Picture of the "New" Solar System

Pluto is a Pluton

WTF? Yeah, that was my reaction too. I seems that the International Astronomical Union is recommending that Pluto remain a "planet". In fact, they recommend that an official astronomical definition of the word planet be adopted:

"A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet."

So, by this definition, Pluto remains a planet and Ceres, the newly discovered Kuiper Belt Object 2003 UB313, and Pluto's moon Charon get a promotion. Now Charon gets a pass on the "is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet" part because the center of gravity of the Pluto-Charon system is actually outside of Pluto. The Earth's moon is quite a bit larger than Charon (3476km diameter vs. 1212km) but the center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system is beneath the surface of the Earth, so it is considered to orbit the Earth, and thus is not a planet.

To confuse matters more, the asteroid Ceres (now a planet) will be classified as a dwarf planet and Charon/Pluto/UB313 and all the other KBOs and presumably Oort cloud objects that meet the new definition will be called "Plutons" to separate them from the 8 (not counting Ceres) classical planets.

Hot SF Chick of the Week : Week 5

Seven of Nine. Star Trek Voyager pretty much sucked until early in season 4 when Jeri Ryan joined the cast as former borg Seven of Nine, and then it sucked a little less. I always thought that the writers of the show tried to show two sides of an argument by having Seven taking the coldly rational side and Captain Janeway taking the more human, emotional side. Kind of like the original Star Trek had arguments between Spock and McCoy. The problem was, that in Voyager, Seven always made a lot more sense than Janeway, who often ended up looking like an idiot. I don't know if the writers planned it that way, or were just bad at writing. I suspect the latter.

Pluto to Remain a Planet

An international group has recommended that Pluto retain its status as a planet. This is a big victory for Pluto, but things are not settled yet, as the group that suggested keeping Pluto's planet title is just an advisory body. The article also says that several group members suggested having three classes of planets: terrestrial, gas giant, and a third that would include objects like Pluto. I think this is a reasonable compromise, although not as good as my own suggestion.

Dr. James Van Allen, RIP

James Van Allen, after whom the Van Allen Radiation Belt is named, has died. America's first orbital spacecraft, Explorer I contained a scientific experiment designed by Dr. Van Allen that discovered a region of radiation surrounding the Earth.

Yeah. This Sounds Like a Great Idea

"Physicists in Japan Plan to Create New Universe in Lab." Nope, I can't think of anything that could go wrong here. Except perhaps, creating an interdimensional rift through which aliens that can only be fought by teenage girls wearing giant robot suits come pouring through.

Bummer

David Gemmell has died. He was my favorite author of fantasy. His books are action packed and full of memorable characters. The heroes of his novels are usually seriously flawed men, sometimes with few redeeming features, but they always know the difference between right and wrong, and a strong sense of morality infused his works. Here is an excerpt from his novel The Legend of Deathwalker:

Druss nodded, his face solemn. "I am not a thinker," he said, "nor am I stupid. I am a man like so many others. I could have been a farmer, or a carpenter, even a laborer. Never a teacher, though, or a cleric. Intellectual men make me nervous. Like that Majon." He shook his head. "I have met a great number of ambassadors, and they all seem identical: easy, insincere smiles and gimlet eyes that don't miss a thing. What do they believe in? Do they have a sense of honor? Of patriotism? Or do they laugh at us common men as they line their purses with our gold? I don't know much, poet, but I know that men like Majon-- aye, and you-- can make all I believe in seem as insubstantial as summer snow. And make me look foolish in the bargain. Oh, I can understand how good and evil can come down to numbers. Like those women in the fountain. A besieging army could say, 'Kill six women and we'll spare the city.' Well, there's only one right answer to that. But I couldn't tell you why I know it is right."

Hot SF Chick of the Week : Week 4

Lynda Carter aka Wonder Woman and the Wonder Twins.



Bonus picture:

A Day in the Life of an SRB

NASA has this cool video up that is taken from a camera mounted on one of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. The video is long (about 12 minutes) but is very neat. Liftoff occurs about 50 seconds into the clip and booster separation occurs at around the 3 minute mark. Next is a long segment of the booster cartwheeling through the sky on its journey to the ocean. The parachute deploys at about the 7:20 mark and touchdown is at 7:33. After that it seems to be just floating in the water. Good job NASA!

Hot SF Chick of the Week: Week 3

No introduction needed:

Titan Flyby

As many of you know, I have a small army of post-human, pseudo self-aware net entities crawling the internet for interesting topics and Salma pictures to be posted in The Chinese Room. One such manifestation sent me a link to a flyby of the Saturnian moon Titan by the Cassini space probe. This is the 16th flyby of Titan by Cassini. If you remember, on the second, the Huygens probe was release and landed on Titan, taking some pictures and sound recordings before its battery ran out. For a complete list of Cassini close encounters with Saturn's moons, check out this page.

Happy Aphelion Day!

July 3rd is Earth's aphelion, or the point in its orbit that it is farthest from the sun. According to Kepler, this is also the point that the Earth is moving slowest.

Hot SF Chick of the Week: Week 2

Salma Hayek in Wild Wild West

Wild Wild West was a steampunk action movie starring Wil Smith and you-know-who. There was some other guy in it too, but nobody cares about him. The movie was a fairly uninteresting summer action movie that was memorable only for a brief shot of Salma's tail feathers (I couldn't find a picture of that, and believe me I looked).

Google Earth In-flight Refueling

Google Earth is a program developed by Google that allows you to see satellite photographs of nearly the entire Earth. People have used it for all kinds of fun things. A few weeks ago I posted about people who use it to find old meteor impact sites. Well, some guy has found a photo of an Air Force KC-135 tanker refueling a C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft in flight. Sweet. Check out the full story here.

Pluto's Moons Get Names

Pluto's newly discovered moons get names: Nix and Hydra.

Hot SF Chick of the Week: Week 1

In an effort to make this blog more relevant to guys and lesbians, I'm starting a new series in which each week I'll post a photo of a hot science fiction chick. First off, of course, is the lovely and talented Salma Hayek playing the part of vampire Santanico Pandemonium in From Dusk Till Dawn. Some might argue that vampires aren't SF, but I think SF, fantasy, and horror can be lumped together in the same general genre. Besides, it's Salma!

Fermat's Last Homer

In that Simpsons episode where Homer is sucked into a 3-dimensional world, a mathematical equation appears briefly on the screen. The equation, 1782¹² + 1841¹² = 1922¹² is just shown for an instant. If you enter the equation into your calculator, it turns out to be correct. This means that Fermat's Last Theorem, which states that for n > 2 there are no non-zero whole numbers a,b, and c that satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ , has been disproved! The "proof" however relies on the calculator's rounding error, and it turns out the equation is not really true after all. Simpsons writer David X. Cohen put the equation in the episode. Apparently he has a MS in computer science and searched for numbers that came close to disproving the theorem. So, all you budding mathematicians out there, be sure to keep an eye on the Simpsons.

On the Menu

On this weekend's menu: The Spanglish Sandwich.

Deep Impact

Science Daily brings us the news that a giant (~200 mile diameter) impact crater has been found (maybe) buried deep beneath the Antarctic ice. They theorize that this impact could have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction. This extinction is believed to be Earth's largest, with more than 70 percent of all species dying off, and cleared the plate, so to speak, for the rise of the dinosaurs.

The article also mentions the Vredefort crater in South Africa. The 2-billion year old crater is still officially the largest impact crater found on Earth. It can be seen pretty clearly here using Google maps. Amateur geologists have found perviously unknown impact craters using Google Earth. That seems like a pretty fun hobby to me.

Black Hole Death Dance

Astronomers have discovered a pair of black hole spiraling toward one another. The resulting collision, which should happen in a few million years are so, will result in one larger black hole and, theoretically, a massive burst of gravitaional energy in the form of gravitational waves. How can you not love black holes?