Quote:
Originally Posted by julianh72
"Pluto Killer" Mike Brown has been tweeting https://twitter.com/plutokiller about the features observed on the imagery so far - in particular, the equatorial ring of dark spots and the "heart". Interestingly, he points out that such features were PREDICTED in a 1996 paper "Seasonal Nitrogen Cycles on Pluto" by Hansen & Paige http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/perso/brun...aige_Ic_96.pdf
How excited do you reckon those two would be right now that the data is actually starting to come in?!
(By the way - for those unfamiliar with his work, while Mike Brown is mostly known as the guy who got Pluto demoted from full planet status, it's not because he hates Pluto - far from it, he has contributed hugely to the study of the dwarf planets and KBOs etc.) |
And for those unfamiliar with James Hansen, he is one scientist that I regard as a hero of sorts. He became aware that NASA officials were reviewing and filtering public statements and press interviews in an effort to limit his ability (as well as that of other government scientists) to publicly express scientific opinions that were
politically inconvenient.
In January 2006, Dr. Hansen told Andrew Revkin of the
New York Times that he was warned of "dire consequences" if he continued (to make similar statements) Revkin reported that George Deutsch, a NASA public affairs officer appointed by the White House, denied a request from National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, calling NPR the country's "most liberal" media outlet and arguing that his job was "to make the president look good."
4 Mr. Deutsch later resigned after it was revealed that he had fabricated his own academic credentials.
Revkin, Andrew C.
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA, New York Times, February 8, 2006, accessed December 7, 2006
Arguing that his loyalty was to NASA's mission statement, which then read in part "to understand and protect our home planet," Dr. Hansen refused to be silenced. ''Communicating with the public seems to be essential,'' the
Times reported him as saying, ''because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming (the) special interests that have obfuscated the topic.
Revkin,
New York Times January 29, 2006.
In February 2006, the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" was deleted from NASA's mission statement without any notification to agency scientists. The replacement mission statement, which reads "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research," represented the first time that knowledge of Earth was not explicitly stated as part of NASA's mission.
Revkin, Andrew C.,
NASAs Goals Delete Mention of Home Planet, New York Times, July 22, 2006.
Dr. Hansen pointed out that (administration) attempts to control scientific information were not limited to NASA, and that colleagues at NOAA have told him that conditions there are, in general, much worse.
Farrell, Bryan,
Political Science, The Nation, February 13, 2006
Said Hansen, "In my thirty-some years of experience in government, I've never seen control to the degree that it's occurring now. I think that it's very harmful to the way that a democracy works. We need to inform the public if they are to make the right decisions and influence policy makers.
A Conversation With Dr. James Hansen, New York Times video interview
Dr Hansen retired in 2013 in order to become more politically active.
, it might be worth re-reading Emily's breakdown on when new images will be downlinked, especially the list down the bottom:
