Science

Peace Patriot

(24,010 posts)

15. I was wondering the same thing today, but one of the Pluto team answered it...

Wed Jul 15, 2015, 10:58 PM

Jul 2015

...I think. I couldn't catch everything they said. I think it was Alan Stern who said that Charon could not produce much (or any?) tidal pull effect on Pluto. And he said definitively that the geological activity on Pluto is NOT tidal-related.

But Charon is relatively big and in a locked orbit (face to face) with Pluto. It's a question that maybe needs to be asked again?

I just found out that New Horizons is on a track to leave the Solar System after it investigates the Kuiper Belt (if it gets funding to do that). Out of the Solar System, like Viking! Wow! We will have TWO spacecraft heading into the Milky Way! I also picked up somewhere that it has lots of fuel (don't know what kind), which means that it could be transmitting data to earth for decades (like Viking) with longer and longer waits for the latest from the spacecraft. (4.5 hours Pluto to Earth and back, for signals, then much longer from the Kuiper Belt and...beyond!)

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I was wondering the same thing today, but one of the Pluto team answered it... Peace Patriot Jul 2015 #15

Just want to make one correction, re New Horizon's fuel reserves. Peace Patriot Jul 2015 #18

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