze down for another century as Pluto passes father away due to its eccentric orbit...
Good Luck to you guys, that photo of Pluto above is interesting but.... you know.
And Europa, I've read to many A. Clarke SF novels.... maybe there's all sorts of little critters in hidden seas....
Every time humans explored new territory, they found a way to make money off it.
Somebody's going to get rich off the Moon...
Posted by a2n3d7y on Jul. 14 2002,22:49
Don't flame me for this. Cuz I'm NOT saying it's true. But....holy shit.....< http://www.planetxvideo.com/ >
OR....
< http://www.artbell.com/hotlinks.html >
...again.....not saying I BELIEVE it, but.........
Posted by TheTaxMan on Jul. 15 2002,04:16
Every star has a zone around it that will support water in liquid form: a necessary component for LAWKI (Life As We Know It, best acronym ever) to develope. This area axists between venus and out to approx. Mars. Europa is about 2x as far as Mars and I'm not sure why Pluto is even on the same page since it's not an actual planet.
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 15 2002,04:21
Pluto/Charon: Technically it's a double planet such as Terra and Luna.Because of the tremendous tidal stresses, Europa can support a liquid water ocean.
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 15 2002,04:27
Andy, what you have is interesting enough to start another thread.
(hint)
Posted by TheTaxMan on Jul. 15 2002,06:09
Pluto is a useless chunk of ice that was captured by some stupid happening and is possible the most uninteresting of all things in the solar system.I bet the same tidal forces would make life on europa impossible (since it's still hopelessly cold anyway).
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 15 2002,06:17
OK, we'll tell Congress that and sit with our thumbs up our bums.Sir, now I am getting your goat on purpose.
Have you been those places?
What is there exactly?
All worthless?
Tidal forces = friction = heat = chemistry
Posted by TheTaxMan on Jul. 15 2002,17:11
Actualy, no one ahs 'been' to them because it would take tens of years to fly to europa. However, we have this nice little thing called a telescope, some of which could probably read a lisence plate on Europa. There's is as muchw ater on Europa as there is on Mars, probably.Good thing it doesn't matter since it's too damned cold.
And Pluto is just a ball of ice with another ball of ice spining with it.
Did you know that diamonds exist in the atmosphere of Neptune? Big, gigantic suckers the size of trucks. Who cares? You can't get inside the atmosphere deep enough to 'pluck one out' because of a nice thing called gravity that would squash you like a bug -long- before you got any measureable distance inside. This same gravitational well that creates tidal forces on Europa would make it impossible to live there since Jupiter would cause everything to swing around onto one side of the planet, atmosphere etc.
The solar system is mostly a pretty boring place.
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 15 2002,21:43
Heh, a truck-sized diamond or two might make the bottom drop out of DeBeers... if it could be cut properly...
Posted by CatKnight on Jul. 15 2002,23:25
pluto and charon are not really planets, they are just called that because they were named before we knew better. they are actually just large asteroids which came from the oort cloud. other similarly sized planetoids have been discovered in highly eliptical orbits about as far as pluto, however they were not named planets because they are really just asteroids. I think there were 3 big ones that were 80% of the size of pluto, and then several smaller ones.
Posted by Bozeman on Jul. 16 2002,00:35
Oh, come on! Without Pluto you can't say "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas." (a mnemonic phrase for the planets in the Sol system)
Posted by Necromancer on Jul. 16 2002,04:15
ok despite < this > happening recently i'm probably the most qualified to confirm or and deny this stuff i am the one and only ace rimmer after all.first off any thing we may see out in our solar system that may look like a planet will turn out to be another pluto (just a large asteroid/planetesimal). we have only actually seen pluto officially 3 directly times since its discovery as its so damn far away and seeing as its orbit is very unstable its a bitch to find again and chances are we'll accidentaly find another similiar chunck of rock but it isn't that intersting now that we realise what it is.
europa on the other hand is extremely important as it the only known other place in the universe where water is known to exist in its liquid form (bare in mind that this isnt 100% confirmed until we get there). the reason for its interest isn't as much is there fish there because that just isnt possible. its the one place where we can test our theories on how life began because it is a comepletly independant system. there may be no life there but there may be conditions suitable for some kind of microscopic life forms at most.
jupiter itself provides enough energy to support a low level energy supply through gravity more than anything and jupiter is effectivley a star that never got big enough to start fusion.
the mission that is due to go there is hopefully going to be equipped with a probe designed to drill down into the liquid area without contaminating the system from earth (thanks to some prototypeing used in antarctica when they found a 2 million year lake kept perfectly isolated from the rest of the world) it will then stay there for the rest of its days transmitting data to the surface probe.
another point of interest is the project destined for i think 2005 when they plan to launch an array of telescopes to act in unison to hopefully observe directly extra solar planets as small as earth in (extra solar meaning in other star systems) doing spectroscopy on these will allow us to determine whether water exists there and such.
and these telescopes able to read a license plate can do this cos there shit loads of light being transmitted to them. you point one of those at europa and you will see fuck all. try getting a pair of really powerful binoculars you know the small ones and then try looking at the stars then compare that to one with only say 5-7 times mag but with 80-100mm diameter and you'll see what i mean.
besides making planets look pretty the only thing optical telescopes are good for is nothing. you need spectroscopy to get any information about a planet and even that can be restictive when it isnt emitting any light to analyse.
out of all the projects done by nasa this one is more important than the moon landing. remember they didnt know what was there until they got there and thats so fucking close you can see it with the naked eye.
theres other stuff to be said here but i've rambled on long enough and i'm not gonna post an essay to get the meaning across.
Posted by Necromancer on Jul. 16 2002,04:17
| Quote (TheTaxMan @ 15 July 2002,17:11) |
| The solar system is mostly a pretty boring place. |
funny how they manage to come up with a whole three year course on just that particular part isnt it
Posted by TheTaxMan on Jul. 16 2002,16:49
Yep. Everything outside the SS, imo, is much more interesting. Then again, I don't like history much either./me hops on his space elavator to go mine some minerals.
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 16 2002,17:40
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain."
Posted by Necromancer on Jul. 17 2002,21:42
is that the shakespeare referance or the blade runner one?
Posted by forumwhore on Jul. 19 2002,20:41
Bladerunner.