Keith’s note: Yesterday I posted a Twitter response to a tweet my New Horizons mission PI Alan Stern. This is what it originally looked like in case it is deleted. My response originally said “Strange media strategy for New Horizons #UltimaThule encounter. Mission PI @AlanStern tweets link to his own mission twitter account @NewHorizons2015 – not NASA's mission Twitter account @NASANewHorizons – and then he bans certain media outlets from […]

Keith’s note: (Sigh) This had to happen. Now there are planetary scientists who actually think that use of the term “Planet 9” is “insensitive” – and they even have a petition urging support for their barely-contained outrage. If the Pluto huggers were serious about the responsibility that goes with naming things on worlds they should have thought twice about naming surface features on Pluto after things such as a SciFi […]

Keith’s note: Few people ever get a chance to fly something they helped to design in space. Even fewer people get to be a NASA mission Principal investigator. These missions are paid for by NASA and NASA is paid for by taxpayers. Contractual fine print aside, when you have a position like this on a NASA mission, you represent the agency – especially when you talk to taxpayers about it. […]

#math #physics #astronomy This looks very interesting. I do wonder if Pluto was still considered to be a planet when they started, and if it would have had a much harder time getting funded if it was only a "dwarf". https://t.co/270AZ46Aq0 — New Leibniz (@NewLeibniz) April 5, 2018 Definitely. Would have killed New Horizons. — AlanStern (@AlanStern) April 5, 2018 Horseshit. As I said, the SS Decadal Survey Committee decided […]

Pluto Features Given First Official Names, IAU “Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges honouring Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand mountaineer who were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return safely.” The Real Origin Of Some Notable Pluto Nomenclature, earlier post “On 10 January 2008 Sir Edmund Hillary, one of two humans to first stand atop […]

Keith’s note: One planetary scientist is doing a systematic search for a large planet that may be lurking in the outermost reaches of our solar system. Meanwhile another planetary scientist who got his own mission to visit the farthest objects yet visited in our solar system just can’t get over a nomenclature decision made a decade ago. @plutokiller @jccwrt Sorry bub. Tombaugh found the real planet 9 in 1930. Many […]

A new definition would add 102 planets to our solar system — including Pluto, Washington Post “[Alan Stern] scoffed at Pluto’s new classification, “dwarf planet” — “How can an adjective in front of a noun not describe the noun?” Stern asked. “There are dwarf stars but they’re still considered stars…” … “The paper that [Kirby Runyon will present this week isn’t a formal proposal, like the one that was devised […]

Keith’s note: There as a live Facebook webcast today about the New Horizons mission. I submitted this question which was asked of New Horizons PI Alan Stern: “A variety of names are used by the New Horizons team in public and in scientific publications for features on Pluto and Charon based on images obtained during the flyby. Have any of these names been formally submitted to the IAU by the […]

.@alanstern says New Horizons team has not submitted Pluto nomenclature suggestions to IAU yet. "Informal names" to continue. #DPSEPSC — Alexandra Witze (@alexwitze) October 18, 2016 By stalling they get more published citations using "informal" #Pluto names – formally – so as to try and force the IAU's hand #DPSEPSC https://t.co/4fV7lUTgpN — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) October 18, 2016

New stamps honoring #NASA planetary discoveries, including #PlutoFlyby, debut May 31. https://t.co/JOwgt1Wa00 pic.twitter.com/tHeKQ1EYJd — NASA New Horizons (@NASANewHorizons) May 24, 2016