Pluto Hasn't Orbited the Sun Since Its Discovery

[trdsf]

This is amazing stuff, isn't it?  It's one of those awesome things that awakens a kind of joy and appreciation in many of us.  Exploring but a small part of the wondrous universe; How can this not create a sense of humility, while at the same time, it becomes a testimony to man's aptitude to explore and learn?  In contrast, back here on earth, religious fanatics are murdering each other trying to force their will, and the Pope's Cardinal in Ireland is in a snit over allowing gays to marry.

One thing I'd like to see from New Horizons when it passes Pluto, is a photograph of the Sun.  I'm expecting basically just a night sky filled with stars and an arrow pointing to one of them identifying it as our Sun.

Oh, yes.  Though actually, it'll be easy to spot and won't need to be picked out -- the sun will by far be the brightest thing in the frame, and may still have an identifiable disk.  But even if it doesn't, it will still be obvious which one.  Pluto's only five and a half light-hours out.  Even Voyager is still just under a light-day distant.  Depending on which direction you're heading, it's been calculated that you need to be about a light year and a half out to nearly two light years for the sun to no longer be the brightest thing in the sky.

[kilodelta]

You got an orbit, you got a responsibility. If your orbit isn't done, you don't move for an hour then call it quits. You move your ass out there, and you complete that fuckin' orbit!

[GSOgymrat]

According to Ripley's, Pluto was discovered in 1930 and will not complete its first orbit (since being discovered) until 2178.  Now that I've typed this Ripley fact, I'm thinking it shouldn't be that surprising.  I think I remember hearing Pluto's trip around the sun takes about 250 years.  I guess it's the way Ripley presented it that it strikes me as astounding.

So if you were born at the beginning of January of Pluto's year chances are you wouldn't live to see May. [emoji15]