Pluto's Misson

[lo23]

I think it is great that scientist are still interested in the "Dwarf" planet, pluto. And it cool how they are still doing the that mission to Pluto. If you want to know more about this subject, please visit: http://plutoisaplanet.wetpaint.com thank you!<br /><br /><br />

 

[drwayne]

Pluto is still holds a lot of scientific interest! That did not change because a label changed.<br /><br />Wayne<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

A couple of other notes of forum decorum:<br /><br />(1) It is discouraged in most forums to post a question, and ask for an email reply. Keep things on-list.<br /><br />(2) Please only use images that apply to your point.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[kane007]

(3) Some still believe (wish) Pluto was the 9th planet - it was at mission formulation and indeed launch!

 

[centsworth_II]

Pluto is even more important as an object of study than it was years ago when <br />the mission was conceived. Now, rather than an oddball among the planets, it is a <br />prototype of a new population of solar system object out beyond Neptune. Thousands <br />of the previously unknown Pluto-like objects may exist. How fortunate that we will <br />get to study one of them so soon after learning of their existence. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mikeemmert]

A note about another prominent KBO[/ur]; credit for the discovery of 2003 EL61 has shifted from Mike Brown back to José Luis Ortiz Moreno, an astronomer at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, and colleagues Francisco José Aceituno Castro and Pablo Santos-Sanz.<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>(The team) announced the discovery of the object on July 25, 2005, when they re-analysed observations they had made on March 7, 2003. They then scoured older archives (a process known as precovery) and found the object in images dating back to 1955. Ortiz's group announced their discovery on July 27, 2005, and it was published two days later by the MPC.<br /><br />A Caltech team consisting of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz had been observing the object for half a year with the 1.3 m SMARTS Telescope, but had not yet made the data public. Brown and his collaborators initially supported giving Ortiz and his group credit for the discovery, but withdrew support when they found reason to suspect that Ortiz may have used discovery data from Brown's team, which had inadvertently been made publicly available on the web.<br /><br />A week before Ortiz's discovery announcement, on July 20, Brown's team had published an abstract of a report they intended to use to announce the discovery, in which the object was referred to by the internal code name K40506A. Typing this code into internet search engines allowed anyone to find the observation logs of Brown's group, including the observed positions of the object. Third-party web server logs indicated that the page in question had been accessed by an IP address used by computers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía where Ortiz's group worked.[1] Brown's group accused Ortiz's group of a serious breach of scientific ethics and asked the Minor Planet Center to strip them of discovery status.[2]<br /><br />Ortiz later admitted he accessed</p></blockquote>