posted
Still? I'd say, with no real data to back me up, that the majority of the most interesting things in our solar system, not to mention others, have been discovered in the past 30 years or so.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Er....like what exactly? There have been many cool discoveries with planets and moons that we already knew about, but I dont recall much coolness in with the most "new" stuff.
Though, once we actually start exploring the system (privately probably) , our descendants will look back on the past 30 years as mostly unproductive and wasteful.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Name an interesting fact about the solar system and I bet it is something recent. Volcanic activity on Io? The potential for vast quantitites of liquid water on Europa and maybe other Jovians? The Kuiper Belt? The stream of bizarre images coming in from Saturn as we speak? The existence of extrasolar planets?
Then you've got Mars looking more curious everytime we take a closer look, asteroids with moons, and on and on. And that's just planetary science.
Basically, prior to, say, Voyager 1, we knew there were some bright lights in the sky.
This is the golden age of learning where the solar system is concerned.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
"I suppose this will really muddy up the waters for definition of a planet."
Not really. If having one satellite doesn't make it a planet, having three certainly won't.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I like Jupiters "Death Star" Moon
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
Actually, it's Saturn that has the "Death Star"...
Also, I'm pretty sure that at least one of the bigger asteroids out there in the main belt has a smaller asteroid orbiting around it... like a moon, might one say?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Actually, it's Saturn that has the "Death Star"...
Also, I'm pretty sure that at least one of the bigger asteroids out there in the main belt has a smaller asteroid orbiting around it... like a moon, might one say?
Correct on both counts. Saturn's moon Mimas is the one that looks like the Death Star, and the asteroid pair you're thinking of is probably Ida and Dactyl.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I stand corrected. Still it looks cool.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
There's also at least one asteroid with two moons, sometimes called a triple asteroid. 87 Sylvia has the "moons" Romulus and Remus, as I posted here .
Printer-friendly view of this topic
