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We keep our star talk down to earth! Beginning stargazers, professional astronomers, armchair astronauts and the cosmologically curious are all invited to join us. Galaxies Astronomy Club was founded in 1994.
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7/28/15
"True, but left on its own, or with any wind, and the sides collapse and soften."
Much less gravity and I doubt Charon has any wind to speak of.
7/31/15
Can you say "bullshit" at NASA? The principal investigator for NASA's New Horizons mission did, in an outburst directed at the tortuous rules that led to Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet. "It's bullshit," Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, told Tech Insider - with the clear intent of being quoted.
Read more from GeekWire
8/2/15
How's that for a milestone: Pluto is now in Google Earth (er...Google Pluto?). http://t.co/QvgK6axdZy HT @skdh pic.twitter.com/qgxAC93RvW
— Corey S. Powell (@coreyspowell) July 31, 2015
8/8/15
Too cool! #PlutoFlyby pic.twitter.com/gkIu0cge0v
— NewHorizons2015 (@NewHorizons2015) August 8, 2015
8/12/15
Scientists are about to decide where to send NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft next. http://t.co/lcqvHBtNq8 pic.twitter.com/hKtgYFQEFN
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) August 12, 2015
8/26/15
Pluto, we have a problem: Some geographical names may not fly on @IAU_org's maps: http://t.co/RVKsAAwZM3 pic.twitter.com/O720R2Vgz1
— Alan Boyle (@b0yle) August 26, 2015
8/26/15
Spock, Kirk and Vader Crater also could be controversial, even though those science-fiction icons fit nicely within the IAU’s categories for features on Charon. During a series of interviews over the past month, Schulz voiced concern that some names may not be enduring enough to merit recognition. “We must be sure that a few generations after us, no one asks, ‘How could they name it for somebody no one knows?'” the Berliner Morgenpost quoted her as saying last week.
The IAU also wants to make sure the names on Pluto and its moons reflect a wide variety of the planet’s cultures, and not just Hollywood icons.
Does it matter what the IAU thinks? New Horizons’ principal investigator, Alan Stern, doesn’t think so. He has lambasted the organization for the way it treated Pluto, and got under the IAU’s skin by setting up informal naming systems for extrasolar planets and Martian craters. By some accounts, those dust-ups have added to the friction over New Horizons’ nicknames.
Uh, sorry, but you ask the average 20, 30, 40 or 50 year old who Styx, Charon, Nix & Kerberos were. I'll bet they can't tell you. But they can tell you who Spock, Kirk & Vader were.
8/28/15
Exactly. I didn't understand the roots of the month names until I read about them. I didn't start reading mythology until much later.