American - Scientist | November 22, 1957 -
I expect New Horizons will see more that Hubble cannot see.
Alan Stern
NewWillMoreSeeExpectCannot
The Kuiper Belt is the largest mapped structure in our planetary system, three times as big as all the territory from the sun out to Neptune's orbit.
SunThreeStructureOutSystemBig
Pluto is as far across as Manhattan to Miami, but its atmosphere is bigger than the Earth's.
MiamiEarthBiggerAtmospherePluto
We're in the space exploration business, and the outer solar system is a wild, wooly place. We haven't explored it very well.
BusinessSpaceExplorationPlace
A river is a river, independent of whether there are other rivers nearby. In science, we call things what they are based on their attributes, not what they're next to.
ScienceRiverIndependentNextCall
Of course Pluto is a planet: It's massive enough to have its shape controlled by gravity rather than material strength, which is the hallmark of planethood.
StrengthEnoughGravityPlanetShape
The Kuiper belt region, which I call the third zone because it lies beyond the rocky terrestrial planets and beyond the giant planets, is a bizarre frontier.
BeyondFrontierCallPlanetsZone
One of the implications of the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and its many small planets is that many scientists now think of the solar system as having not two but three zones.
SmallThinkDiscoveryNowThreeTwo
Science doesn't work by voting. Did people vote on the theory of relativity? No! It's either right or it's wrong. Do we vote on whether genetics is a good theory or not? Of course not.
WorkGoodSciencePeopleVoting
Even in our deep ocean, there are ecosystems at work with no light whatsoever down in the deepest portions of the oceanic abyss.
WorkLightOceanDeepDownDeepest
I call Pluto the harbinger.
CallPluto
Pluto is the new Mars.
NewMarsPluto
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