Review of "Chasing Pluto," a NOVA DVD

 Review of

Chasing Pluto, a NOVA DVD

Five out of five stars

Why Pluto is no longer a planet

Until it was degraded to minor planet status in 2006, Pluto was considered a planet. However, with the discovery of many objects in the Kuiper belt, it became clear that there were an enormous number of objects that were of size similar to Pluto. This video covers two parallel tracks, the reclassification of Pluto and the history of the New Horizons spacecraft that flew by Pluto in July 2015. 

 The story is a fascinating one. The skills needed to send a small robotic spacecraft billions of miles and fly within thousands of miles of a planet are considerable. Furthermore, the engineering necessary to have that craft engage in significant data collection and transmit it back to Earth are amazing. So much data was collected that it took 16 months to transmit all of it back to Earth. 

 Some people are constantly bashing the federal government as being wasteful and incompetent, incapable of doing anything right. Many of these people also question the value of science. It baffles me how anyone could watch this video and hold either one of these positions. 


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