this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Space, the final frontier

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Save New Horizons, the Pluto flyby and Kuiper Belt exploration mission (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz to c/space@lemmy.ml
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To my fellow lemmonades,

As your not-so-humble moderator of !spaceexploration@sopuli.xyz , I ask you to help save the New Horizons project which is threatened with shit-canning from NASA.

New Horizons is the probe that flew by Pluto a few years ago, that took the famous picture of Pluto's heart. It's also the only probe we have out there by Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and the only one slated to be sent out for 20-30 years. For us millennials, we'll be in our 60's or 70's by the time they choose to send another if they're allowed to shut down New Horizons. Meaning we might never get to see new Pluto pics again.

Pluto's heart cries out for your love. For New Horizons's love.

Our cell phones the world over cry out for new Kuiper Belt wallpapers.

Our hearts cry out for more space content!!

Please sign the petition to save our probe so we can keep getting sweet, sweet Pluto and Kuiper Belt object pics.

Thank you for your time.

SIGN HERE FOR FREEDOM. SIGN HERE FOR JUSTICE. SIGN HERE TO MAKE SURE NASA GIVES US MORE SWEET SWEET SPACE PORN!

P.S. Pluto is still a planet; I don't give a flying fuck what NGT says

P.P.S. Here are some news articles talking about it. I might have already linked one but here it is again just in case:

Universe Today article on the problem

Phys.org article

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[–] spauldo@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do we not have all the Pluto and Thule images yet?

The probe won't encounter Pluto again. It's on an escape trajectory out of the solar system. Which doesn't mean it's not useful, but it's not going to give you any more of your Pluto Pic fix.

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, IMO, if it can be made to orbit the Kuiper Belt such that it could find other cool shit out there, that's what they ought to have it do. We already have two probes leaving the solar system so it doesn't make sense to waste New Horizons to do literally the same shit Voyager 1 and 2 have already done.

That's what the planetary scientists who were kicking up a shitstorm about it in the first place were saying anyway. I agree with them. I don't want to see NH wasted.

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By orbit, do you mean it can be put into an orbit? It would probably have an incredibly elliptic orbit.

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

To be fair, most Kuiper Belt objects including Pluto have pretty elliptical orbits, so...

Could something like that actually be done? Let NH coast around the sun toward any nearby Kuiper Belt objects, maybe even find something new? Perhaps find that missing 10th (or 9th to the normies :P ) planet out there?

[–] aikixd@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

By the time it flies near something, is power generator will be dead do centuries. Also, even if it was immortal, NH can't discover objects, cause its optics aren't powerful enough.