New Horizons countdown.... only 4 more days to closest approach to Pluto.

[Puppet Guy]

anyone else hoping that New Horizons finds a monolith orbiting Pluto?

[Coach]

I wish they'd stop putting miles on scientific articles. Why even perpetuate that ridiculous form of measurement? Let Americans look up what a kilometer is if they can't understand it.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Puppet Guy

anyone else hoping that New Horizons finds a monolith orbiting Pluto?

Oh Yeah

[Madman]

How data can travel from there is mind bottling.

[polak]

Originally Posted by MattyC

So crazy. Visiting different worlds, billions of kms away. It's just incredible that this type of stuff isn't bigger news when compared to things like Royal weddings/babies and Kardashian ass.

Well to be fair, Kim Kardashians ass is more massive than Pluto.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by MattyC

So crazy. Visiting different worlds, billions of kms away. It's just incredible that this type of stuff isn't bigger news when compared to things like Royal weddings/babies and Kardashian ass.

We prefer to focus on much more important things in life, like which spoiled royal comes out of which vagina, and how many times we're going to kill each other on a daily basis, and how macabre we can be in doing it.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Canuck-Hater

Love Neil Degrasse Tyson's tweets:

#PlutoFacts: Earth’s Moon is five times more massive than Pluto. Get over it.

and

#PlutoFacts: Pluto would fit comfortably between New York & Dallas. Between Rome & Moscow. Between Perth & Melbourne.

LOL, sometimes I wonder if Pluto stole his bike when he was a kid or something. Planet, Dwarf Planet..... it still amazing, and you can quit running the significance of it down sometimes.

[Hack&Lube]

Wait...you mean Pluto doesn't look like this?

[pylon]

Originally Posted by troutman

Oh Yeah

That would make an awesome T-shirt.

[Puppet Guy]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Wait...you mean Pluto doesn't look like this?

I've still got that book!

[nik-]

Space is like 60% awesome and 40% terrifying.

All that blackness around Pluto. All that distance and nothingness.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Wait...you mean Pluto doesn't look like this?

ha, I remember that book! Don't think we have it anymore...

[You Need a Thneed]

Sooooo... when are we sending something like this to Eris?

[Puppet Guy]

[Five-hole]

Soooo ... no mass relay?

[pylon]

I do admire the fact they are sending a data signal 7.5 billion KM's, yet I cannot get a cell phone signal in my parkade.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Sooooo... when are we sending something like this to Eris?

Not Eris, but:
Where will New Horizons Go After Pluto?

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...14/16oct_kbos/

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered three Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft could potentially visit after it flies by Pluto in July 2015.

The three KBOs identified each are a whopping 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. Two of the KBOs are estimated to be as large as 34 miles (55 kilometers) across, and the third is perhaps as small as 15 miles (25 kilometers).

http://news.discovery.com/space/afte...-go-150320.htm

Two contenders remain out of five original candidates found by Hubble, which spent 45 days last summer scouting for targets. Follow-up observations in October narrowed the list to two objects within range of the spacecraft, which has limited fuel for a maneuvering burn, scientists said at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston this week.

The newly named objects are 2014 MT69, a 37-mile (60-km) wide body circling some 44.3 times farther away from the sun than Earth. An encounter with MT69 would occur around New Year’s Day 2019.

MT70 is brighter than MT60, and possibly larger, with a diameter of about 47 miles (76 km), so more desirable from a scientific perspective, Porter said.

[Huntingwhale]

Interesting AMA over on Reddit with some of the scientist from the New Horizon project.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/commen...horizons_team/

[Igster]

[Coach]

That's no planet....it's a space station.