How can the probe they just sent to Pluto possibly arrive in only 10 years??
106984
They're going to use the "Slingshot" method around Jupiter to give it that extra thrust that would be needed.  Since they calculated that there would be nothing in the path if they used that approach right now, it will be able to make it without outside influences (the gravity of the sun is already calculated in).
373696
Since there are 63,360 inches per mile, and since the distance to Pluto from Earth is 2.67 billion miles, then just multiply it.\n\nThe real value: 1.69171E+14 inches, so that's a lot of inches lol
945846
This issue is very similar to the asteroid belt issue some 150 years ago.  When the first asteroid, Ceres, was found, it was considered a planet.  Only after 15 other "planets" were found in the same orbit regime did astronomers downgrade these asteroids to "minor planets" some 50 years after Ceres' discovery.\n\nIt's unclear if Pluto could ever clear its orbit...it crrently has only 7% of the mass of its orbital neighborhood (as opposed to, say, Earth, which contains some 99.9999% the mass of its orbital neighborhood), so it's only cleared a tiny fraction of its orbit throughout the entire age of the Solar System, 4.5 billion years.\n\nMoreover, other objects in Pluto's orbit (and pluto itself, in fact) are trapped in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune.  This means these "plutinos" are in a very stable orbit, unlikely to be scattered away unless something very big and unexpected comes along.
604663
There are ten planets in our solar system namely mercury,venus,earth mars,jupiter,saturn,uranus,neptune,pluto\nand\n2003-UB313 is the official name of the object that is considered to be a contender for the title of "10th planet". As of August 1st, 2005 the IAU has yet to confirm whether this object will be officially be recognized as the 10th planet in our solar system. This little page will follow events and provide more information when available.\nOfficial Name:  2003 UB313  \nProposed Name:  Unknown\nThe name Xena is rumored to be the name submitted to the IAU for approval, althought there is no official confirmation of the name. "..that was our tongue-in-cheek internal name, never intended for public consumption," says Professor Brown \nDiscovered By: Michael Brown, professor of planetary astronomy at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and colleagues Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory and David Rabinowitz of Yale University.\n\nFirst photographed in 2003 using a 122cm telescope at the Palomar Observatory. \n \nEstimated Size:  approx 2700 km (1,700 miles) in diameter\nThis is the estimate as of August, 2005. From Wikipedia - Although the object's diameter is not yet well determined, it is estimated to be between 2,390 and 3,550  km . The amount of light it reflects (its albedo ) seems to be quite high, and initial observations show that methane ice is present on the object's surface. Both these properties make it more similar to Pluto than previously discovered large outer solar system planetoids .  \nOrbit: 560 years \nestimated one solar orbit per 560 years.  \nDistance from Sun:\n approx 9 billion miles / 14.4 billion km\nThis is around 100 times the Earth's distance, or 3 times Pluto's distance from the Sun. \nWhere is it Now?  At present, it is near its farthest point from Earth, but in about 280 years, it will be as close as Neptune, (the eighth planet, discovered in 1846).
434434
I agree with the first answer.  That's nearly impossible to predict.  I have this book from the 70's that tried to predict where we would be by now and they had moon bases, flying cars, giant space stations, etcetra.  So they couldn't even figure out where we would be in 30 years let alone 1000.
1173014
It could happen someday, but it's more likely that Neptune, since it's so much bigger, would just cause Pluto to alter it's path. Gravity bounce, or something like that. Paths can cross without an intersection.
471723
Scientists not only say 'there might be', they say it really exists! And they've already named it (I don't remember it's name because it's kind of stupid..). Also they guess it used to be a moon of Neptune (as Pluto was). If I'd been these scientists who discovered the planet, I'd call it Bridget (because it's unreachable as I am.. lol)
1151361
I don't think the science channel said it was going to hit. It said that there was a "chance" that it could hit.\nCurrently the odds are about a 1 in 300 chance of it hitting the earth on march 16 2880.\nHowever since we are talking about almost 900 years in the future it is really hard to predict the asteroids exact path.\nMany things affect the orbit of asteroids (gravity of planets, the solar wind, even the thermal emission of the asteroid itself)\nIt will take many years to measure the path of the asteroid more precisely. and then we will have a better idea of how close it is going to get.\neither way, we are talking 900 years in the future, so there is no need to panic. Even if further calculations show it will hit, we have plenty of time to come up with ways to prevent this.\nso go out lay down in the sun with a nice cool drink, soak up some rays, and worry not about such things.
746511
Dear Sir:\n\nWhile there have been some actual transmissions from Earth to the Solar System seeking echos, and some of this might still be going on in a coordinated fashion, as I understand it, the primary mission of the existing radio telescopes is to "Listen" to upper wavelength radio emissions from gas clouds, and other phenomina in the universe. Of course, once some interesting\nradio emissions are detected, a full spectrum scan of the target is most likely conducted to determine the full extent of radio\nsignals from that source.\n\nOther radio transmissions are made from Earth to our traveling Space Probes and Robotic Explorers at various locations in the Universe. A continual litany of telemetry, television and voice signals also flows between the Space Station and Ground Control Center to keep a constant watch on the health, status, and activities of the space crew, mission, and the station itself.\n\nI will defer to someone from one of those positions for an\nanswer as to the power and frequency of transmissions from Earth to the Space Station, Earth to the Robot Explorers, and Earth to the existing Space Probes way out in deep space.\nMy guess is that these various transmissions take place on frequencies between 2,500 Mhz and 40,000 Mhz. That is a \nvery large radio spectrum. \n\nSince my response turns around your question, in that I am telling you that the biggest radio telescopes listen rather than\ntransmit, let me also tell you that the biggest radio telescopes are not simply single structures at a given location. In recent years a scheme for the linkage of two or more radio telescopes was developed. Therefor, the biggest radio telescope would be an electronic combination of the signals from most of the largest installations on Earth. A lot of work has been done in that vein in recent years. Using more than one receiving antenna provides an easy means for researchers to filter out local ground (earthbound) noise generators and radio disturbances. Signals heard at the same time by widely separated receiving antennas (and equipment) are most probably from the sighted target source (assuming both antennas are aimed at the same target). It is also interesting to know that the radio signals that are received require a vast amount of processing to be identified and detected. The processing of the radio telescope incoming signals takes a huge array of computers and some very complex software programs to yield useable data.\n\nYes, radio waves do go on forever. However, their strength at the point of interception decreases by the square of the distance from the source. So, the strength of radio waves become very, very weak as you move into distances like 100,000,000 miles.\nThe wave front would continue out like rings of water in a pond until they hit something and bounced back off of it. In that sense,\na portion of the radio wave would not go on forever, but would become a new wave moving in the oposite direction from the new source (which was the object that the wave struck). The\nrest of the wave front would continue on until it struck something, and we repeated the above scenario. The exact same thing happens to signals transmitted from a sonar transducer in the water. Those devices are used to detect the depth of the bottom of rivers/oceans (depth finder), fish in the water (fish finder), or even other vessels (sub hunting). Sonar, uses sound waves and not radio waves, but the principle is almost the same.  Sound waves radiate out. Nearby echos are strong enough to be detected with existing equipment and are plotted and displayed on information screens. Some echos are so weak coming back that the existing equipment cannot detect/plot/or display  them.\n\nRegards,\nZah
118962
On Feb 5th, 2006 at 9:05 PM PST Pluto is located \n\n31.704 AU or\n47.556 x 10^8 km or\n2.947 billion miles\n\naway from the Earth.
535492
The reason we thought there was an object waiting out there tugging at Neptune was because we had bad data on the mass of the planet, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft reached Neptune we found out that our estimate was off by half a percent, putting the new value into our calculations (along with a bunch of other new values the Voyagers discovered) and running them resulting in a perfect match of the observations.\n\nSo to put things simply, there is nothing strange going on with Neptune's orbit and no reason to assume that there is a large body pulling on it.\n\nAlso note that Jupiter is not a star and not even close to being one so we can't claim to be a binary because of that.  It might be possible that there is a Brown Dwarf out there but we should have detected it with IR instruments by now given how close it would have to be.  A black hole might exist and if it isn't sucking in material would be almost completely invisible (and there really isn't much for one to suck in nor would we be in any danger), a neutron star or white dwarf I would expect us to be able to see if it were out there and if it formed in recent times we wouldn't exactly be here to ask about it.
491273
Right now, we're not even close to faster-than-light (or FTL) travel.  All out traveling has to be done at less than the speed of light, so most stars are farther away than we can get to.  Even at half the speed of light (which is far faster than we can travel) it would take 8 years to reach the nearest star, not counting the Sun.  (Not to mention 8 more years to get home afterward!)  Nothing can move faster than the speed of light, so our best hope is to do just like they do on Star-Trek.  The found a way to bend spacetime to get to distant stars without actually moving through normal space, which had less of a curve.  Nobody has any idea how to do that now, so we just have to keep expanding our understanding of science until we do.  Until then, I think our best bet on meeting intelligent extraterrestrial life is to hope for them to come to us!
352573
Based on the fact it took one of the space probes 13 -14 years to get there, I'd have to say at least 15 years.  Think of it, round trip, you'd be 30 years older than when you left Earth.  Boy, they's have to offer some mighty sweet health benefits and a superbadass 401k before I'd consider it.
258081
Time travel is pretty much a sure thing, at least to the past.  Tiny little wormholes pop up everywhere all the time.  If one were able to be captured, and then expanded to fit a person through (say with antigravity from the casimir effect or a lazer) a time machine could be made.  Now there are a couple of hoops to jump through of course.  Wormholes have TREMENDOUS pressure, they pretty much crush matter to a single point (called a singularity), so you would have to find a way to survive the trip.  Now, the wormhole has a beggining and an end, two sides like a tunnel.  Now, very large and very dense objects tend to slow down time, so does traveling very fast.  Drag one side of the wormhole next to something VERY dense, like say, a pulsar.  Leave it close to the pulsar and then it will experience time differently than the other side of the wormhole.  Leave it there until there is a time differential between the two that you are satisfied with (like say a year or whatever), and then drag it back right next to the other end of the tunnel.  Now you have two holes in space/time in reletively the same place, but if you walk through one side, you will come out right next to it, but in a different time, dictated by that time differential that you created.\n\nThere are of course paradoxed assciated with this.  One is the famous killing your mother paradox.  If you go back in time and kill your mother, you will not exist.  BUT, if you do not exist you could not have killed your mother and therefore you DO exist and you kill her etc etc etc.  How about a scientist which goes to the future a couple of years, opens up a scientific journal, takes quick notes of a new theory, and goes back to his time and gives the info to one of his students.  This studen then works a few years perfecting the theory and has it published.  This just so happens to be the journal that the scientist had read.  Where did the information come from in the first place, did it just appear out of nowhere?  There are lots of logical problems with this, but by the time we manage to develop the technology necessary to do all this we'll probably have figured it all out.
829665
The one video shows what looks like something much larger than insects.Until people have had some sort of contact or psychic impression such as Remote Viewing it's too soon to tell.Maybe they are as one person said some type of probe. It could be possible for other civilizations to create organic devices or to mimic them. These might also be some sign of a return of a certain species or about some climactic event that's about to happen here.Yea I think I'll go with probes. Maybe nano probes?
667527
Nice links. I would think that Pluto is still a planet. Its mean radius relative to earth's radius is approximately 0.46. So the diameter at equator might be some 3600 miles. By comparison, a satellite like Nereid, which orbits the planet Neptune, is no more than 200 miles in diameter. At its size Pluto must be a planet.\nI am not sure about Sedna. If we think about the 10-th planet, or the "X" planet, it was thought to be three times as massive as Saturn, and nearly six billion miles from the earth. It looks to me that Sedna might not be our 10-th planet. But then again, perhaps we just have to wait and see.
247943
A planet is classified by its size/mass.  They are currently reveiwing the catagory, which may end up in pluto being excluded from the solar system.  \nAs far as getting to another galaxy, there is a way, we just haven't figured it out yet.  The closest galaxy is andromeda (sp), which is billions of lightyears away.  And since we can't even reach the speed of light, well, intergalactic travel isn't very likely in the near future.