{"id":1374,"date":"2015-06-22T21:34:19","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T02:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2015-06-22T21:34:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T02:34:19","slug":"those-pics-of-pluto-from-my-vacation-trip-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/06\/22\/those-pics-of-pluto-from-my-vacation-trip-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"Those Pics of Pluto from my Vacation Trip, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A reader remarks about the New Horizons <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/06\/22\/those-pics-of-pluto-from-my-vacation-trip\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pluto<\/a> probe:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span data-reactid=\".2.1:4:1:$comment1090321367662161_1090411807653117:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1\"><span data-ft=\"{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}\" data-reactid=\".2.1:4:1:$comment1090321367662161_1090411807653117:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body\"><span class=\"UFICommentBody\" data-reactid=\".2.1:4:1:$comment1090321367662161_1090411807653117:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0\"><span data-reactid=\".2.1:4:1:$comment1090321367662161_1090411807653117:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.$end:0:$text0:0\">Most of that warmth from &#8220;electrical systems&#8221; is actually coming from that lump of Pu-238 that&#8217;s powering everything. You do know that we are precariously short on Pu-238, right? (Heck, it may have been on your blog that I first that bit of information!)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nyah, I didn&#8217;t tell you.\u00a0 I had heard tell &#8211; a while ago &#8211; that we were short radioactive material for use in medical scanners.\u00a0 That was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/home-news\/reactor-closure-puts-medical-scans-at-risk-as-shortage-of-radioactive-material-could-jeopardise-patients-health-8959698.html\" target=\"_blank\">molybdenum-99m<\/a>.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Plutonium-238\" target=\"_blank\">Pu-238<\/a> is used<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; as the heat source in <a title=\"Radioisotope thermoelectric generator\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator\">radioisotope thermoelectric generators<\/a> (RTGs).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em><strong>Universe Today<\/strong><\/em> shares the possibility of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/100875\/u-s-to-restart-plutonium-production-for-deep-space-exploration\/\" target=\"_blank\">restarting production<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The end of NASA\u2019s plutonium shortage may be in sight. On Monday March 18<sup>th<\/sup>,\u00a0 [2013,] NASA\u2019s planetary science division head Jim Green announced that production of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/77361\/plutonium\/\" target=\"_blank\">Plutonium-238<\/a> (Pu-238) by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) is currently in the test phases leading up to a restart of full scale production.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just to top it off, remember the protests against the use of RTGs in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/1997\/09\/cassini-controversy\" target=\"_blank\">Cassini probe<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A reader remarks about the New Horizons Pluto probe: Most of that warmth from &#8220;electrical systems&#8221; is actually coming from that lump of Pu-238 that&#8217;s powering everything. You do know that we are precariously short on Pu-238, right? (Heck, it may have been on your blog that I first that \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/06\/22\/those-pics-of-pluto-from-my-vacation-trip-ctd\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1375,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions\/1375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}