2012: the piano-sized ‘New Horizons’ probe of NASA nears Pluto (will it find ET there?)

India Daily ^ | Jan. 6, 2006

[presidio9]

Something spectacular may happen in 2012. New Horizons, a NASA space craft with a probe will travel at 26,700mph over four billion miles to Pluto. It will be in close proximity of Pluto by 2012. New Horizons probe will travel faster than any previous spacecraft on its journey to the planet farthest from the Sun, its moon Charon and the mysterious, icy Kuiper Belt. Relatively little is known about the ninth planet Pluto. It is an unknown zone of the solar system.

Many scientists have started believing that Pluto will surprise all in the earth by 2012. There are fair possibilities of intelligent life forms there that is still undetected.

Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator, said: "Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archaeological dig into the history of the outer Solar System, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation.” Everything we know for sure about Pluto is on about three 3 x 5 file cards. We don''t even know what we don''t know. That leaves a lot of room for discovery."While Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are called the rocky planets and Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are defined as gas giants, Pluto and its largest moon Charon are known as "ice dwarfs".

Some believe, Pluto has intelligent Type zero or Type 1 alien civilization. If that is true that be as advanced as we are or slightly more advanced. In that case they are about ready to send a probe to the earth. If they are slightly behind us, they will be capable to encounter ‘New Horizons’ probe with their own UFOs.

Pluto is very different from other planets. No one really knows what out there. It will be real interesting episode in space exploration unfolding with ‘New Horizons’ going close to Pluto by 2012 and reaching Pluto by 2015.

[chimera]

One reason is that it's orbit is highly eccentric, and its plane is inclined quite sharply with the ecliptic. This suggests an origin perhaps different than that of the other eight major planets.

[martin_fierro]

Eventually, we will be able to send, first, woodwind sections, then entire philharmonics to the stars.

They can start with this one. Pluto needs Disco.

[Lekker 1]

Reminds me of the joke about the guy who walks into a bar with a miniature piano and a 12-inch pianist

It's okay, I know the joke...but when I heard it, it was a 10" pianist. Jokes always get better with time, I guess.

[presidio9]

Wait: Jupiter and Mercury have similiar origins?

[chimera]

Similar in that they may be of the same solar "family". One have theorized an extrasolar origin for Pluto because of it's unusual orbit. Maybe it is a Kuiper Belt object that got pulled or perturbed into a closer orbit, or maybe something from "outside" the solar system that was wandering by and got captured.

Lots of interesting ideas out there about the Pluto-Charon pair that differ from the models proposed for planetary formation of the closer-in guys.

[John O]

he was having a really exciting day?

[Lekker 1]

Nah, he was probably wearing Kim Jong Il platform shoes

[presidio9]

There is also a joke in here somewhere about organs in space.

[MikeD]

This is a joke, right? Pluto is about 20 degrees above absolute zero. EVERYTHING on Pluto is frozen solid, including all gases.

Not *quite* correct -- one of the reasons for the immediacy of the launch is to arrive at Pluto before its tenuous atmosphere freezes. We know there is an atmosphere, and we *think* it will still be there until 2020, but the sooner we arrive the better.

Otherwise, yeah, the article is a joke. There is no life on Pluto...