Don't Panic Geocast

Intro The Orbital Mechanics highlighted how little we know about planetary formation, so let’s talk about Pluto and what we’ve learned from the New Horizons Mission. Pluto Basics Officially a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt About 0.18 the radius of Earth Mass 0.178 of the moon’s Very low density Gravity 0.63 g Neptune and Pluto were both predicted to exist from orbital perturbations of Uranus Percival Lowell (founder of Lowell observatory) started the hunt for pluto in 1906. Tombaugh found Pluto using a blink comparison technique Moons of Pluto Orbit is chaotic, we can predict forwards and backwards for several million years, but over the Lyapunov time we have no idea. New Horizons New Horizons Wiki Page Launched January 20, 2006 Fly-by July 14, 2015 Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) Solar Wind At Pluto (SWAP) Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) Alice (UV imaging spectrometer) Ralph telescope Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC) Radio Science Experiment (REX)