Alan Stern
Alan Stern
Sol Alan Sternis an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express...
attention divide four instead ways
We'll have to divide our attention four ways instead of two,
candy kids
We'll be like kids in a candy shop.
billion expect miles mission original takes visits
We really expect the mission to be transformational. This is the capstone of the original visits to the planets. It takes us 4 billion miles away and 4 billion years back in time.
arrive candy kids shop system
We're going to be like kids in a candy shop when we arrive at a system like this.
belt ice objects planet pluto solar type typical
We know of 17 objects that could be called planets, most of which are ice dwarfs. So Pluto is typical of what is probably the most populous type of planet in our solar system. It probably mimics other Kuiper Belt objects.
criteria moon object objects small solar system whether
Whether or not an object has a moon is not part of the criteria that we've considered, because so many small objects in the solar system have moons,
class earth pluto
It used to be said that Pluto is a misfit. But now we know Earth is the misfit. This is the most populous class of planet in our solar system and we have never sent a mission to this class.
real moon horizon
This is in a real sense the capstone of the initial missions to explore the planets. Pluto, its moons and this part of the solar system are such mysteries that New Horizons will rewrite all of the textbooks.
science dwarves everyday
We're just learning that a lot of planets are small planets, and we didn't know that before, fact is, in planetary science, objects such as Pluto and the other dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt are considered planets and called planets in everyday discourse in scientific meetings.
opportunity space people
Naming celestial objects is usually done by astronomers and professionals. Other people who are interested in space never get the opportunity to do that kind of thing.
halloween moon pluto
It's strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons
moon nine months
It'll be the fastest spacecraft ever to Jupiter...13 months after launch. We pass the Moon in just nine hours.
exciting outer realizing solar textbooks
We're realizing just how much there is to the deep, outer solar system. I think it's exciting that textbooks have to be rewritten, over and over.
advanced flying jupiter last launch ten window
The payload that we're flying is a much more advanced payload than we could have flown, for example, in the last Jupiter launch window ten years ago.