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...
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.
earth planets pluto solar system turns
It used to be that Pluto was a misfit. Now it turns out that Earth is the misfit. Most planets in the solar system look like Pluto, and not like the terrestrial planets.
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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.
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The Kuiper Belt is the largest structure in the solar system. We used to think Pluto was a misfit.
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.
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It's ... strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons.
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This is a whole new chapter in the Pluto story.
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Some of Clyde's ashes are on their way to Pluto today.
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Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archaeological dig into the history of the outer solar system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation.
billion bit conditions giant observe outer provides rewriting textbooks time window
It provides for us a window 41/2 billion years back in time to observe the formation conditions of giant planets. This is a little bit about rewriting the textbooks about the outer planets.
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I have July 14, 2015, emblazoned on my calendar. That's our arrival date at Pluto. We are now quite certain of that.
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It's ... strictly coincidental that Pluto, of course, was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons.
calling discovery result scientific
I?m calling the discovery of the two new satellites the first scientific result of New Horizons.
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It'll be the fastest spacecraft ever to Jupiter13 months after launch. We pass the Moon in just nine hours.