this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
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Space
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Either we now have to learn like 21 planets in elementary school (hard) or Pluto gets a technical demotion (easy).
Pluto is still a planet in all our hearts, this is just humanities constant march of trying to become more and more accurate and precise with time
Teaching the dwarf planets could be fun, though. What about thebfact that Pluto and Charon orbit one another, and how you could build a space elevator directly from.the surface of one to.the other?
wait what? how would that be possible
Space is really huge and it might be possible that the theoretical space elevator would never strike another celestial body.
This is 100% speculative and I have absolutely not done any fact checking other than the fact that space is indeed, really Big McLargeHuge.
searches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
They're apparently tidally-locked, so that's one issue out of the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(moon)
So it's pretty close to a circular orbit.
But it'd still have to change length by about 6 km every 3 Earth days.
Maybe this is crazy, but make it a giant jumprope. When they're closer together, the jumprope makes a tighter circle and spins faster. When they're further apart, the jumprope makes a larger circle. Put a weight in the middle so it has enough centripetal force to keep the rope taut.
Trust me, it works, I thought about it for two minutes.
If humanity ever were to have the means to build a 12.2k mile or 19.7k km elevator in space between two planets at the far reach of the solar system, I would assume that we would also be capable of somehow making it longer
Gotta think that's less (ratio wise) than expansion joints in bridges.
It's too late, I'm already going up.
Top! Of! The! Well! Sir!
The finest!
Pluto and Charon are mutually tidally locked, so they don't rotate in relation to each other.
Plus, in smaller bodies you don't need impossibly strong materials to make a space elevator like you'd need for Earth. Hell, Kevlar fiber is strong enough to make a space elevator from the Moon to one of the Lunar Lagrange points due to the reduced gravity
Elon Musk said by the end of 2026.
My heart pumps blood. My brain does the thinking. Pluto is not a planet. So what? It's still fascinating.
Pluto and Charon are tidally locked, meaning they always face each other as they orbit around. Romanticizing a bit, they are like dancers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU5pQWQRxak
Labels can be helpful for categorizing, organizing our knowledge. Labels do not define us. We're all space stuff.
To clarify, they're mutually tidally locked, which is what's rare
Oh, so if light was hitting it's moon you could navigate just by where it is in the sky? I mean I guess you can do that with ours too, but this sounds way easier.
This is the song let me forgive science for what they did to Pluto. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJ6_GAprFE