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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 732 Likes: 1
Columnist
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OP
Columnist
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 732 Likes: 1 |
OK, so I'm a geek and I'm incredibly excited about New Horizons finally reaching Pluto. When I was in elementary school, every few years National Geographic would have these awesome issues on Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, the space probes and maps of an entirely unexplored planet!! Olympus Mons, volcanoes on Io, methane lakes on Titan. The Russian Venus landers were cool as well.
In more recent years, the Japanese landed on a comet. Multiple heartbreaks and triumphs on Mars. Deep Space One marked the beginnings of turning space SF into reality. The Lunar X-prize and the commercialization of space.
Still, there were so many big dream disappointments in (Earth's) space program. A space station that's more than a curiosity. Lunar return mission(s). Permanent lunar base. A space station in a Lagrange point. Exploitation of cycler orbits. The dead-end space shuttle program, Buran as well. People out of Earth's gravity well on a regular basis.
Even if New Horizons pancakes on an asteroid after flying 3 billion miles it is already an inspiration. Or at least a breath toward keeping big dreams alive.
So, is anyone else excited by this?
Shallowford
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,082
Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,082 |
Agreed...cool info coming back from New Horizons! #PlutoIsAPlanet
You can find my stories as Groobie on the nfic archives and Susan Young on the gfic archives. In other words, you know me as Groobie.
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 2,131 |
I am totally stoked!! The pictures of Pluto are incredible and although I don't necessarily think that it should become a planet again, I think it will because we've seen it and sort of humanized it. Maybe this will get everybody interested in space again...
Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eye witness. --Mark Twain
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Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 1,114 |
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 492 |
It would be perfectly reasonable to call Pluto a planet. What you can't do is have the traditional 9 planets. If Pluto is a planet so are the other 20 KBOs that are known and any others we find. So either 8 or 30+.
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,082 |
They should have just grandfathered Pluto in. The definition of a planet is somewhat arbitrary and open to interpretation anyway.
You can find my stories as Groobie on the nfic archives and Susan Young on the gfic archives. In other words, you know me as Groobie.
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Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 2,131
Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 2,131 |
It would be perfectly reasonable to call Pluto a planet. What you can't do is have the traditional 9 planets. If Pluto is a planet so are the other 20 KBOs that are known and any others we find. So either 8 or 30+. Exactly! But I think that's why they won't do it. Of course, I think it'd be cool if we suddenly got twenty-some-odd new planets. :P
Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eye witness. --Mark Twain
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 2,445 |
I for one would have no problem calling Ceres and the other big spherical asteroids planets. If they're big enough to be spherical and not orbiting something else they're planets in my book. This means we have four or five planets between Mars and Jupiter, of course, but so what?
Marcus L. Rowland Forgotten Futures, The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 2,445 |
Also,
Marcus L. Rowland Forgotten Futures, The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
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Joined: Mar 2006
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,367 |
Call me sentimental, but Pluto is still a planet to me. Teaching engrained that young tends to stick. Give it a couple more generations, and no one will care, but the wound is still fresh for those of us who grew up being taught that there are nine planets in our solar system. <shrug> I, too, have been glued to the images coming in of Pluto. It's amazing to get such clear glimpses of something so incredibly far away. Science rocks! Good one, Marcus, with the image above! I especially giggled at the Kuiper belt loops. Ah, nerd humor.
Lois: You know, I have a funny feeling that you didn't tell me your biggest secret.
Clark: Well, just to put your little mind at ease, Lois, you're right. Ides of Metropolis
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Joined: May 2003
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 492 |
XKCD cartoons always have title text when you hover on the image. For that one the text is "After decades of increasingly confused arguing, Pluto is reclassified as a 'dwarf Pluto.'"
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Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 2,131 |
Haha, that's a great picture Marcus! I especially loved "Serenity" and "JPEG Plumes"
Last edited by Mouserocks; 07/21/15 01:38 AM.
Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eye witness. --Mark Twain
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Posts: 4,393 Likes: 1
Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 4,393 Likes: 1 |
I mean this both literally and figuratively: Far out!
Joy, Lynn
p.s., I'm just a little young to use that phrase under normal circumstances, but it was the most appropriate one I could think of.
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