bfchat.brainformation.com

"Philip Metzger is a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida. He recently retired from NASA, where he was part of the science communication team for the New Horizons mission." In other words Philip Metzger has some pretty heavy credentials when it comes to knowledge about planets. In a recent interview about NASA's Horizons mission to explore Pluto, Metzger encouraged us to refer to Pluto as the planet it rightly is. It's highly publicized demotion by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) was just a bookkeeping classification on their part and had nothing to do with the science of planets. I, for one, am happy to welcome Pluto back into the family.

http://www.dw.com/en/nasa-scientist-cal ... -xml-media

Me too....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZL57zq8MU

I never thought it'd left! Even when poor old Pluto was cast out, I still considered it to be a planet, but I'm glad that it's official!

me too...
our universe is Huge!

Say WHAT? Everyone KNOWS Pluto is Mickey Mouse's favorite and faithful pet pooch!

LOL - I'd forgotten about THAT Pluto, but believe it or not, I haven't actually seen very many Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Here's a nice little vid about July 14th when NASA'll be studying Pluto and its moons.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... ain-range/

The frau and I have been paying attention to a very confusing satellite in our evening sky.
We've both searched high and low for some information about it, all to no avail.
Except we have learned it is not geostationary like your low orbit satellite TV satellites.
But, it must be geosynchronous, since we see it on a regular basis, but at different angles.
It is also running eccentric, which is why at first we thought it was different satellites.
There are so many up there, trying to pinpoint the one we are seeing will take several pages of notes with angles, times, etc. which we don't have the equipment to measure.
Nor do I currently have the time to pursue the matter.
The only reason it caught our attention was it did not stay put like TV satellites, and it appeared at different angles, a little further east every third or fourth night we saw it, then it came back into view from the west again. We only have a shallow angle in which to see it, blocked by mountains, the plateau, trees, etc.
Even the Satellite TV Installer has no idea which one it is, and he has a whole chart of them, hi hi...

They're out there!

In our quest to figure this satellite out, we learned much more than we ever wanted to know about the many different types of satellites and their orbits. Some of their orbits are very interesting to study. Like a wobbly corkscrew all bent out of shape. Nevertheless, they follow a specific orbital path. Just not a geostationary one.

Wonder what this bendy, worm-like thing was?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPQBm-MmtV8