Pluto. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. (from Publisher's Weekly, starred review) Caltech professor Brown takes readers on a leisurely stroll across campus in this memoir of an astronomer's personal life and the years-long quest to locate new planetary bodies that has so occupied his attention. Tracing his life through the academic ladder, marriage, and parenthood, Brown clearly explains difficult scientific topics with humor and warmth.
By focusing nominally on his discovery of Eris, the dwarf planet that resulted in Pluto's unexpected demotion, Brown ultimately pens a love letter to his young daughter, linking her development to the planetary timeline; "Stars, planets, galaxies, quasars are all incredible and fascinating things, with behaviors and properties that we will be uncovering for years and years, but none of them is as thoroughly astounding as the development of thought, the development of language... " Advance Praise "Finally I have someone to whom I can forward the hate mail I get from schoolchildren. Reviews. Pluto Is Not a Planet - Explore the Cosmos. Mike Brown. Laurel's Pluto Blog. Pluto (mythology) God in Greek mythology Pluton (1884–86) by Henri Chapu, part of a pair with a standing Persephone gathering flowers Hydria (ca. 340 BC) depicting figures from the Eleusinian Mysteries Plouton with cornucopia (Attic red-figure amphora, ca. 470 BC) Attributes of Pluto mentioned in the Orphic Hymn to Pluto are his scepter, keys, throne, and horses.
An ageing specimen of Mediterranean cypress The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of Helios Apollon at the sanctuary. Serapis with moon and sun on oil lamp Etruscan Charun presiding over an execution In the Little Book on Images of the Gods, Pluto is described as Jean Raoux's Orpheus and Eurydice (1718–20), with Pluto and Proserpina releasing the couple Rembrandt's Abduction of Proserpina (ca. 1631) Major artists who produced works depicting Pluto include: Scientific terms derived from the name of Pluto include: Media related to Pluto (mythology) at Wikimedia Commons. Clyde Tombaugh. Clyde William Tombaugh (February 4, 1906 – January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer.
Although he is best known for discovering the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt, Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids; he also called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects, or "U.F.O.s". Biography[edit] Following his discovery of Pluto, Tombaugh earned bachelor's and master's degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas in 1936 and 1938.[2] During World War II he taught naval personnel navigation at Northern Arizona University.[2] He worked at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1950s, and taught astronomy at New Mexico State University from 1955 until his retirement in 1973. The asteroid 1604 Tombaugh,[3] discovered in 1931, is named after him.
In August 1992, JPL scientist Robert Staehle called Tombaugh, requesting permission to visit his planet. Death[edit] Family[edit] Notes From the Pluto Files. Notes From the Pluto Files Posted January 1, 2010 DAVID LEVIN: You're listening to a NOVA podcast. I'm David Levin. In 2006 an international gathering of astrophysicists declared that Pluto would no longer be called a planet. Neil deGrasse Tyson had no problem with the choice. But why has a distant icy rock been the center of such controversy? In this podcast, Neil talks to Terri about their experience. TERRI RANDALL: We never really got a chance to talk about your reaction to the trip cross country. NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: No, we didn't. TERRI RANDALL: And I was wondering, what was it like to meet the Tombaugh family?
NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: I didn't know what to expect, and I have to tell you, that has got to be the friendliest family I have ever spent time with in my life. And having a full conversation with Clyde's 97-year-old widow who spoke lucidly and articulately about their life together when Clyde was younger and their later years. And that's not what she found, of course. Pluto moon discovery hints at future surprises for NASA probe. Skip to next paragraph Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition The tiny new moon — announced July 20 and called P4 for now — brings the number of known Pluto satellites to four. And the find, made with the Hubble Space Telescope, suggests that NASA's New Horizons probe could make some big discoveries, too, when it makes a close flyby of Pluto in 2015, researchers said.
"The discovery of P4 just reinforces what we knew before: This is going to be completely new territory," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "We can't wait. " [Pluto: A Dwarf Planet Oddity] A long journey The New Horizons spacecraft launched in January 2006 on a mission to study the faraway Pluto system, which has never been visited by a probe. Scientists have been mapping out the mission's details for years. New moon of Pluto: P4. S Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto. NASA's Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto Two labeled images of the Pluto system taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 ultraviolet visible instrument with newly discovered fourth moon P4 circled. The image on the left was taken on June 28, 2011.
The image of the right was taken on July 3, 2011. Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. "I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km)," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led this observing program with Hubble. The finding is a result of ongoing work to support NASA's New Horizons mission, scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The new moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, which Hubble discovered in 2005.
Hubble Discovers New Pluto Moon. Pluto may have been demoted to dwarf planet status, but it’s queen bee to a clutch of moons that now numbers four. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope announced today that Pluto has another moon in orbit, joining Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, Nix and Hydra. BIG PIC: Pluto: A Complex and Changing World “P4″ — the new moon’s temporary designation — is the smallest of Pluto’s moons, measuring between 8 and 21 miles in diameter.
(Charon, by comparison, is 648 miles wide, and Nix and Hydra each span somewhere between 20 and 70 miles.) Tiny P4 turned up in a Hubble study to see if Pluto has rings. ANALYSIS: Pluto’s Atmosphere: Big, Poisonous and Comet-like More details should come from NASA’s New Horizons probe, a robotic spacecraft en route to Pluto and beyond.
“Now that we know there’s another moon in the Pluto system, we can plan closeup observations of it during our flyby,” New Horizons lead researcher Alan Stern, with the Southwest Research Institute, said in a statement. Pluto: A Dwarf Planet Oddity (Infographic) | Pluto Facts & Figures | Pluto Moons & Atmosphere. Saturn may have snagged Pluto's cousin, turned it into a moon. Saturn's moon Phoebe might be a planetesimal—a remnant of the rocky building blocks of the planets in our Solar System. A new study by Julie C. Castillo-Rogez et al. from Cassini spacecraft data indicates that Phoebe dates back to the very earliest days of the Solar System.
Based on surface features and evidence that the moon is significantly more dense than the larger Saturnian satellites, the astronomers argue that Phoebe likely formed much farther from the Sun then fell inward, where it was snagged by Saturn's gravity. Using detailed observations from Cassini and Earth-based telescopes, in combination with detailed computer simulations, Castillo-Rogez et al. determined that Phoebe began as a spherical body. Based upon the density and comparison with bodies of similar size, Phoebe may have a rocky core surrounded by a porous icy shell.
Phoebe's orbit is retrograde, meaning it circles in the opposite direction to Saturn's other moons, as well as the planet's rotation. NASA Administrator Announces Science Mission Directorate Leadeship Changes. WASHINGTON - NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin issued the following statement Wednesday regarding the announcement that Dr. S. Alan Stern, NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, has decided to leave the agency.
"Alan has rendered invaluable service to NASA as the Principal Investigator for the Pluto/New Horizons mission, as a member of the NASA Advisory Council, and as the associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate. While I deeply regret his decision to leave NASA, I understand his reasons for doing so, and wish him all the best in his future endeavors. " Griffin also announced that Dr. Weiler was appointed to Goddard in August 2004. Prior to his selection as associate administrator, Weiler served as the director of the Astronomical Search for Origins Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Though we regret Alan's departure, we are pleased to welcome Dr. For more information about NASA and its science programs, visit: Alan Stern Resigns From NASA. Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Alan Stern has stepped down as NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.
No word on Stern’s reasons for leaving, or why such an abrupt departure, but the timing suggests it could be related to the erroneous announcement that funding for the Mars Rovers would be cut. Stern was seemingly highly respected and very popular among mission scientists and designers, and Stern had pledged to toe the line about mission spending and cost overruns. There are conflicting reports whether Stern will continue as Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, but it would be very surprising to see him leave the mission to which he has devoted most of his career. Stern had only been with the Science Mission Directorate for about a year but during that year Time Magazine named Stern as one of the 100 Most Influential People in 2007.
Griffin also announced that Dr. Weiler to Replace Stern as NASA Science Chief. This story was updated 11:35 a.m. EDT. — NASA is recalling Goddard Space Flight Center Director Ed Weiler to the space agency's headquarters here to take over the Science Mission Directorate in the wake of Alan Stern's resignation. Stern, a seasoned planetary scientist who joined NASA in April 2007 to pursue a reform-minded agenda, informed colleagues in an e-mail March 26 that he would be leaving the agency in the month ahead. In his e-mail, which he sent out at 8:34 a.m., according to the time stamp, Stern said that he offered his resignation March 25 and that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin "reluctantly accepted" it.
"I will remain at NASA for a few weeks," Stern wrote. "It's been my privilege to serve the NASA and scientific community and to work with you. " "I also want you to know," Stern continued, "that Mike and I remain on good terms. Alan Stern. S. Alan Stern (born 22 November 1957, New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.[1][2] Stern has been involved in 24 suborbital, orbital, and planetary space missions, including eight for which he was the mission principal investigator. One of his projects was the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, an instrument which flew on two space shuttle missions, STS-85 in 1997 and STS-93 in 1999.[3][4] Stern has also developed eight scientific instruments for planetary and near-space research missions and has been a guest observer on numerous NASA satellite observatories, including the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Infrared Observer and the Extreme Ultraviolet Observer.
Biography[edit] Stern graduated from St. In 2007, Stern was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World. Publications[edit] Dr. Alan Stern named Chief Scientist for Moon Express. Moon Express Announces Dr. Alan Stern as Chief Scientist. Internationally recognized planetary scientist Dr. Alan Stern becomes Chief Science Officer of commercial lunar enterprise Moon Express Mountain View, CA (July 20, 2011) - Moon Express, a Google Lunar X PRIZE contender, revealed today that internationally recognized planetary scientist Dr.
Alan Stern will be the Chief Scientist and Mission Architect for the company. The announcement was made as lunar scientists from around the world gather at the NASA Ames Research Park for their annual Lunar Science Forum, convened by the NASA Lunar Science Institute. Dr. Named by Time Magazine as one of the word's most influential people, Dr. "We are honored to have a scientist of Alan Stern's caliber working with us,i said Moon Express co-founder and CEO Dr. About Moon Express Selected by Forbes as one of the '15 Names You Should Know', Moon Express (MoonEx) is a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company based at the NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley. Looking to distans shores. Deep space is like the oceans & sea... Heliopause & Oort cloud = continental shelf... Pluto is on land side. Kuiper belt is surf. Pluto song. Pluto.
Pluto, plus moons: Charon, Nix & Hydra. A recent discovery (July 2011) shows that Pluto has four moons: Charon, Nix, P4, and Hydra. A recent discovery has resulted in Eris being found to be smaller than Pluto[1]. Here is What Wikipedia has to say about Pluto: “Pluto, formal designation is 134340 Pluto. Pluto’s size has been under debate since the discovery of Eris. Pluto is now the largest dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt (a part of our Solar System) followed by Eris [1]. The largest dwarf planet in our solar system is Ceres which also happens to be the largest asteroid, and protoplanet. “I give my rebuttal, Pluto is a planet:” Pluto is not happy with being sent to the dog house! IAU sends Pluto to the dog house: On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined what it means to be a “planet” within the Solar System. definition excluded Pluto as a planet and added it as a member of the new category “dwarf planet” along with Eris and Ceres.
References Last edited in Mar 2013. Dwarf Planets, Pluto Information. About Dwarf Planets The world was introduced to dwarf planets in 2006, when petite Pluto was stripped of its planet status and reclassified as a dwarf planet. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently recognizes two other dwarf planets, Eris and Ceres. What differentiates a dwarf planet from a planet? For the most part, they are identical, but there's one key difference: A dwarf planet hasn't "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit, which means it has not become gravitationally dominant and it shares its orbital space with other bodies of a similar size. (Astronomers and other experts are debating this definition.) Because it has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, Pluto is considered a dwarf planet. It orbits in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper belt, a distant region populated with frozen bodies left over from the solar system's formation.
Pluto has three known moons, Hydra, Nix, and Charon. Dual Identity.