Alan Stern Life story


Sol Alan Stern is 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.

New Horizons spacecraft 'changed the theory of planet formation'

Feb 16,2020 10:26 am

The Kuiper-belt object Arrokoth is to say, a pristine remnant of the planet formation in action

a scientist, you have "the key" overturned the prevailing theory of how the planets in our Solar System originated.

The established view is that the material is rushed nod together and form larger and larger clumps until you get to worlds.

New results on The Process and less catastrophic, it was suggest - with The Matter , the gently instead of clumping.

The study appears in the journal and was presented at The American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Seattle.

The study's lead researcher, Dr. Alan Stern , said that The Discovery was of "enormous magnitude".

of The moment, Alan Stern (L) had The Confirmation that New Horizons is flying through the Kuiper-belt object

"It was the prevailing theory of the late 1960s-years of violent collisions and a younger emerging theory of gentle accumulation. One is dust and The Other is the only one. This rarely happens in Planetary Science , but today we have settled The Matter ," he told Bbc News .

The Claim arises from a detailed investigation of an object in the outer regions of the Solar System . Arrokoth named, the object of More Than six billion kilometers from The Sun in a region called the Kuiper belt. It is a pristine remnant of the planet formation in action, as the Solar System emerged six billion years ago, to combine with two bodies, in the form of a larger.

the scientists obtained high-resolution images of Arrokoth in the Nasa New Horizons space probe flew close to it, just over a year ago. There were scientists, to test their first opportunity, which of the two competing theories was correct: did you crash or was it a gentle touch?

The analysis of Dr. Stern and his team have no evidence of a violent impact could be found. They found fractures no stress, nor were there any flattening, indicating that the items are squeezed together gently.

"This is absolutely crucial," said Dr. Stern. "In one swoop, which was flying over Arrokoth fell in the position to decide between the two theories. "

The newer soft clump theory was 15 years ago, by Prof Anders Johansen

He is bullish, because these so-called Kuiper-belt objects are largely remained the same since the formation of the Solar System . They are, in effect, perfectly preserved fossils from this remote time.

The newer soft clump theory was 15 years ago, by Prof Anders Johansen at the Lund Observatory in Sweden. He was then a young doctoral student. The idea originated from computer simulations.

After the discussion with Dr. stern, I broke the news to Prof Johansen, that his theory had been confirmed. There was a pause on The Line before he replied that he "felt very comfortable".

He added: "It is a special moment. I Remember When I was a PhD student and feel very nervous about these new results, because they were very different to the previous ones. I was worried that there was an error in my code, or that I had a calculation error. "

Anders Johansen marked The Confirmation of his theory with his daughter, Laura

"And Then , when you see these results confirmed by the actual observations, it is a real relief. "

Prof Johansen commemorated the occasion with a pizza and coke with His Family .

engineer Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who co-presents the BBC's Sky at Night programme, warned of a fall of a theory is based on the observation of an object, but said that Dr. Stern's interpretation "makes a lot of sense".

"It is beautiful, this is the evidence, because the crash was theory is a beautiful theory, but there were some challenges. Why you have to hold the objects together and bounce apart. It was a lot of, not above. "

If Arrokoth was Six Years ago, it was known only by its designation of 2014 MU69. In the time of the New Horizons flyby, it was given the informal name of Ultima Thule . While the name came from a classical and medieval term for a place far away on the borders of the known world, their use by the Nazi-caused occultists as the mythical homeland of The Aryan race controversy.

The official name Arrokoth is a Native American word meaning "sky" in the Powhatan /Algonquian language.

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Source of news: bbc.com

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