When are we going to get a mission off the ground to the other three formally recognized dwarf planets?

Haumea, Make Make, and Eris await...

Haumea in particular is probably the weirdest thing in the solar system (that we know of) not yet visited by a spacecraft.


The NASA/Space/Pluto/New Horizons thread is dead. Long live the <aforementioned> thread.

So while Elon's making plans to get a Starship to Mars two years from now (https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/01/elon-m...-to-six/), NASA is now looking at having to spend a year(!) tearing down and rebuilding the Orion capsule planned for the Artemis I mission. (https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/30/2172...-artemis-i)

Here’s one of the better short articles I’ve seen with a quick dwarf planet overview. Paywall, but looks like 2 or 3 free articles a month.

https://medium.com/the-solar-republic/dw...8790d05751

#CrossPost...

(12-01-2020 12:04 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico Collapses Weeks After Suffering Major Damage

Quote:The renowned Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico, closed because of damage, completely collapsed Tuesday morning.

"Friends, it is with deep regret to inform you that the Arecibo Observatory platform has just collapsed," tweeted Deborah Martorell, a senior meteorologist for WAPA-TV and El Nuevo Dia in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Martorell, who was at the observatory on Monday, received a call from a scientist at the site Tuesday saying the giant reflector dish and the Gregorian Dome that held instruments above it had both collapsed, El Nuevo Dia reported.

(12-02-2020 09:01 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  #CrossPost...

(12-01-2020 12:04 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico Collapses Weeks After Suffering Major Damage

Quote:The renowned Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico, closed because of damage, completely collapsed Tuesday morning.

"Friends, it is with deep regret to inform you that the Arecibo Observatory platform has just collapsed," tweeted Deborah Martorell, a senior meteorologist for WAPA-TV and El Nuevo Dia in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Martorell, who was at the observatory on Monday, received a call from a scientist at the site Tuesday saying the giant reflector dish and the Gregorian Dome that held instruments above it had both collapsed, El Nuevo Dia reported.

Rice connections:

The Arecibo Observatory was designed at Cornell by William Gordon, who was its first director, until be moved to Rice in 1966, where he was Dean of Engineering and later, Provost.

Dean Gordon was a Faculty Associate at Baker College, and one of my favorite profs -- even though I never took any classes from him. I often shared his table at lunch.

One of Dean Gordon's early grad students at Rice was Rich Behnke (Baker '66, MS '69 , PhD '71), who was also one of the best ping pong players at Rice during his era. Rich worked at Arecibo prior to embarking on a distinguished, 32-year career at the National Science Foundation.

This article has a link to an National Science Foundation video of two views of the actual collapse:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/...s-snapped/

Very sad.

It was actually destroyed a long time ago...

https://youtu.be/6HFkF8904Uw