Al Globus and Joe Strout just wrote a paper (pdf) you might want to look at, which was one of three papers used in a blog post at Hobbyspace. Their focus is that everyone has looked to put space colonies at L4 and L5, but putting a smaller one in LEO would be vastly cheaper. If it was in an equatorial orbit it would hardly need any shielding at all, just 250 kg / square meter (as opposed to several tons/m^2 for other orbits).
Reading reports that Pluto appears to be reddish in colour & appearance. Something not expected. I'm guessing the red colour may be attributable to methane on &/or under the surface of Pluto(?).
Ohhhhh... it has a heart on its surface! Please, please let me be a planet again Btw, does this look like a frozen iceberg at the edge of the solar system? Kinda looks like Mars if you ask me.
More on that scary BSoD New Horizons had. Mission Control, we have a problem. You appear to have no one to sit beside you. I'll be attempting an emergency maneuver to correct this. Once its complete, you'll need to prepare for docking.
Pluto to Eris: My ass is bigger than yours! I wonder if its not the "core" of a gas giant that somehow lost most of its atmosphere?
That is if the core was solid. Jupiter's core is thought to be metallic hydrogen. That occurs due to gravitational collapse. As the gas giant loses its outer atmosphere then its overall density would drop. Eventually enough of the planet's mass would be lost to where the density would fall below that point that the gravity is strong enough to form metallic hydrogen.
There's also speculation that the core of planets like Jupiter might be diamonds, and IIRC, diamonds are rather light.
Since the metallic hydrogen only occurs under the tremendous pressure supplied by the atmosphere above it, I imagine it would revert to a gaseous state as the atmosphere were removed. In other words, I don't think you'll find a "naked" ball of metallic hydrogen floating around anywhere in space.
IIRC, its one of those things we don't have a clear answer to. Its theorized that some fluids, if compressed into the proper lattice would retain their metallic form. I know Sagan speculated that it might be possible to use metallic hydrogen for computer chips.
Metallic hydrogen, well actually liquid metallic hydrogen exists under high pressure, at Jupiter's core the pressure is over 3000GPa. As the atmosphere is lost the metallic liquid hydrogen would revert to a gaseous state. It's possible that due to the intense pressure causing temps of 30-60,000 degrees at the core, the hydrogen could pass through a plasma state before going to a gas state.
That too is a strong possibility, my post was referring to a gas giant having a core of hydrogen. If it was a diamond core, the outer layers would still be gases though. Primarily hydrogen, but the deeper to core you would find layers of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and then possibly oxygen and then carbon. This would depend on initial makeup of the planet. Some of the gases may only be traces.
I was watching the clock on the NASA page tick down to zero. "We're there!" I said to the guy in the next cubicle. "Heh?" "Aaaand we're past." "Wha?"
This is the best resolution I've been able to find: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?Category=Planets&IM_ID=20233
