wow pluto reclassification discourse is exhausting. here I thought doing a poll that highlights some of pluto's cool lesser known dwarf planet friends would put things in a context where it can't possibly go in that direction but nope a bunch people really do just hold a hard stance against a classification system entirely out of a sense of nostalgia
"the planets" aren't this exclusive club where all the astronomers' favorite celestial bodies go. the definitions used in astronomy are descriptive, they refer to the dynamics between objects and the properties they have. if you feel bad that pluto isn't considered a planet anymore and think it should be an honorary planet anyway, good news! that is literally the reason why the category "dwarf planet" was created. it's for things that don't have the same type of role in the dynamics of the solar system as the eight major planets, but are still physically a lot like little planets
>>"the planets" aren't this exclusive club where all the astronomers' favorite celestial bodies go.
that's exactly what they are, and my favourite rock deserves to be counted amongst them.
see what I'm talking about.
the set of celestial bodies the average astronomer thinks are cool is significantly larger than the nine planets you memorized in elementary school. if this were literally how it worked, there's no way the moon or europa or titan or ixion would have been excluded.
OH SHIT ITS JAN MISALI
anyway yeah i had a similar post where i was like "hey its kinda objectiely anti-science to loudly state that your personal preference supercedes scientific professionals" and people got PISSSSED
palaeontology-astronomy solidarity over people interpreting changes in classification for well defined functional reasons as being some sort of bizarre value judgement of their nostalgic favourite thing and getting unreasonably mad about it.
Melvin Burke, Ike Gillam, Fitz Fulton, and Deke Slayton give the Space Shuttle Columbia a humorous sendoff before it's ferry flight back to KSC in Florida
"After completing it's first orbital mission with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base on April 14, 1981, Space Shuttle Columbia received a humorous sendoff before it's ferry flight atop a modified 747 back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Holding the sign are, left to right: Melvin Burke, DFRC Orbital Flight Test (OFT) Program Manager; Isaac 'Ike' Gillam, DFRC Center Director; Fitzhugh 'Fitz' L. Fulton Jr., NASA DFRC 747 SCA Pilot; and Donald K. 'Deke' Slayton, JSC OFT Project Manager."
Date: April 28, 1981
NASA ID: ECN-15388
“While his heart beats in his chest, a cosmonaut will always continue to challenge the universe. Vladimir Komarov was one of the first on this treacherous path.”
Polkovnik Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov (16 March 1927 – 24 April 1967). Fifty years after his death, some photos of how one of the bravest space pioneers should be remembered.
Fifty-six years ago today.
Happy birthday to naval aviator and NASA astronaut Roger B. Chaffee (February 15, 1935 – January 27, 1967), who would’ve been 88 years old today! 💙
“We’re incredibly lucky to be able to be working where we are, up above the Earth, and being able to see our planet from that vantage point.” -Laurel Clark, STS-107
20 years. We miss you.
Remembering the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the mission that ended in tragedy on January 28, 1986: Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith A. Resnik.
Source: humanoidhistory
This dude is gnc (guidance, navigation, and control) af
I never worked Boeings but y’all want to hear some legacy commsat horror stories.
I mean that’s basically just business. SES owns and operates the satellite, Astra 2D would have been bought back when it was running the Astra brand more heavily in Europe.
Big operators have some very old satellites on hand; the oldest we had was launched when I was two! The design life is usually ~15 years, but depending on various factors a geobird can last a lot longer. Some die early, if the solar panels give out; the only retirement I was tangentially involved with was running on a deadline because the panels and batteries were so shot that it literally could not survive getting shadowed during eclipse season. Other can last a really long time, if the torques work out such that the prop consumption stays low; I saw projections for some already over-time A2100s that ran into the 2030s. They’re still training engineers to operate legacy (or near enough) builds.
Fun fact I learned from a collection of hand-drawn and type-written notes put together by an operator in the ’70s: a calibration maneuver to measure nutation on spinners was called a F.A.R.T.
Apollo 13 - Movie Poster
Illustrated by C.A. Martin
24"x36" Created in Photoshop 2018
Rings of Gas Giants
l Uranus (Chandra) l Neptune, Jupiter (Webb) l Saturn (Cassini)
Happy 15th anniversary of Buzz Aldrin doing the world a favor and punching a conspiracy theorist in the face! (September 9, 2002)
Happy 20th anniversary!
How does this make y’all feel?