Hubble Finds New Neptune Moon | Hacker News Reader

Hubble Finds New Neptune Moon

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116 pointsjapaget25 comments

With Earth-like planets being discovered in far off star systems and HD cameras roving about on Mars, it's easy to forget how much of our own solar system is still an unexplored frontier. It may not be a ground breaking discovery, but the fact that there are Moons we haven't found as of yet, is really exciting to me!

When you consider that the solar system is the only part of the universe that humans will explore for many generations, if ever, I'm not really sure why its exploration really isn't a higher priority. Everything else is too far away.

As soon as we can make some new advancements in energy generation and storage, I think that we'll see this happen. Think about it, we're already practically bursting at the seams here on earth; I can totally see the human race expanding to other parts as soon as it's sustainable (food, acquisition of new materials for fabrication, etc.)

Who knows if it'll happen in my lifetime, but I'm pretty pumped about it :)

we're already practically bursting at the seams here on earth

Not especially - developed countries have had declining birth rates for a while now, with several below the replacement rate.

Plus you have to consider that both Antarctica and the Sahara Desert are more habitable than any known extraterrestrial location, yet hardly anyone is living in either.

> Plus you have to consider that both Antarctica and the Sahara Desert are more habitable than any known extraterrestrial location, yet hardly anyone is living in either.

WHat's the incentive to live there where there are better places to live, still available ?

That's the point. We aren't nearly at the point where we can no longer sustain growth here on earth. I think in the event that that did happen, we'd soon explore living in Antarctica than on Mars.

because we're learning about the universe by studying it

It's a higher priority in the same vein as exploration was a priority before Europe discovered and exploited all of its natural resources. Some of that stuff wasn't where they were.

E.G. Coffee wasn't a European thing in the old world before trade throughout the Middle-East, the Americas and Asia.

Likewise we have no idea what new discoveries we can observe from afar (I mean relative to our own dinky little mud-ball floating in space) than in our back yard of the solar system. So you shotgun the science in hopes of hitting something everywhere.

I tend to disagree about the many generations (mostly because I really hope for a breakthrough in my lifetime) but if you describe to someone in the 1930s what the computer will be just 80 years later ... we are living in science fiction right now. And accelerating.

Well, Neptune is in the top three most likely places to find more moons. Jupiter and Saturn have been pretty well mined out by the orbiters Galileo and Cassini, and we can see the inner solar system pretty well from right here on earth. But Uranus and Neptune were visited for just one quick flyby each, and Pluto never yet until 2015, so there's plenty of opportunities to have missed stuff there.

Two moons of Jupiter were found in 2011, and also two in 2010. So we're going strong there too.

I didn't know about the Pluto mission until your comment prompted me to search for it. Link for the curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

It is good to see NASA getting back in shape. Moving science and technology forward just for the sake of it is rare and noble.

This little guy has a width less than the length of Manhattan, so I was surprised to hear it being called a moon.

But Wikipedia says there isn't really a lower limit to the size of a moon -- if it orbits a planet, it's a moon. Unless we put it there, in which case it's a satellite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_satellite#The_definitio...

They're both satellites. One is natural (moon) while the other is man made.

> This little guy has a width less than the length of Manhattan, so I was surprised to hear it being called a moon.

Phobos and Deimos are far smaller.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deimos_(moon)

Many of the moons now seen orbiting the planet probably formed after Triton settled into its unusual retrograde orbit about Neptune.

Or they were captured out of the Kuiper Belt as well. Maybe Neptune keeps losing and capturing new moons, rotating rocks into and out of the Kuiper Belt.

Really cool.

Also possibly of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Pluto

I had no idea Pluto (not a planet) had five moons.

There are even asteroids with moons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor-planet_moon.

Ida and Dactyl are possibly the best-named pair, IMHO.

That's no moon...

(Only 12 miles!?)

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6048898

That's no moon!

Ah, you are testing the assumption that the moon was there when Voyager flew by :-)

I think it's actually a Star Wars reference.

Definitely a Star Wars reference, but I also thought for a second it could also be alluding to one of the Voyagers having become a "moon" and therefore in actuality being a satellite.

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