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New Horizons Pluto Mission update thread

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dorsetknob said:
bigger than a dwarf planet now and with no less than 5 Moons many still consider it a true planet
Mr Tyson crap whats his name you need to review your error
the premise and arguments used to demote Pluto are shown to be totaly inaccurate
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I agree with you in theory, however, the main reason they demoted Pluto was its inability to "clear the neighborhood". They must be big enough to knock other bodies out of their orbit.

Sigh. Personally (like it matters), I would prefer it to be listed as a planet, but I'm a guy, and hate change :)
 
Ahhzz said:
I agree with you in theory, however, the main reason they demoted Pluto was its inability to "clear the neighborhood". They must be big enough to knock other bodies out of their orbit.
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You mean like Jupiter cleared away the Trojan asteroids


The Jupiter trojans, commonly called Trojan asteroids or just Trojans, are a large group of objects that share the orbit of the planet Jupiter around the Sun.
or
The Mars trojans are a group of objects that share the orbit of the planet Mars around the Sun.
or
Neptune trojans are bodies in orbit around the Sun that orbit near one of the stable Lagrangian points of Neptune. They therefore have approximately the same orbital period as Neptune and follow roughly the same orbital path. Twelve Neptune trojans are currently known, of which nine orbit near the Sun–Neptune L4 Lagrangian point 60° ahead of Neptune[1] and three orbit near Neptune's L5 region 60° behind Neptune.[1] The Neptune trojans are termed 'trojans' by analogy with the Jupiter trojans.

Funny according to the requiste to be a planet they have to clear their Orbit

have they no they have not just like Pluto
 
Pluto’s bright, mysterious “heart” is rotating into view, ready for its close-up on close approach, in this image taken by New Horizons on July 12 from a distance of 1.6 million miles (2.5 million kilometers). It is the target of the highest-resolution images that will be taken during the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The intriguing “bulls-eye” feature at right is rotating out of view, and will not be seen in greater detail.

Oooooops turns out i posted the last pic #76) before NASA released it, ( i clipped it off the vid ......ssssssssshhhhh)

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It would have been possible for the New Horizons spacecraft to investigate 2011 HM102, the only L5 Neptune trojans discovered by 2014 detectable by New Horizons, when it passed through this region of space en route to Pluto.However, New Horizons may not have had sufficient downlink bandwidth, so it was decided to give precedence to the preparations for the Pluto flyby
 
Pics taken of Jupiter and its' moons during flypast 2007 en route to Pluto

New Horizons captured this glimpse of Io during a tour of the Jupiter system in 2007. It used that encounter to uncover information about the giant planet and its enigmatic moons.
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Volcanic Io hovers in front of giant Jupiter, seen in the infrared in this composite image
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This moony mosaic captures (left to right) Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, Jupiter's four largest moons
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more here
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic...d-pluto-we-revisit-its-gorgeous-jupiter-pics/
 
Ahhzz said:
I agree with you in theory, however, the main reason they demoted Pluto was its inability to "clear the neighborhood". They must be big enough to knock other bodies out of their orbit.

Sigh. Personally (like it matters), I would prefer it to be listed as a planet, but I'm a guy, and hate change :)
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And also because of the 5 other bodies discovered in the Kuiper belt, one of which New Horizons may go to. The feeling was they disn't want to keep adding planets, since those other dwarf planets are almost the size of Pluto. I'm with you though, to me, Pluto will always be a planet.

On that note, if it ever regains it's status, then Ceres, which is almost as big needs to be a planet too. Dawn is in the process of maneuvering its orbit right now to 900 mere miles from its surface.
 
Whoop whoop!

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I remember watching the launch! It's like booking a hotel 9 years from now just for a night lol. Man, finally it's almost there. Goodluck and then godspeed again to New Horizon.

"To boldly go where no one has gone before." - ST:TNG
 
To all the people upset pluto is no longer a "planet"

Keep in mind pluto never changed. It's the same rock that I loved when I was a kid, we just understand it better now. Pluto is still pluto, and always will be. We just get to see it a lot better now courtesy new horizons. :)
 
I feel like I am 10 again.....:peace:


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R-T-B said:
Nasa needs to learn to multithread.
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A radiation-hardened Core i7-4790 would cost tens of millions of dollars per chip (if it's even possible to build it). With space missions, everything is built to purpose. The hardware has the bare minimum power (transistor count) required to achieve the design goals. Because over the years, you have space-dust coating your solar panels, and your nuclear-TEC generator will barely put out enough power for a smartphone. That's why most of these probes are built with simple MIPS/ARM chips. x86 is a very inefficient CPU architecture.
 
New Horizons is designed to retain heat like a thermos bottle. The spacecraft is covered in lightweight, goldcolored, multilayered thermal insulation blankets, which hold in heat from operating electronics to keep the spacecraft warm. Heat from the electronics will keep the spacecraft operating at between 10-30 degrees Celsius (about 50-85 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout the journey. New Horizons’ sophisticated, automated heating system monitors power levels inside the craft to make sure the electronics are running at enough wattage to maintain safe temperatures. Any drop below that operating level (about 150 watts) and it will activate small heaters around the craft to make up the difference. When the spacecraft is closer to Earth and the Sun, louvers (that act as heat vents) on the craft will open when internal temperatures are too high.

New Horizons needs less power than a pair of 100-watt light bulbs to complete its mission at Pluto. On average, each of the seven science instruments uses between 2 and 10 watts – about the power of a night light – when turned on.

The payload is incredibly power efficient – with the instruments collectively drawing less than 28 watts – and represent a degree of miniaturization that is unprecedented in planetary exploration. The instruments were designed specifically to handle the cold conditions and low light levels at Pluto and in the Kuiper Belt beyond.

Alice
Mass: 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds) Average Power: 4.4 watts Development: Southwest Research Institute Principal Investigator: Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute Purpose: Study atmospheric composition and structure Alice is a sensitive ultraviolet imaging spectrometer designed to probe the composition and structure of Pluto’s dynamic atmosphere. A spectrometer separates light into its constituent wavelengths (like a prism). An “imaging spectrometer” both separates the different wavelengths of light and produces an image of the target at each wavelength.

Ralph
Mass: 10.3 kilograms (22.7 pounds) Average Power: 6.3 watts Development: Ball Aerospace Corporation, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Southwest Research Institute Principal Investigator: Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute Purpose: Study surface geology and morphology; obtain surface composition and surface temperature maps

Radio Science Experiment (REX)
Mass: 100 grams (3.5 ounces) Average Power: 2.1 watts Development: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Stanford University Principal Investigator: Len Tyler, Stanford University Purpose: Measure atmospheric temperature and pressure (down to the surface); measure density of the ionosphere; search for atmospheres around Charon and other KBOs

Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)
Mass: 8.8 kilograms (19.4 pounds) Average Power: 5.8 watts Development: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Principal Investigator: Andy Cheng, Applied Physics Laboratory Purpose: Study geology; provide high-resolution approach and highest-resolution encounter images

Solar Wind at Pluto (SWAP)
Mass: 3.3 kilograms (7.3 pounds) Average Power: 2.3 watts Development: Southwest Research Institute Principal Investigator: David McComas, Southwest Research Institute Purpose: Study solar wind interactions and atmospheric escape

Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI)
Mass: 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) Average Power: 2.5 watts Development: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Principal Investigator: Ralph McNutt Jr., Applied Physics Laboratory Purpose: Study the density, composition, and nature of energetic particles and plasmas resulting from the escape of Pluto’s atmosphere

Student Dust Counter (SDC)
Mass: 1.9 kilograms (4.2 pounds) Average Power: 5 watts Development: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder Principal Investigator: Mihaly Horanyi, University of Colorado at Boulder Purpose: Measure concentration of dust particles in outer solar system
 
btarunr said:
A radiation-hardened Core i7-4790 would cost tens of millions of dollars per chip (if it's even possible to build it). With space missions, everything is built to purpose. The hardware has the bare minimum power (transistor count) required to achieve the design goals. Because over the years, you have space-dust coating your solar panels, and your nuclear-TEC generator will barely put out enough power for a smartphone. That's why most of these probes are built with simple MIPS/ARM chips. x86 is a very inefficient CPU architecture.
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I said multithread. I did not say x86 or even multicore.
 
'The computer was trying to do two things at the same time, and the two were more than the processor could handle at the same time, so the processor overloaded,' said Nasa's Glen Fountain, explaining the loss of contact.

sounds more like "multitasking", i definitely overload when i try and do it
( stops typing to take a breath)
 
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The approximate sizes of Pluto’s moons Nix and Hydra compared to Denver, Colorado. While Nix and Hydra are illustrated as circles in this diagram, mission scientists anticipate that future observations by New Horizons will show that they are irregular in shape.
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:peace:

shit,that was exciting.

Little fact
scientists must wait until 2am BST on Wednesday for the probe to make contact with Earth and confirm it has survived the encounter.


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When Pluto was discovered in 1930, a competition was held to find a name for the new planet. Eleven-year-old Venetia Burney from Oxford chose Pluto because it was dark and far away, like the god of the underworld. She received a £5 note as a reward.

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Thanks for posting all the incredible pics, vids, info, etc... Love it all
I'm just a lonely contractor out at JSC, and sometimes I feel I was able to get more info from this thread alone than actually being at NASA and waiting for the official announcements.
 
Norton said:
It figures that the end of the latest briefing on Pluto there was an advertisement by Neil deGrasse Tyson for something :rolleyes:
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Cure all Snake Oil ?
 
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