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astronomyTiny, Gentle Pluto May In Fact Be A Killer
A bit of an overdramatic headline, but the article's got interesting stuff in it. The core idea is that the New Horizons spacecraft is on the way to the Pluto system, scheduled to arrive in 2015; when the project was first designed, Pluto was only known to have one moon, the rather large Charon, but since then, 3 smaller moons have been discovered - two that were first suspected in 2005 and confirmed in 2006, and one that was discovered in 2011. And there are suspicions that there may be more small moons; partly this is a matter of "well, if there were three hiding until recently, maybe there are more that are still hiding", but there's a more concrete aspect: there were actually two specific satellite candidates that were found, but more observation is needed in order to figure out if they're actually satellites or not. In addition, there's a possibility that impacts onto these moons may create rings around Pluto. The more moons and rings there are around Pluto, the more risk there is that New Horizons will smash into something and be damaged or destroyed when it gets to the Pluto system.
I'd heard before about the concerns for New Horizons about Pluto having more moons and rings. What was new to me in this article, and particularly interesting, was that there are specific identified candidates for further moons, not just a general sense that there could be more moons.
A bit of an overdramatic headline, but the article's got interesting stuff in it. The core idea is that the New Horizons spacecraft is on the way to the Pluto system, scheduled to arrive in 2015; when the project was first designed, Pluto was only known to have one moon, the rather large Charon, but since then, 3 smaller moons have been discovered - two that were first suspected in 2005 and confirmed in 2006, and one that was discovered in 2011. And there are suspicions that there may be more small moons; partly this is a matter of "well, if there were three hiding until recently, maybe there are more that are still hiding", but there's a more concrete aspect: there were actually two specific satellite candidates that were found, but more observation is needed in order to figure out if they're actually satellites or not. In addition, there's a possibility that impacts onto these moons may create rings around Pluto. The more moons and rings there are around Pluto, the more risk there is that New Horizons will smash into something and be damaged or destroyed when it gets to the Pluto system.
I'd heard before about the concerns for New Horizons about Pluto having more moons and rings. What was new to me in this article, and particularly interesting, was that there are specific identified candidates for further moons, not just a general sense that there could be more moons.
