General Chat

After traveling 3000 million miles in 9 years the New Horizons space probe will finally reach dwarf planet Pluto on the 14th of July.

Pluto is the only planet ( or ex-planet) in the solar system that hasn't already been visited by a spacecraft. Even dwarf planet Ceres was recently visited by a probe studying the asteroid belt.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

New Horizons will reach Pluto just before 1pm tomorrow.

The probe has already returned the first ever clear images of Pluto and it's largest companion Charon.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/one-million-miles-to-go-pluto-is-more-intriguing-than-ever

In classical mythology Pluto was the god of the underworld and Charon was the ferryman of Hades who carried souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.

As Herr Schauble might say, omnes viventes portitori numeraturos.
( all the living shall pay the ferryman ). Usual cost 2d but more for Greeks.

None of the current models of how the solar system came to be work out, all have huge lacunae especially so for earth and its moon. There is even suspicion that a very large dark planet lurks way out in the Kuiper belt.

Hence all the interest in Pluto, Ceres and passing comets. It is a lot easier to work out orbits etc if you have an idea of mass which can only be worked out by getting closer.

Think of all the air miles!

At some point in the far but not infinite future the sun is scheduled to get up real close to its neighbour Alpha Centauri. One reason for planning a move and to do that we need to know where we came from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACASFzn9CCg