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Having to come up with scientific lessons on the spot ("this may cause us to rethink..."), for the sake of press releases must be pretty stressful. I'm also not
by Schiphol 11y ago
Having to come up with scientific lessons on the spot ("this may cause us to rethink..."), for the sake of press releases must be pretty stressful. I'm also not sure that such more-or-less impromptu analyses foster the right conception of how science works.
- hga 11y agoWell, per Emily Lakdawalla's blog quoting scientist Amy Barr (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07151720-first-look-at-new-horizons-pluto-charon.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/0715172...): Every time we have looked at a body that has experienced tidal heating, such as Io, Europa, Enceladus, we find that the body has been more active, or is putting out 10 to 100 times the amount of heat predicted by models. Enceladus taught us that our models of tidal heating for icy bodies were not right, and I think the Pluto/Charon system could be telling us something similar. And it's not like these people weren't already reviewing the current state of the art in anticipation of how these Pluto images might add to it.