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...
brightest fossil objects pluto relic solar
Pluto is just the brightest of the many objects in the Kuiper Belt. It's a fossil relic of the formation of our solar system.
chihuahua dwarfs ice planetary
Just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs are still planetary bodies.
four gas giants inner learned outer planets pluto rocky understand view
We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong. Now we understand Pluto's context.
belt bodies moon result
Our result suggests that other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon as well,
account belt bodies means modeling planetary pluto result scientists
Our result suggests other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon. It also means planetary scientists will have to take these new moons into account when modeling the formation of the Pluto system.
crude earth finally
Out Earth-based observations are still too crude to tell us much about what we'll see when we finally get there. We still don't know what we don't know about Pluto.
companions fact people pluto visceral
Just on a visceral level, the fact that Pluto has a whole suite of companions will make some people feel better.
air flight sitting
The air conditioning was off. The flight controllers were sitting there wiping sweat.
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.
moon nine months
It'll be the fastest spacecraft ever to Jupiter...13 months after launch. We pass the Moon in just nine hours.
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
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.
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.
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.