nucklehead Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 ONE of NASA’s principal investigators has let slip the space agency will be making another huge announcement this week regarding Pluto. And if Dr Alan Stern’s comments to a packed hall at the University of Alberta in Canada are anything to go by, we might very well be talking about alien life forms. According to The Guardian, Mr Stern was showcasing the highest resolution photos of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, when he made some huge announcements. “This world is alive,” he said. “It has weather, it has hazes in the atmosphere, active geology.” Mr Stern said NASA would be releasing new data and images this Friday (Australian time) that will change everything we know about the solar system. “NASA won’t let me tell you what we’re going to tell you on Thursday. It’s amazing,” he said. While not giving anything away, space enthusiasts are expecting huge news because of the approach NASA is taking for the announcement. The space agency has used a similar method when it detailed the discovery of the Earth-like Kepler 452b and the recent discovery of flowing water on Mars. The most recent pictures from the New Horizons spacecraft showcased a wide variety of terrains on both Pluto and Charon. It was discovered Charon has a huge canyon running 2500km across its surface, while Pluto is home to an odd landscape of rolling and grooved mountains spanning 500km. Mr Stern said as only 10 per cent of the data from the New Horizons spacecraft has been downloaded, we can only expect to learn more about the dwarf planet and its moon. http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/senior-planetary-scientist-dr-alan-stern-said-nasa-to-make-amazing-announcement-about-pluto/story-fnjwlcze-1227561833273 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobble Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Reclassified as a planet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLASSJAW Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 I think this is false. https://twitter.com/AlanStern Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithers joe Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 little plutonians running around... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 The only thing that would be truly amazing is if they found something like this on it: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 BTW, the rumour is "false" Life on Pluto? Rumours rage of upcoming announcement branded 'false' by NASA scientist THERE was huge disappointment within the scientific community today after rumours that NASA was set to make a huge announcement about life on Pluto were quashed by its top scientist. http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/610748/NASA-announcement-Pluto-Horizons-probe-life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOMapleLaughs Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Blue haze surrounds Pluto and it has patches of water ice colored red.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-announcement-pluto-has-blue-skies-and-water-ice-agency-says-as-it-reveals-stunning-pictures-of-a6686646.html Maybe it's interesting enough to be reclassified as a planet again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlphaHoneyBadger Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Why is anyone surprised their is water on Mars or maybe life on Pluto? You know how big the universe is,right? To find out there may have been water on Mars doesn't even seem exciting. Call me when they find other people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackers Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Blue haze surrounds Pluto and it has patches of water ice colored red.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-announcement-pluto-has-blue-skies-and-water-ice-agency-says-as-it-reveals-stunning-pictures-of-a6686646.html Maybe it's interesting enough to be reclassified as a planet again. Nope. People don't seem to understand why it was classified as a dwarf planet in the first place. The main reason being, for the longest time, Pluto was the only thing that we had observed in the Kuiper belt. Once they realized there was lots of large, rocky objects in that area, they said "as long as we don't find anything bigger than Pluto, we're all good". But then they found Ceres. They had to choose between adding dozens of new planets to the solar system, or simply reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet, as to fit in with the more similar objects around it. There's other reasons too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimberWolf Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FHaRZhQe1A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Nope. People don't seem to understand why it was classified as a dwarf planet in the first place. The main reason being, for the longest time, Pluto was the only thing that we had observed in the Kuiper belt. Once they realized there was lots of large, rocky objects in that area, they said "as long as we don't find anything bigger than Pluto, we're all good". But then they found Ceres. They had to choose between adding dozens of new planets to the solar system, or simply reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet, as to fit in with the more similar objects around it. There's other reasons too. Ceres has a radius of 473km. Pluto has a radius of 1186 km. Pluto also has an atmosphere and several moons. What makes Pluto not a planet is that it has not cleared its orbit of other major objects. In order to be considered a planet, an object must have sufficient gravity to clear all other major objects from its orbit. It's a bit unfair as Pluto's orbit is just way bigger than the planets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOMapleLaughs Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Nope. People don't seem to understand why it was classified as a dwarf planet in the first place. The main reason being, for the longest time, Pluto was the only thing that we had observed in the Kuiper belt. Once they realized there was lots of large, rocky objects in that area, they said "as long as we don't find anything bigger than Pluto, we're all good". But then they found Ceres. They had to choose between adding dozens of new planets to the solar system, or simply reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet, as to fit in with the more similar objects around it. There's other reasons too. Ceres, Pluto's moon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliboy Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Charon is Pluto's moon, Ceres is another dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wash Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Ceres, Pluto's moon? Ceres is in the asteroid belt. It was the discovery of Eris that got the ball rolling on the reclassification of Pluto. They have since discovered many other objects in the same general vicinity of orbit and they figure there is likely many more out there. Pluto as a planet only really makes sense in sentimental terms, even if it ends up being the biggest KBO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliboy Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Blue haze surrounds Pluto and it has patches of water ice colored red.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-announcement-pluto-has-blue-skies-and-water-ice-agency-says-as-it-reveals-stunning-pictures-of-a6686646.html Maybe it's interesting enough to be reclassified as a planet again. They didn't expect to find a blue sky way out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliboy Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Ceres has a radius of 473km. Pluto has a radius of 1186 km. Pluto also has an atmosphere and several moons. What makes Pluto not a planet is that it has not cleared its orbit of other major objects. In order to be considered a planet, an object must have sufficient gravity to clear all other major objects from its orbit. It's a bit unfair as Pluto's orbit is just way bigger than the planets. But then Eris has only a slightly smaller diameter than Pluto but has greater mass, so it would then also have to become a planet, perhaps a better comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armada Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Awesome. We need to fund Nasa and more space exploration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackers Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Ceres has a radius of 473km. Pluto has a radius of 1186 km. Pluto also has an atmosphere and several moons. What makes Pluto not a planet is that it has not cleared its orbit of other major objects. In order to be considered a planet, an object must have sufficient gravity to clear all other major objects from its orbit. It's a bit unfair as Pluto's orbit is just way bigger than the planets. My mistake you are correct. I was thinking about Eris, not Ceres. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOMapleLaughs Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Ceres is in the asteroid belt. It was the discovery of Eris that got the ball rolling on the reclassification of Pluto. They have since discovered many other objects in the same general vicinity of orbit and they figure there is likely many more out there. Pluto as a planet only really makes sense in sentimental terms, even if it ends up being the biggest KBO.Oh Charon was Pluto's moon. Right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobble Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 So is that they are making an announcement false, or that the announcement was about life on Pluto false? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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