In my recent post on the Pluto vote, I referred to the “Pluto-Kuiper Express” mission. More than one person has pointed out to me that thei mission was cancelled. However it was replaced by the rather similar New Horizons Mission, and this was in fact the link I gave in the post. The latest news is that the Jupiter encounter is underway.
Re Pluto etc, I see that Mike Brown gave a talk at the ongoing AAS meeting about the properties of the new Pluto-like objects that led to Pluto’s demise. This is described in a news item on Cosmic Log . Its good to see that (a) Mike Brown is getting some credit and (b) some actual science is going on, as well as label-debates.
February 11, 2007 at 10:34 pm |
It is noteworthy that Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of New Horizons, is leading a backlash of astronomers against the IAU demotion of Pluto, with plans to hold a large conference to address this issue. And Dr. David Rabinowitz, co-discoverer of Eris, disagrees with Brown on the demotion, having signed Stern’s petition of planetary scientists who say they will not use the new planet definition. This debate is far from over.