"Would you advocate for a mission to Pluto?" You're asking the wrong guy. I'd declare world peace just so I could move the entire global defense budget to space exploration.
Ay, you’d best mesh the two unless you want to get overrun by bugs. They’re holed up on Pluto, yknow. Who knows where they’re gonna shoot spores or send a transport bug to next.
Ignoring the a priori assumption that we can prove the negative condition of aliens never encountering Earth, it may be that life and especially advanced life may require the advantage of developing in a mono-stellar system. Although we have only 4 terrestial satellites (Earth, Mars Venus, and Triton) the complexity of our biosphere combined with the stability of our star would actually give it an Iridium rating above others.
agreed .. the moons/satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and various asteroids ... must be the MOST exciting places to explore in our solar system .. some have large amounts of water ... looking for life or data to improve our understanding of the origin of life should be our #1 exploration focus, answer the biggest questions first, right? Pluto is so far away, mission durations are too expensive compared to closer objects.
tobi foong: but its not just 3 ... next best probe missions would be to land on moons of those larger planets, and do some research there .. dozens of missions for just those moons .. and there is a limited budget.
I wouldn't mind seeing the Ice Giants get a little attention from NASA. I suspect that Jupiter & Saturn will get more attention before Uranus & Neptune. Europa, Enceladus, and Titan are pretty interesting, and a Europa lander has friends in Congress.
It took 10 years to get to Pluto with a craft that wasn't trying to slow down enough to stay there. I don't want to contemplate how long it would take an orbiter to get there. Maybe it could point at Earth and watch the JWST launch.
They said 7-11 years depending on the launch vehicle, and we have ion thrusters these days. Many different types! and they are getting better. I wont be surprised if they can get it down to 6 years in a few years !
I would prefer the orbiter/lander because we would get so much more information. Sure, it will take a while, but we have a LOT of other places to study, and not much money. We should get as much as we can out of every trip.
I kinda want to poo-poo the idea of Pluto, but I remind myself that a rising tide floats all boats. Space enthusiasm, and the desire to explore is worth encouraging, even if I don't care for the destination.
I’d love to see another Pluto mission, but I’d like to see exploration of Uranus & Neptune as well. We have even less up close information on those planets than any other. Hard to choose, that’s for sure.
wow I had no idea new horizons was getting that close to target 2 (no idea how to spell that). That is amazing! As for another Pluto mission, I would rather see a mission to Neptune. It's moon Triton is possibly a captured Kuiper belt object and could tick of some of the same boxes as an investigation of Pluto, plus we get to learn more about Neptune and it's system. Neptune sized world's seem pretty common in our exoplanet surveys. Would be great to know more about this blue beast.
Frankly, just about everything outside of the Earth / Moon system is fascinating. I wish we had resources to explore them all at length. At the moment though, if I had to choose, I think a lander / rover / submarine explorer on Europa or any of the subsurface oceans w/ heat would be the top of my wish list. Everywhere there's been time combined w/ liquid and energy is likely to have life - at least as we understand it. A close second (or number one depending on how powerful) would a be a 50 AU Gravitational lensing scope using our sun as a gravity lense or a giant Aragoscope so we can image extrasolar planets.
Bryan L in that case the upper portions of Venus's atmosphere have the same temperature and pressure as earth at sea level plus there is some water there. Could there be life floating around in the clouds? sending a blimp should be a priority imo.
Fraser Cain I was opting for Starship Troopers, namely the Roughnecks series, but knowing you aren’t only about the real science and quoting *Aliens* has made me smile.
Red 13 it’s pretty great, the people playing the marines actually were told to read starship troopers to get an idea for the role they’re in, if you’re talking about “Aliens”, that is. Anyways, feeling better?
what if you could scoop up the stray hydrogen in interstellar space, and use that as fuel for an Ion engine of sorts. Would that make interstellar travel possible? Or would it still be too far away
Hi Fraser, I have a question of questions... We are moving through space.. We are rotating about the Sun at about 30 km/s, or 67,000 mph . The Solar System is rotating with the Milky Way Galaxy at an average speed of 514,000 mph (828,000 km/h) , which is itself moving through space at about 1.3 million mph (2.1 million km/hr). What are we all moving relative to? If we, the Earth, stopped in space so we have no momentum, how would we know we are not moving? What would be the point of reference to show we are not moving?
The reliability of these space probes is astounding, the people involved are true heros and amazing engineers, who get little credit for their "stellar" accomplishments.
You think it's feasible using the new ion engine tech that scoops fuel from any available atmosphere to keep an orbiter around each planet and moon the in solar system indefinitely?
phooogle no. Best case, that could give you all the fuel you need but it would not give you all the energy you need. In the inner system we could use solar and that could last a long time, but solar panels don't last forever. In the outer system an RTG is the best bet and that would eventually run out.
If it can give you all the fuel you need, by the definition of fuel, you get all the energy you need. Do you even physics bro? I think it wouldn't be perfectly reliable tho.
I think he meant propellant, not fuel. It's confusing because the two things are the same for conventional rockets, but for ion engines the stuff that you shoot out the back has to have outside energy applied to it rather than producing energy itself like rocket fuel does. If there is in fact an ion engine scoop technology, this is a valid concern.
Yeah, I was fing around. You'd indeed need _electricity_ to be able to propel the atmosphere, which was what Crushnaut meant. I think Fraser mentioned the device in one of his videos.
Hi Fraser. I'd love it if you'd do a video on going to Pluto with an orbiter & lander but with a focus on the propulsion system. I'd like to see some calculations and some pushing of the envelope. MUST we be stuck with a 7 year "fast" trip to Pluto, "depending on the size of the rocket"? You mentioned an ion drive. How about a hybrid NTR/ion engine, with say, a modified Spacex Starship 2nd stage, refuelled in LEO that might get us there a lot faster than 7 years. Could it be done in two years? Earlier? And if NTR is too "out there", how many years would it take for an on-orbit refuelled, super-heavy boosted rocket ion engine driven spacecraft to make the trip? Some calculations regarding payload mass and rocket types would make such a video quite interesting, I think. The 9 years it took for New Horizons to get to Pluto was just too long for my tastes.
I mentioned the most appropriate propulsion systems in the video. Huge chemical rockets, planetary flybys and perhaps ion engines. We don't have anything better that's actually ready to go right now. I've done other videos on interesting rocket variants, but nothing is flight ready.
Hi Fraser, enjoy your channel. Trying to put a flyby mission like this in some different perspective. Let’s say a passenger has a canon t5i in moving car, now on cruise control at what speed and what is the object to capture on this equipment and distance so on. Just curious, thanks.
Like, how close would you need to be to take nice pictures? You know when you take pictures of the Moon with your camera? The Moon is about 300,000 kilometers away and it looks like a tiny circle in a regular lens. You'd want to be much much closer.
I'd say the only planetary systems with less water than Earth are Mercury, Venus and Mars, The Gas Giants have a ton in their Moons and Pluto probably has some to.
Hey Fraser, I just heard about the new Kuiper Belt object, The Goblin, and that its orbit takes it around 60 times the distance from the Sun that that of Pluto. Wow. So I am wondering, is there any limit to a gravity well? Is there a point beyond which an object with the lowest possible velocity will be drawn into the well? Of course, every body with mass would surely in a manner "compete" for a less massive object... but potentially, without the influence of another body, does a gravity well extend indefinitely?
Yeah, really cool discovery. The Solar System extends for about 2 light years, so half way to the nearest star, but you're experiencing gravity from every single piece of mass in the observable Universe. :-)
Hi Fraser, Is it true that they are still not sure if antimatter has positive or negative gravity, and that we haven't made large enough amounts to be able to check? How much would we need to make to find out? What's the smallest detectable level of gravity?
If costs were no issue, and given the best ever combination of rockets, sails, and ion thrusting tech either available now, or can be quickly produced; and along with gravity assists from Jupiter and Saturn and the most optimal flight path allowing for several close passs of Pluto via big loops, what would be the absolute fastest times from launch to arrival for a cutting edge probe?
I would honestly love to see an Orbiter and Lander at each planet that doesn't have one atm including Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake(as well as for some smaller KB objects like Quaoar, and further away objects like 2015 ER61 or 2012VP113).
I would love to see an orbiter around the Pluto system but I have always wondered why the lack of interest in the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, it seems like they are overlooked
Q: How do probes such as New Horizons and the two voyager missions communicate back to earth? How do they know where to point given the vast distances between themselves and ground-based receivers? Is it a brute force method or there are some special mathematics and geometries going on that line the spacecraft up perfectly. Thanks
Why not make a real flagship mission for Pluto as a stepping off point? What if a mission were designed with a large orbiter and several smaller cube sat style craft. Couldn't the binary nature of the system, combined with it's low total mass, aid in launching objects further into the Kiper belt? I think a target like this would be the perfect opportunity to explore a flexible psuedo von neumann proto-probe-ish tech. Instead of designing a mission with rigid hardware and science specific goals, I would really like to see what NASA engineers could come up with if their primary objective is in-situ flexibility and reconfigurable technology, ahead of all other objectives. -Jake
I agree Upcycle. While they out there, they "might as well" include science packages, cube sats, landing pods/probes and even as I propose, serious large telescopes to monitor the outer edges of our solar system. The mission would be expensive and necessarily need plutonium powered reactors.
Is it possible for new horizons to sling shot around a KBO and go back to Planet Pluto? Perhaps fall into orbit around Pluto and do all the things we are hoping for in follow on missions?
Much as I love what we got from Pluto during New Horizons' flyby, it's a relatively recent event compared to the last time we went to the ice giants (as mentioned before in the comments.) I would love to see something visit Uranus and/or Neptune in my lifetime (Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune in 1989 doesn't count as I was only one then). Maybe if there could be another pair of twin probes sent out to the ice giants--one to Uranus and the other to Neptune...but then that'll likely be very expensive too.
Hello Feaser, Recently japanese space agency landed probes to asteroid Ryugu. I think this is a great achievement like the rosetta mission. Could you please make a video about this hayabusa mission? Interestingly I see so few news about this, and think the space folks here deserve to know. Thanks
Would the shape of the Universe have any effect on the brightness of stars? Like if the Universe was saddle shaped, would a star look different if you looked at it from certain locations?
That was a great video. I never really realized Pluto was such an interesting place. But it's a rocky planet beyond the gas giants. I never thought of it that way before. Yeah, it would be very interesting to put a lander on it. Can't do that on Jupiter.
Pluto is a planet, dwarf planet as it is; just as Neptune is classified as an Ice planet now. Although not recognized yet as a principal satellite of our star ( as it would be perhaps if it exchanged places with Mercury randomly) it is an amazing Kuiper belt object and also an object that skirts the main planetary disk of our system. An orbiter could better analyze the geography over the course of it's long orbital year. It is plainly seen as a world like no other; neither just a Kuiper belt object nor a simple satellite orbiting our star.
@@michaelskywalker3089 You can argue Pluto is a planet, I am actually with you. But you can not argue dwarf planet is a type of planet, because IAU specifically says dwarf planet is NOT planet.
First of all the word Planet is in the actual term [they could have called it "minor orbital"]. Also, another type of "Planet" is Ice planet which the Tenth planet is hypothesized to be. Also, by their definition Mercury is a dwarf planet [ accepting that the condition of sweeping their orbit is impossible to prove]. As well, as a Nasa scientist said :" After all, Neptune hasn't cleared its orbit! Pluto crosses its orbit. I do not accept a hasty and essentially unscientific determination by some bureaucratic astronomical society as the absolute truth or even to be taken as the accepted consensus without solid theorey and data. You raise a good point of course: if an orbiting body is designated as a dwarf planet then it is not a planet as determined by the I.A.U. I argue that their limiting definition of planet is flawed. Not simply because of the emotional and historical sentiment surrounding the designation. The word is a noun. It should simply refer to an object that was formed by the primordial cloud and is heavy enough to maintain a spherical formation and orbits the sun OR can be proven to have formed in a star's primeval cloud and has been ejected [as a rogue planet]. This way most asteroids and all comet's are not planets and most moons are probably not planetary. The orbit clearing condition is too arbitrary. What I propose is that planet's be defined principally by their orbital and geologic characteristics and not by their positional circumstances. Nevertheless, an essential designation should be reserved for those planets or orbiting natural bodies that are this: Principal Satellites [of ours Star Sol]. This way, Mercury can not be dismissed as (improbably) a dwarf planetoid that was lucky enough to migrate into an orbit cleared by the original Ice giants, super earths or Gas Giants that were probably there at the beginning of our solar system. If Pluto with its tidally locked Moon and system of small satellites was suddenly exchanged with Mercury their designations would switch [without Pluto even maintaining dwarf status!!!]. It's absurd. And ultimately trivial. This entire "debate" is stupid and trivial (imo) except for the small but real value of the historical sentiment. It is roughly analogous to the controversies surrounding the taxonomical designations of species.
EVERYBODY STOP! I made a mistake. I called Pluto a planet. It was a mistake, I wasn't thinking. I wasn't making a declaration. I forgot. I've been calling Pluto a planet for longer than most everybody here. Okay, are we good now? The celestial body known as Pluto...
Financing missions to Pluto and other Kuiper-Belt objects is infinitely better than building nonsensical fences or walls, and it’s arguably better than wasting funds on some »space force«. I’m all for revisiting Pluto! Cheers!
Hi Fraser! I have a question that randomly came to me and I was wondering if you could answer it. I've heard numerous times that it would take a few light years of lead to stop a neutrino. But would a neutron star have better luck? And if so, are there any phenomena or processes that could be measured from such an interaction? Thanks for everything you do! - Devon W. from Houston, Texas.
Given Pluto's distance, I don't see a reason to go back there until some faster ways to travel the cosmos have been developed. There's innumerable opportunities for exploration and wonder which are much closer to home. I'd concentrate my efforts in these places first.
I would advocate an orbiter before a lander simply because it has more room for error and can bring a great deal of information The transmit rate would be slow, but at least you would have double the capacity of my current dial-up smoke signal ISP
My wish list for a pluto mission would be a main orbitor capable of transmitting back to Earth with a bunch of cube sats with good cameras that would scatter in orbit around Pluto (and maybe Charon), and communicate back to the main orbitor. Also, there would be an insite style lander that could map the planet's internals, and a couple of small rovers that could look around. Maybe have a set of these Charon as well. Each independent unit would probably need its own independent radioactive power source. Pricy, sure. But when would we get the chance to go back, and then it takes ten years to get there. Oh, here's another wish... what if we put a telescope in orbit around Pluto (for stability) to look at space past all the the local debris?
Aw man I love stuff like this but when I realize I'd be 50 by the time the orbiter arrived if the mission launched *TOMORROW* it somewhat depresses me.
I'll be middle fifties if they launch quickly. Early sixties if they get there quickly. You can see why people can spend their entire working lives on a single mission.
Has anyone done an analysis of how much easier it would be to send orbiters to *lots* of outer solar system objects if we use the new kilopower reactors to power some sort of ion drive on them?
Hi Fraser, i have a new question for you: Approximatly 35 years ago, we discovered the strange "Boötes Void", wild theories as aliens and space bubbles came up, but no theory made any real sense - astronomers told us then they would observe the phenomena. What are the discoveries and conclusions we have nowadays? Best regards from Switzerland :-)
I would go for an orbiter, Not just for the Pluto system. But stick a good telescope on it and use it as a base for scanning the kuiper belt and beyond ! Took a lot of effort to get out there, may as well look around !! And while we are at it... You can get a lot of stuff into little cube sats these days.. take a swam of them along and land on each of the pluto's moons or any other objects you find out there. some of these objects you could probably hop around too cos the gravity is so low. Finally, it would probably be worth spending a few years designing a good mission profile and tech to do a good job of this, cos with the recent rapid advancements of space tech, you probably would get there at the same time if you go in 2 years instead of now !
Few videos ago, you said that there was no plutonium for the RTG's, and the ban was lifted not long ago. Meaning there is as much matterial as you want now? I mean, you can send as many missions as you want with RTG or there is a limit and if you send Pluto, some other mission will not get approval due to lack of Plutonium? And thank you for the video! Great as usual!
Good video mate .... as always . yeah it would be cool to visit pluto again , but i cant help feeling we should focus /concentrate more on making some good bases on the suitable planets and worlds/moons so we can hop skip and jump for supplies/fuel/food ....a spare space craft ??? or even a place to stay for a short rest while on route in and out of our little solar system , more permanent space stations dotted along the way like ports of call across vast oceans .. or maybe i`m just having wishful thinking :) .
Hi Fraser and everyone at Universe Today, thank you so much for this show! Humans are made of, and surrounded by matter that interacts with light particles. We are also surrounded by matter that doesn't interact with light particles (dark matter), is it possible that there could be dark matter 'humans' also, and we just haven't detected them yet? Thanks.
Hey! Hey! Hey! If there is a lot of gas outside our solar system we got fuel for travel in the galaxy, we simply mount something big in front of our spaceship to collect the gas and use it in our engine and simply swishing through space to somewhere exciting?
Neptune and Uranus for me. Those planets and their moons have a lot to tell. Maybe we need an outer-planets explorer that wlll handle those planets, Pluto and beyond...dunno if that is possible though
I tried 4 times to subscribe, but it kept asking me to click on link to verify my email. But when it kicked me back to it, all of the fields were blank. After 4 tries, I gave up trying to subscribe. Do you have any idea on what it is doing and how I can get subscribed? Thank you.
Yes; we need an orbiter mission to Pluto -- it is longer lasting than just two bodies, and could monitor changing weather and geological features over Pluto's 248 year orbit of the sun. We would get real close-up images and it would make intense study easier. Of course, in the case of the aforementioned Jupiter gravity assist, it helps if other planetary alignments are favourable; but time might run out to observe Pluto before its thin atmosphere again sinks to the surface as it gets further and further from the sun in it's orbit -- I'd be all for a fly-by of either Uranus or Neptune, presuming their positions in orbits around the sun allow for it... but a long term orbiter mission to Pluto would be ideal.
nice job! totally support the idea of another mission to Pluto -- but really, Alan Stern needs to give up his quixotic, romantic, I daresay populistic attachment to Pluto as fully fledged planet and his quest to change the Astronomical Union's definitions again to reinstate it. Meanwhile: long live Brown/Batygin and the quest for a possible (proper) Planet 9!
Pluto would be pretty low on my priority list. As others have said, Uranus and especially Neptune deserve more attention, especially Triton... which may actually be a lot like pluto but probably more active and more interesting due to its close orbit around neptune. And of course the most burning question is about life on icy moons.
So far everything has passed through it with out much of an issue. Remember in the deep vacuum of space a 'wall' can be pretty thin and insubstantial. :)
If an orbiter was sent to Pluto, maybe with an additional lander attached to it, how would its orbit be like? Would it always stay between Pluto and Charon, would it orbit so far out that its trajectory encompasses both objects, or could it have a varying orbit (or at least extremely excentric? The reason I ask is that if it was decided to send anything at all, one would get the most bang for the buck if it was possible to observe both worlds from all sides… at least for a while. And if the first orbit would be true, could we strap a lander AND a second (smaller) orbiter to the main probe, so everything could be observed in most possible detail? 😅
I advocate spraying the outer solar system with multiple missions using a conveyor belt of spacecraft built to the same modular basic specs for all and contract launched by SpaceX Falcon heavy or others. Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris, Sedna, Quaoar the lot, even Planet Nine if we find it. These multi decade one off built to unique spec missions are great but lets up the pace a bit I'm running out of life expectancy :(
Rather than a single spacecraft, send a small swarm of micro-sats that can be deployed on arrival as a wide base-line, phase arrayed radar to produce super-resolution DEMs. Additionally, equip some of the swarm with hyper-spectral imagers to map mineral and atomic species. The two sets of data when combined would provide a very high resolution digital model. Further, the swarm could also exploit the phased array for transmission back to earth, optimizing the available power by focusing the transmission beam.
Because you ain't gonna see much, it'll look like a still picture unless you go really close. It took 16 months for New Horizons to beam back 45GB of data, imagine if we had lots of high quality pictures with it.
"Would you advocate for a mission to Pluto?"
You're asking the wrong guy. I'd declare world peace just so I could move the entire global defense budget to space exploration.
I'd vote for you
Where do I sign to support your World Presidency?
Please, go to law school, and run for president, we need more people like you!
I like the cut of your jib, LordBitememan.
LordBitememan, for world president!
Ay, you’d best mesh the two unless you want to get overrun by bugs. They’re holed up on Pluto, yknow. Who knows where they’re gonna shoot spores or send a transport bug to next.
I think I know why aliens have never visited earth. They probably have a solar system rating system - and we only have one star.
**claps once**
**claps slowly**
**claps faster**
**claps even faster**
**STANDS UP**
**CLAPS FRANTICALLY**
Ok, that made me laugh a lot
Zing!
Ignoring the a priori assumption that we can prove the negative condition of aliens never encountering Earth, it may be that life and especially advanced life may require the advantage of developing in a mono-stellar system. Although we have only 4 terrestial satellites (Earth, Mars Venus, and Triton) the complexity of our biosphere combined with the stability of our star would actually give it an Iridium rating above others.
You are real fun at parties
Pluto again? Seriously, we need to return to Neptun and Uran first, since we never saw enough of their satellites and weather.
Yeah, it's a tragedy that we haven't gone back to Uranus and Neptune.
agreed .. the moons/satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and various asteroids ... must be the MOST exciting places to explore in our solar system .. some have large amounts of water ... looking for life or data to improve our understanding of the origin of life should be our #1 exploration focus, answer the biggest questions first, right? Pluto is so far away, mission durations are too expensive compared to closer objects.
Why not do both ( or all 3 )
tobi foong: but its not just 3 ... next best probe missions would be to land on moons of those larger planets, and do some research there .. dozens of missions for just those moons .. and there is a limited budget.
I wouldn't mind seeing the Ice Giants get a little attention from NASA. I suspect that Jupiter & Saturn will get more attention before Uranus & Neptune. Europa, Enceladus, and Titan are pretty interesting, and a Europa lander has friends in Congress.
Pluto will always be my favourite!
It took 10 years to get to Pluto with a craft that wasn't trying to slow down enough to stay there.
I don't want to contemplate how long it would take an orbiter to get there.
Maybe it could point at Earth and watch the JWST launch.
They said 7-11 years depending on the launch vehicle, and we have ion thrusters these days. Many different types! and they are getting better. I wont be surprised if they can get it down to 6 years in a few years !
I would prefer the orbiter/lander because we would get so much more information. Sure, it will take a while, but we have a LOT of other places to study, and not much money. We should get as much as we can out of every trip.
Agreed. Plus gravitational assists from Mars/Jupiter/Saturn depending on launch periods.
LOL, nice one on JWST, well played.
I kinda want to poo-poo the idea of Pluto, but I remind myself that a rising tide floats all boats. Space enthusiasm, and the desire to explore is worth encouraging, even if I don't care for the destination.
I’d love to see another Pluto mission, but I’d like to see exploration of Uranus & Neptune as well. We have even less up close information on those planets than any other. Hard to choose, that’s for sure.
wow I had no idea new horizons was getting that close to target 2 (no idea how to spell that). That is amazing!
As for another Pluto mission, I would rather see a mission to Neptune. It's moon Triton is possibly a captured Kuiper belt object and could tick of some of the same boxes as an investigation of Pluto, plus we get to learn more about Neptune and it's system. Neptune sized world's seem pretty common in our exoplanet surveys. Would be great to know more about this blue beast.
Yup, just a few months now.
Frankly, just about everything outside of the Earth / Moon system is fascinating. I wish we had resources to explore them all at length. At the moment though, if I had to choose, I think a lander / rover / submarine explorer on Europa or any of the subsurface oceans w/ heat would be the top of my wish list. Everywhere there's been time combined w/ liquid and energy is likely to have life - at least as we understand it. A close second (or number one depending on how powerful) would a be a 50 AU Gravitational lensing scope using our sun as a gravity lense or a giant Aragoscope so we can image extrasolar planets.
Ultima Thule, or 2014 MU69 is its name.
Bryan L in that case the upper portions of Venus's atmosphere have the same temperature and pressure as earth at sea level plus there is some water there. Could there be life floating around in the clouds? sending a blimp should be a priority imo.
It’s spelled Ultima Thule.
Source- I turned on CC.
Another stellar video Fraser.
dad puns ftw
I'd say we should send such a mission to Eris to learn even more about the Kuiper belt.
Wow, I must say that this was possibly your best video to date with all the info, images and graphics. Joining Patreon!
Thanks a lot, Chad really did a great job editing it. 😀
Congrats on 200k!
Yeah, let’s hope we don’t find the bugs hiding there as a base. Hopefully we don’t need to get Mobile Infantry involved in this endeavor.
"Is this going to be a stand up fight or another bug hunt?"
Fraser Cain I was opting for Starship Troopers, namely the Roughnecks series, but knowing you aren’t only about the real science and quoting *Aliens* has made me smile.
I watched that movie on the SYFY channel Monday morning while recuperating from my heart attack in the hospital.
Red 13 it’s pretty great, the people playing the marines actually were told to read starship troopers to get an idea for the role they’re in, if you’re talking about “Aliens”, that is.
Anyways, feeling better?
@@nickwalker4936 Yeah! Lots better!
what if you could scoop up the stray hydrogen in interstellar space, and use that as fuel for an Ion engine of sorts. Would that make interstellar travel possible? Or would it still be too far away
There's an idea to do this called a Bussard Ram Jet, but I don't know if it's practical.
@@frasercain maybe if you travel fast enough, the distance covered could make up for the low densities
Hi Fraser, I have a question of questions... We are moving through space.. We are rotating about the Sun at about 30 km/s, or 67,000 mph . The Solar System is rotating with the Milky Way Galaxy at an average speed of 514,000 mph (828,000 km/h) , which is itself moving through space at about 1.3 million mph (2.1 million km/hr). What are we all moving relative to? If we, the Earth, stopped in space so we have no momentum, how would we know we are not moving? What would be the point of reference to show we are not moving?
Congrats on 200K subscribers.
I honestly would rather see a return mission to Uranus and Neptune. So mysterious and beautiful.
those photos are amazing. I wonder how high the ice mountains are.
I like how you have lots of these nice videos and images in your videos to look at while you talk 👍
The reliability of these space probes is astounding, the people involved are true heros and amazing engineers, who get little credit for their "stellar" accomplishments.
all thanks .. from Bahrain ..
Dude I'm SO in favor of this! A Cassini style orbiter/lander mission to Pluto would honestly rank as my all-time favorite space mission
You think it's feasible using the new ion engine tech that scoops fuel from any available atmosphere to keep an orbiter around each planet and moon the in solar system indefinitely?
I think it is
phooogle no. Best case, that could give you all the fuel you need but it would not give you all the energy you need. In the inner system we could use solar and that could last a long time, but solar panels don't last forever. In the outer system an RTG is the best bet and that would eventually run out.
If it can give you all the fuel you need, by the definition of fuel, you get all the energy you need. Do you even physics bro? I think it wouldn't be perfectly reliable tho.
I think he meant propellant, not fuel. It's confusing because the two things are the same for conventional rockets, but for ion engines the stuff that you shoot out the back has to have outside energy applied to it rather than producing energy itself like rocket fuel does. If there is in fact an ion engine scoop technology, this is a valid concern.
Yeah, I was fing around. You'd indeed need _electricity_ to be able to propel the atmosphere, which was what Crushnaut meant. I think Fraser mentioned the device in one of his videos.
Always a pleasure watching your video’s👍🏻
Thanks a lot!
Another great video. Thank you! I'm all for an orbiter/lander combo.
Thanks for watching!
Hi Fraser. I'd love it if you'd do a video on going to Pluto with an orbiter & lander but with a focus on the propulsion system. I'd like to see some calculations and some pushing of the envelope. MUST we be stuck with a 7 year "fast" trip to Pluto, "depending on the size of the rocket"? You mentioned an ion drive. How about a hybrid NTR/ion engine, with say, a modified Spacex Starship 2nd stage, refuelled in LEO that might get us there a lot faster than 7 years. Could it be done in two years? Earlier? And if NTR is too "out there", how many years would it take for an on-orbit refuelled, super-heavy boosted rocket ion engine driven spacecraft to make the trip? Some calculations regarding payload mass and rocket types would make such a video quite interesting, I think. The 9 years it took for New Horizons to get to Pluto was just too long for my tastes.
I mentioned the most appropriate propulsion systems in the video. Huge chemical rockets, planetary flybys and perhaps ion engines. We don't have anything better that's actually ready to go right now. I've done other videos on interesting rocket variants, but nothing is flight ready.
Hi Fraser, enjoy your channel. Trying to put a flyby mission like this in some different perspective. Let’s say a passenger has a canon t5i in moving car, now on cruise control at what speed and what is the object to capture on this equipment and distance so on. Just curious, thanks.
Like, how close would you need to be to take nice pictures? You know when you take pictures of the Moon with your camera? The Moon is about 300,000 kilometers away and it looks like a tiny circle in a regular lens. You'd want to be much much closer.
if we colonized the solar system like in "the expanse" would water be as valueable as in the series? or do we have access to much more than we think?
I'd say the only planetary systems with less water than Earth are Mercury, Venus and Mars, The Gas Giants have a ton in their Moons and Pluto probably has some to.
Hey Fraser, I just heard about the new Kuiper Belt object, The Goblin, and that its orbit takes it around 60 times the distance from the Sun that that of Pluto. Wow. So I am wondering, is there any limit to a gravity well? Is there a point beyond which an object with the lowest possible velocity will be drawn into the well? Of course, every body with mass would surely in a manner "compete" for a less massive object... but potentially, without the influence of another body, does a gravity well extend indefinitely?
Yeah, really cool discovery. The Solar System extends for about 2 light years, so half way to the nearest star, but you're experiencing gravity from every single piece of mass in the observable Universe. :-)
Hi Fraser, Is it true that they are still not sure if antimatter has positive or negative gravity, and that we haven't made large enough amounts to be able to check? How much would we need to make to find out? What's the smallest detectable level of gravity?
Love this stuff! We're learning more all the time.
Nice video and thx for all the good work, isn't it too dark there? Does Sun's light reach Pluto? How did New horizon take a detailed picture?
Wouldn't a "Dawn"-type mission to the Kuiper belt, that was able to compare Pluto to other KBOs like Quaoar or Orcus, be more useful?
If costs were no issue, and given the best ever combination of rockets, sails, and ion thrusting tech either available now, or can be quickly produced; and along with gravity assists from Jupiter and Saturn and the most optimal flight path allowing for several close passs of Pluto via big loops, what would be the absolute fastest times from launch to arrival for a cutting edge probe?
What's the fastest a probe can go using gravitation assist in the solar system?
well, infititely fast actually, if you keep getting gravity assists. untill relativity stops you from accelerating any further.
I would honestly love to see an Orbiter and Lander at each planet that doesn't have one atm including Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake(as well as for some smaller KB objects like Quaoar, and further away objects like 2015 ER61 or 2012VP113).
I would love to see an orbiter around the Pluto system but I have always wondered why the lack of interest in the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, it seems like they are overlooked
Thanks Fraser for another interesting episode. BTW what's the background music between 0:50 and 1:20?
Q: How do probes such as New Horizons and the two voyager missions communicate back to earth? How do they know where to point given the vast distances between themselves and ground-based receivers? Is it a brute force method or there are some special mathematics and geometries going on that line the spacecraft up perfectly. Thanks
3:52 i see the vapor wave head........ *music plays*
Why not make a real flagship mission for Pluto as a stepping off point? What if a mission were designed with a large orbiter and several smaller cube sat style craft. Couldn't the binary nature of the system, combined with it's low total mass, aid in launching objects further into the Kiper belt?
I think a target like this would be the perfect opportunity to explore a flexible psuedo von neumann proto-probe-ish tech.
Instead of designing a mission with rigid hardware and science specific goals, I would really like to see what NASA engineers could come up with if their primary objective is in-situ flexibility and reconfigurable technology, ahead of all other objectives.
-Jake
It always just comes down to budget. A big flagship mission to Pluto means less missions to other places.
I agree Upcycle. While they out there, they "might as well" include science packages, cube sats, landing pods/probes and even as I propose, serious large telescopes to monitor the outer edges of our solar system. The mission would be expensive and necessarily need plutonium powered reactors.
Is it possible for new horizons to sling shot around a KBO and go back to Planet Pluto? Perhaps fall into orbit around Pluto and do all the things we are hoping for in follow on missions?
where can i find the music used in your videos?
I also need to know.
Much as I love what we got from Pluto during New Horizons' flyby, it's a relatively recent event compared to the last time we went to the ice giants (as mentioned before in the comments.) I would love to see something visit Uranus and/or Neptune in my lifetime (Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune in 1989 doesn't count as I was only one then). Maybe if there could be another pair of twin probes sent out to the ice giants--one to Uranus and the other to Neptune...but then that'll likely be very expensive too.
"Pluto Underground? That's funny as Hell!
I love the humor and passion of scientists.
Im still important! YESSS
Happy 5 years since your flyby earlier this month (as of July 14th 2020)
Hello Feaser,
Recently japanese space agency landed probes to asteroid Ryugu. I think this is a great achievement like the rosetta mission. Could you please make a video about this hayabusa mission? Interestingly I see so few news about this, and think the space folks here deserve to know. Thanks
How would they do the capture burn for an orbiter? Ions?
Titan please.
Great channel name
Titan would be amazing. 😀
FortNasa I really want to see a submarine sent there...
Would the shape of the Universe have any effect on the brightness of stars? Like if the Universe was saddle shaped, would a star look different if you looked at it from certain locations?
That was a great video. I never really realized Pluto was such an interesting place. But it's a rocky planet beyond the gas giants. I never thought of it that way before. Yeah, it would be very interesting to put a lander on it. Can't do that on Jupiter.
>planet
Still clinging on to that huh?
Pluto is a planet, dwarf planet as it is; just as Neptune is classified as an Ice planet now. Although not recognized yet as a principal satellite of our star ( as it would be perhaps if it exchanged places with Mercury randomly) it is an amazing Kuiper belt object and also an object that skirts the main planetary disk of our system. An orbiter could better analyze the geography over the course of it's long orbital year. It is plainly seen as a world like no other; neither just a Kuiper belt object nor a simple satellite orbiting our star.
@@michaelskywalker3089 You can argue Pluto is a planet, I am actually with you. But you can not argue dwarf planet is a type of planet, because IAU specifically says dwarf planet is NOT planet.
First of all the word Planet is in the actual term [they could have called it "minor orbital"]. Also, another type of "Planet" is Ice planet which the Tenth planet is hypothesized to be. Also, by their definition Mercury is a dwarf planet [ accepting that the condition of sweeping their orbit is impossible to prove]. As well, as a Nasa scientist said :" After all, Neptune hasn't cleared its orbit! Pluto crosses its orbit. I do not accept a hasty and essentially unscientific determination by some bureaucratic astronomical society as the absolute truth or even to be taken as the accepted consensus without solid theorey and data. You raise a good point of course: if an orbiting body is designated as a dwarf planet then it is not a planet as determined by the I.A.U. I argue that their limiting definition of planet is flawed. Not simply because of the emotional and historical sentiment surrounding the designation. The word is a noun. It should simply refer to an object that was formed by the primordial cloud and is heavy enough to maintain a spherical formation and orbits the sun OR can be proven to have formed in a star's primeval cloud and has been ejected [as a rogue planet]. This way most asteroids and all comet's are not planets and most moons are probably not planetary. The orbit clearing condition is too arbitrary. What I propose is that planet's be defined principally by their orbital and geologic characteristics and not by their positional circumstances. Nevertheless, an essential designation should be reserved for those planets or orbiting natural bodies that are this: Principal Satellites [of ours Star Sol]. This way, Mercury can not be dismissed as (improbably) a dwarf planetoid that was lucky enough to migrate into an orbit cleared by the original Ice giants, super earths or Gas Giants that were probably there at the beginning of our solar system. If Pluto with its tidally locked Moon and system of small satellites was suddenly exchanged with Mercury their designations would switch [without Pluto even maintaining dwarf status!!!]. It's absurd. And ultimately trivial. This entire "debate" is stupid and trivial (imo) except for the small but real value of the historical sentiment. It is roughly analogous to the controversies surrounding the taxonomical designations of species.
EVERYBODY STOP! I made a mistake. I called Pluto a planet. It was a mistake, I wasn't thinking. I wasn't making a declaration. I forgot. I've been calling Pluto a planet for longer than most everybody here. Okay, are we good now? The celestial body known as Pluto...
I'd love to see an orbiter + lander to Pluto. My favourite dwarf planet :-)
planet*
Financing missions to Pluto and other Kuiper-Belt objects is infinitely better than building nonsensical fences or walls, and it’s arguably better than wasting funds on some »space force«.
I’m all for revisiting Pluto! Cheers!
I cant wait to see what cool instruments we choose to fly in the 2023 decadal survey.
Yeah, no kidding. :-) I'll definitely be reporting on it.
Hey Fraser, if you had to rank your top 3 planets to send a mission to, which would they be and why? My top 3 are Neptune, Uranus and Venus. Thanks!
Hi Fraser! I have a question that randomly came to me and I was wondering if you could answer it. I've heard numerous times that it would take a few light years of lead to stop a neutrino. But would a neutron star have better luck? And if so, are there any phenomena or processes that could be measured from such an interaction? Thanks for everything you do! - Devon W. from Houston, Texas.
Given Pluto's distance, I don't see a reason to go back there until some faster ways to travel the cosmos have been developed. There's innumerable opportunities for exploration and wonder which are much closer to home. I'd concentrate my efforts in these places first.
Still my number 9!
💜
I would advocate an orbiter before a lander simply because it has more room for error and can bring a great deal of information
The transmit rate would be slow, but at least you would have double the capacity of my current dial-up smoke signal ISP
Fantastic video Frazer. I'd vote for an orbiter for Uranus or Neptune. Not enough is known about either or their respective moons IMO.
I would advocate for microphones no matter where they go. This is one area that seldom, if ever, gets studied.
Another great video!!!
My wish list for a pluto mission would be a main orbitor capable of transmitting back to Earth with a bunch of cube sats with good cameras that would scatter in orbit around Pluto (and maybe Charon), and communicate back to the main orbitor.
Also, there would be an insite style lander that could map the planet's internals, and a couple of small rovers that could look around. Maybe have a set of these Charon as well. Each independent unit would probably need its own independent radioactive power source. Pricy, sure. But when would we get the chance to go back, and then it takes ten years to get there.
Oh, here's another wish... what if we put a telescope in orbit around Pluto (for stability) to look at space past all the the local debris?
Aw man I love stuff like this but when I realize I'd be 50 by the time the orbiter arrived if the mission launched *TOMORROW* it somewhat depresses me.
The worlds oldest man is 146 years old,do you still feel old?
The world's oldest person on record was 122. I don't know where you got 146 from.
Never mind a Pluto mission, think of all the mad sci fi shit we'll never see. Like the iPhones my great great grandparents never got to see
Ya! Well I’ll be dead...feel better ? 😆
I'll be middle fifties if they launch quickly. Early sixties if they get there quickly. You can see why people can spend their entire working lives on a single mission.
Any chance you will do an episode on the recent Proxima b news?
What new news? Unless it is funding for Breakthrough starshot or it being images directly, I don't see it video worthy
Has anyone done an analysis of how much easier it would be to send orbiters to *lots* of outer solar system objects if we use the new kilopower reactors to power some sort of ion drive on them?
Yes, we definitely need to go back to Pluto with an orbiter and lander!
What is it that causes a planet to either be dead locked to a star or to rotate like the planets in our solar system?
Hi Fraser, i have a new question for you: Approximatly 35 years ago, we discovered the strange "Boötes Void", wild theories as aliens and space bubbles came up, but no theory made any real sense - astronomers told us then they would observe the phenomena. What are the discoveries and conclusions we have nowadays? Best regards from Switzerland :-)
I would go for an orbiter, Not just for the Pluto system. But stick a good telescope on it and use it as a base for scanning the kuiper belt and beyond ! Took a lot of effort to get out there, may as well look around !! And while we are at it... You can get a lot of stuff into little cube sats these days.. take a swam of them along and land on each of the pluto's moons or any other objects you find out there. some of these objects you could probably hop around too cos the gravity is so low. Finally, it would probably be worth spending a few years designing a good mission profile and tech to do a good job of this, cos with the recent rapid advancements of space tech, you probably would get there at the same time if you go in 2 years instead of now !
Few videos ago, you said that there was no plutonium for the RTG's, and the ban was lifted not long ago. Meaning there is as much matterial as you want now? I mean, you can send as many missions as you want with RTG or there is a limit and if you send Pluto, some other mission will not get approval due to lack of Plutonium?
And thank you for the video! Great as usual!
How big would a spinning environment on the moon have to be to replicate 1G?
It depends on how nauseated you're willing to get. Did you ever see this one? ua-cam.com/video/SHfUbNRO-3A/v-deo.html
Good video mate .... as always .
yeah it would be cool to visit pluto again , but i cant help feeling we should focus /concentrate more on making some good bases on the suitable planets and worlds/moons so we can hop skip and jump for supplies/fuel/food ....a spare space craft ??? or even a place to stay for a short rest while on route in and out of our little solar system , more permanent space stations dotted along the way like ports of call across vast oceans ..
or maybe i`m just having wishful thinking :) .
We need Cassini type orbiters at Uranus and Neptune as well!!
Definitely, we did a video on this idea: ua-cam.com/video/R-v7HRsanZY/v-deo.html
Pluto is so great... we should up-grade it to a planet!!
But when will we return to Uranus? No one has been there in years. :(
Hi Fraser and everyone at Universe Today, thank you so much for this show! Humans are made of, and surrounded by matter that interacts with light particles. We are also surrounded by matter that doesn't interact with light particles (dark matter), is it possible that there could be dark matter 'humans' also, and we just haven't detected them yet? Thanks.
Hey! Hey! Hey! If there is a lot of gas outside our solar system we got fuel for travel in the galaxy, we simply mount something big in front of our spaceship to collect the gas and use it in our engine and simply swishing through space to somewhere exciting?
Neptune and Uranus for me. Those planets and their moons have a lot to tell. Maybe we need an outer-planets explorer that wlll handle those planets, Pluto and beyond...dunno if that is possible though
We definitely need a spacecraft in orbit around Pluto!
faster than light question: If x-rays and gamma rays have a higher frequency than the visual spectrum of light. Shouldn't they also be "faster"?
Man such an awesome video
Will the solar Parker probe help solve fusion technology?
I tried 4 times to subscribe, but it kept asking me to click on link to verify my email. But when it kicked me back to it, all of the fields were blank. After 4 tries, I gave up trying to subscribe. Do you have any idea on what it is doing and how I can get subscribed? Thank you.
Yes; we need an orbiter mission to Pluto -- it is longer lasting than just two bodies, and could monitor changing weather and geological features over Pluto's 248 year orbit of the sun. We would get real close-up images and it would make intense study easier. Of course, in the case of the aforementioned Jupiter gravity assist, it helps if other planetary alignments are favourable; but time might run out to observe Pluto before its thin atmosphere again sinks to the surface as it gets further and further from the sun in it's orbit -- I'd be all for a fly-by of either Uranus or Neptune, presuming their positions in orbits around the sun allow for it... but a long term orbiter mission to Pluto would be ideal.
nice job! totally support the idea of another mission to Pluto -- but really, Alan Stern needs to give up his quixotic, romantic, I daresay populistic attachment to Pluto as fully fledged planet and his quest to change the Astronomical Union's definitions again to reinstate it. Meanwhile: long live Brown/Batygin and the quest for a possible (proper) Planet 9!
Congrats on 200k subs 😊
Pluto would be pretty low on my priority list. As others have said, Uranus and especially Neptune deserve more attention, especially Triton... which may actually be a lot like pluto but probably more active and more interesting due to its close orbit around neptune. And of course the most burning question is about life on icy moons.
Event Horizon premier, S.F.I.A. and a fresh Frasier Cain. Yeah baby!
Are there any comets and/or asteroids that are theorized to have originated from Earth, possibly from the collision that created the Moon?
200k subscribers!! 👏👏
Hey patron, Micheal Stephen here
I don't think it's the same Michael Stephen... maybe?
I know but it was a good time for a meme.
Would that wall of hydrogen be substantial enough to cause friction if we sent a craft out of the solar system?
So far everything has passed through it with out much of an issue. Remember in the deep vacuum of space a 'wall' can be pretty thin and insubstantial. :)
Once new horizons arrives on New year's day, how long will It take for the data to reach earth?
6 hours
Why don't we send missions to Eris or make make? I would like to see what they look like.
If an orbiter was sent to Pluto, maybe with an additional lander attached to it, how would its orbit be like? Would it always stay between Pluto and Charon, would it orbit so far out that its trajectory encompasses both objects, or could it have a varying orbit (or at least extremely excentric?
The reason I ask is that if it was decided to send anything at all, one would get the most bang for the buck if it was possible to observe both worlds from all sides… at least for a while.
And if the first orbit would be true, could we strap a lander AND a second (smaller) orbiter to the main probe, so everything could be observed in most possible detail? 😅
I advocate spraying the outer solar system with multiple missions using a conveyor belt of spacecraft built to the same modular basic specs for all and contract launched by SpaceX Falcon heavy or others. Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris, Sedna, Quaoar the lot, even Planet Nine if we find it. These multi decade one off built to unique spec missions are great but lets up the pace a bit I'm running out of life expectancy :(
I think there's a lot of value in building a standard probe chassis and then putting different scientific instruments into them.
We need to revisit Pluto, but also Uranus and Neptune.
I'm an advocate for all space missions, you never know if something is worth visiting unless you try.
Rather than a single spacecraft, send a small swarm of micro-sats that can be deployed on arrival as a wide base-line, phase arrayed radar to produce super-resolution DEMs. Additionally, equip some of the swarm with hyper-spectral imagers to map mineral and atomic species. The two sets of data when combined would provide a very high resolution digital model. Further, the swarm could also exploit the phased array for transmission back to earth, optimizing the available power by focusing the transmission beam.
Q: Why don't they send a camcorder to take video footage of flybys instead of just a camera?
Because you ain't gonna see much, it'll look like a still picture unless you go really close. It took 16 months for New Horizons to beam back 45GB of data, imagine if we had lots of high quality pictures with it.