Alan Stern
Alan Stern
Sol Alan Sternis an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express...
ancient belt conducting dig era exploring history outer peek planetary pluto solar
Exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archaeological dig into the history of the outer solar system, a place where we can peek into the ancient era of planetary formation.
belt spacecraft
The U.S. has a spacecraft on its way to Pluto, on to the Kuiper belt and on to the stars.
belt ice objects planet pluto solar type typical
We know of 17 objects that could be called planets, most of which are ice dwarfs. So Pluto is typical of what is probably the most populous type of planet in our solar system. It probably mimics other Kuiper Belt objects.
belt bodies moon result
Our result suggests that other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon as well,
account belt bodies means modeling planetary pluto result scientists
Our result suggests other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon. It also means planetary scientists will have to take these new moons into account when modeling the formation of the Pluto system.
belt looking multiple objects percent satellite
Around 20 percent of Kuiper Belt objects have a moon. We think a lot of astronomers are going to be looking now for multiple satellite systems.
belt largest pluto solar structure
The Kuiper Belt is the largest structure in the solar system. We used to think Pluto was a misfit.
arrive candy kids shop system
We're going to be like kids in a candy shop when we arrive at a system like this.
history initial states united
The United States is going to go down in history for the initial reconnaissance of the planets.
close high inner map planets regions resolution sensitive sky sun though wide
Even though it's not as sensitive or as high resolution as the Hubble, we're able to look at the inner planets close to the sun and map wide regions of the sky very quickly.
four gas giants inner learned outer planets pluto rocky understand view
We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong. Now we understand Pluto's context.
backup days hill launching mean power three
I ... was not comfortable with launching without backup power. I've been working on this for 17 years ... Two or three days doesn't mean a hill of beans.
air flight sitting
The air conditioning was off. The flight controllers were sitting there wiping sweat.
believe classify objects planetary properties
I don't believe we should classify planetary objects by location. We should use properties of the objects as a guide.