New Horizons Pluto Mission update thread

[rtwjunkie]

Iirc - in English astronomy - whatever you start with the capital letter means it's "ours", like there are galaxies, but the Galaxy == Milky way, there are suns but the Sun is the sun of the Solar system, even we could also call it Sol...etc. (This could have been changed tho, I read it a very long time ago.)

Very true, but that would normally be in an informal way. On a science show, the physicists and astrononers would refer to the Galaxy as Milky Way. Probably they would not call our moon Luna, I jist noticed that this Emily went trhough all the trouble to give names to all the other moons, and had already identified it as Earth's Moon, so in the name, it should have been its formal name to the lower right.

Anyway, not a big deal, I was just adding a bit of trivia.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

IT’S OFFICIAL: NEW Horizons is on the far side of Pluto. Its sensors have sensed, its hard drive is fat with data, and its radio dish is primed for the big downlink.

“We have a healthy spacecraft, we have recorded data of the Pluto system, and we’re outbound from Pluto,” says Alice Bowman, the mission operations manager, who was on the headphones receiving positive reports from all of New Horizons’ systems. Bowman, like the rest of the team, has had little sleep in the past few weeks. She received the space probe’s message on time, at 8:52:37pm ET, at mission operations here at John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Its contents? Nothing much. First a signal lock with the space craft—garnering a single clap from the room. That’s because those in the know were waiting for the telemetry—the data about New Horizons’ location in space: its pitch, roll, and yaw, the basic facts of its existence. New Horizons is safe.

 

[RCoon]

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

• So far, only engineering data has been downloaded.
• From Wednesday 5.50am ET (10.50am BST/7.50pm AEST), scientific data will begin to be transferred to mission control.
• This will bring fresh images of Pluto – at 10 times the resolution of even the best pictures so far seen – as well as a wealth of information on the (dwarf) planet, as well as the moon Charon and its other satellites.
• These will be unveiled at a press conference on Wednesday at 3pm ET (8pm BST/Thursday 5am AEST).

 

[Ahhzz]

Bah... want pics NAAOOOWWW!!!

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Spoiler

 

[Caring1]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Call that a space bar, this is a space bar.

 

[dorsetknob]

and we occupy Sol 111 not Earth

 

[revin]

""No one at APL on Tuesday seemed to care that astronomers in 2006 officially demoted Pluto to the status of “dwarf planet.”
"The new images seemed to render that entire discussion moot"""

Edit: Also there was a 100 second window, went in at 72 sec. ahead..............
After so many years think about it 72 seconds !!!!!!
Awesome, this made "Passing the White Glove Test" worth all the sweating !!!!!!!

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Little fact
After New Horizons passes Pluto on Tuesday, it’ll continue traveling the Kuiper Belt, possibly making contact with another, smaller Kuiper Belt object (KBO) in 2018 or 2019. Pluto is just the beginning.

The so-called Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) that it might fly-by include Quoar, Eris (close in size to Pluto), Makemake, Haumea or Sedna. In coming months, scientists will decide the spacecraft’s next target and send signals from Earth to New Horizons to thrust its rockets to tweak its trajectory.

Quoar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar

Eris and Dysnomia (to the left)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet)

Makemake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makemake

Haumea.........i hope they go here, it has 2 moons. Hiʻiaka is above Haumea (centre), and Namaka is directly below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haumea

Sedna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna

 

[RCoon]

My choice would either be Eris or Sedna, Sedna particularly. I always viewed it as "The Thing After Pluto"

 

[dorsetknob]

My choice would either be Eris or Sedna, Sedna particularly. I always viewed it as "The Thing After Pluto"

there are a few to chose from main consideration will be where they will be when and if New horizons can intercept their orbit

Sedna

No pictures of Nemesis exist but it is speculated that it is out there and that it has an effect on trans-Neptunian objects

The trans-Neptunian object Sedna has an extra-long and unusual elliptical orbit around the Sun,[2] ranging between 76 and 975 AU. Sedna's orbit is estimated to last between 10.5 and 12 thousand years. Its discoverer, Michael Brown of Caltech, noted in a Discover magazine article that Sedna's location seemed to defy reasoning: "Sedna shouldn't be there", Brown said. "There's no way to put Sedna where it is. It never comes close enough to be affected by the Sun, but it never goes far enough away from the Sun to be affected by other stars." Brown therefore postulated that a massive unseen object may be responsible for Sedna's anomalous orbit

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at University of Cambridge

Hawking delivered his reaction in a video message posted to Facebook: "I would like to congratulate the New Horizons team and NASA on their pioneering, decade-long mission to explore the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt. Billions of miles from Earth, this little robotic spacecraft will show us the first glimpse of mysterious Pluto, the distant icy world at the very edge of our solar system. It is 50 years since the first successful mission to Mars, Mariner 4, sent back 21 images of the Red Planet. Now the solar system will be further opened to us, revealing the secrets of distant Pluto. The revelations of New Horizons may help us to understand better how our solar system was formed. We explore because we are human, and we want to know. I hope that Pluto will help us on that journey. I will be watching closely, and I hope you will, too."

 

[Ikaruga]

Some artistic predictions (the second one is mind-blowing imo, even if he says otherwise, it's just breathtaking)

"I'd like to claim prophetic powers, but the painting was guided by the reasonable assumption that Pluto likely has a periodically active atmosphere that distributes powdery exotic frosts into lowland areas. The reddish color of the higher features is caused by tholins – hydrocarbons common in the outer solar system. The partial circular arcs would be caused by flooding of craters by slushy exotic ices. Pluto is apparently more orange than I painted it, however; I assumed the exotic ices would push colors more into the whites and grays."

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

PLUTO

150 miles across, note no impact craters, suggests an active surface. it is thought that some of these features are 11,000 feet high

 

[MrGenius]

1. I'm not a big believer in Nemesis. There's plenty of other likely, and more plausible IMO, hypotheses.
2. I remember quite clearly when Sedna was originally announced as being a new planet. I went around telling people about the rarely heard of 10th planet for years afterwards. So it, like Pluto, will always be a planet in my eyes. Nobody that I've mentioned its existence to, until today, has ever known what the hell I was talking about.
3. What's this P4? And what happened to Kerberos?
4. They've announced an informal/unofficial name for Pluto's "heart". Tombaugh Regio.

Tombaugh Regio is the unofficial name of a prominent surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. A large, light-colored region about 1,590 km (990 mi) across, it has been nicknamed Pluto's "heart" by NASA and various media.

The region was first identified in the initial image of Pluto returned after the New Horizons probe recovered from an anomaly that temporarily sent it into safe mode. NASA initially referred to it as a "heart" in reference to its overall shape. On July 15 the region was informally named Tombaugh Regio by NASA in honor of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto. Regio being Latin for 'region'.

Subsequently collected data indicated that each of the two lobes of the heart are distinct, adjacent geological features that nevertheless share a bright appearance. The left lobe of the heart appeared smoother than the right, and they were slightly different colors. Early speculation was that the left lobe may be a large impact crater filled with nitrogen snow. Bright spots within the region were initially speculated to be mountain peaks. Photos released on July 15 revealed 11,000-foot mountains made of water ice in the feature.

The feature had been identified as a bright spot for six decades prior to the New Horizons flyby, although it was impossible to image it with enough resolution to determine its shape. Over these six decades the spot had been observed to be dimming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_(Pluto)

I hope you all get the chance to watch the hour long documentary Direct From Pluto : The First Encounter on The Science Channel/Discovery Science. It's really worth seeing.
http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/direct-from-pluto-first-encounter/

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Little fact
Campaigners have calculated that it costs $0.15 per American per year for the New Horizons mission.

As New Horizons begins to send back the first images of the Pluto system, there is a growing, and rather dark, list of names for the features scientists expect to see in them.

Named after the Roman god of the underworld itself, the mysterious reddish coloured planet could have a series of craters, canyons, plains and chasms named after dark gods and demons from different cultures.

Among those proposed are Ammit, the Egyptian goddess who devoured the souls of the sinful; Supay, the Inca's ruler of the underworld and Erlik, the underworld god in Mongolian mythology.

A number of fictional monsters, such as the Balrog from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Morgoth from the author's novel The Silmarillion have also been suggested.

Although none of the names have been officially adopted, they have been put forward as part of a proposal submitted to the International Astronomical Union by scientists at the SETI Institute as part of a public campaign called Our Pluto.

The names could transform the alien looking landscape of Pluto into a world filled with features that have emerged from the nightmares and deepest terrors of mankind.

Among the proposed list of names names is Mephistopheles, the demon in German folklore who bartains for Faust's soul in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

Peklenc, the god of the underworld in Slavic mythology and Xargi, the ruler of the underworld from Siberian mythology, are also among those put forward.

Dr Jane Greaves, an astrophysicist at St Andrews University who has studied the atmosphere of Pluto, explained the theme may have been inspired by Pluto's distance from the sun.

She said: 'The names in astronomical systems usually form a family, so here the theme is the Underworld, I guess because of the darkness out at Pluto's orbit. Pluto's moon Nix is from a creation goddess though, so more like dawn than darkness.

 

[Liquid Cool]

As someone who knows next to nothing about space flight...can someone enlighten me on how these orbiters floating out in space send pictures/messages back to earth, I've always been curious about this. Seems a little far for wireless.....

Best,

Liquid Cool

 

[64K]

15 cents per American per year. I believe I can swing that.
It's a shame that we haven't spent more on NASA for exploration.
I was 5 when watching men landing on the moon and only vaguely remember it but as a kid and a teen I fully expected that the program would continue and lead to a moon base at least. We have 600 billion to spend on military last year so that we can bully the world but very little for space and furthering scientific discovery.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

New Horizons’ X-band communications system is the spacecraft’s link to Earth, returning science data, exchanging commands and status information, and allowing for precise radiometric tracking through NASA’s Deep Space Network of antenna stations. The system includes two broad-beam, low-gain antennas on opposite sides of the spacecraft for near-Earth communications: a 30-centimeter (12-inch) diameter medium-gain dish antenna and a large, 2.1-meter (83-inch) diameter high-gain dish antenna. The antenna assembly on the spacecraft’s top deck consists of the high, medium, and forward low-gain antennas; this stacked design provides a clear field of view for the low-gain antenna and structural support for the high and medium-gain dishes. Operators aim the antennas by turning the spacecraft toward Earth. The high-gain beam is only 0.3 degrees wide, so it must point directly at Earth. The medium-gain beam is wider (14 degrees), so it is used in conditions when the pointing might not be as accurate. All antennas have Right Hand Circular and Left Hand Circular polarization feeds. Data rates will depend on spacecraft distance, the power used to send the data and the size of the antenna on the ground. For most of the mission, New Horizons will use its high-gain antenna to exchange data with the Deep Space Network’s largest antennas, 70 meters across. Even then, because New Horizons will be more than 3 billion miles from Earth and radio signals will take more than four hours to reach the spacecraft, it can send information at about 700 bits per second. It will take nine months to send the full set of Pluto encounter science data back to Earth. New Horizons will fly the most advanced digital receiver ever used for deep space communications. Advances include regenerative ranging and low power – the receiver consumes 66% less power than current deep space receivers. The Radio Science Experiment (REX) to examine Pluto’s atmosphere is also integrated into the communications subsystem. The entire telecom system on New Horizons is redundant, with two of everything except the high gain antenna structure itself.

Deep Space Network
https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

 

[RCoon]

15 cents per American per year. I believe I can swing that.
It's a shame that we haven't spent more on NASA for exploration.
I was 5 when watching men landing on the moon and only vaguely remember it but as a kid and a teen I fully expected that the program would continue and lead to a moon base at least. We have 600 billion to spend on military last year so that we can bully the world but very little for space and furthering scientific discovery.

Shame both the US and the UK don't move their enormous NSA/GCHQ budget from spying on innocent civilians and pour it into space exploration. Then we can colonise other worlds and leave the politicians behind.

 

[dorsetknob]

We have 600 billion to spend on military last year so that we can bully the world but very little for space and furthering scientific discovery.

Jump on the congress gravy train oops Run for Congress

 

[Ikaruga]

As someone who knows next to nothing about space flight...can someone enlighten me on how these orbiters floating out in space send pictures/messages back to earth, I've always been curious about this. Seems a little far for wireless.....

Best,

Liquid Cool

First of all, if you talk about the New Horizons probe which just visited Pluto, it's not an orbiter unless you were thinking that it will (on the very long run) orbit the center of our Galaxy, the Milky Way.
It communicates with radio signals (vaguely) similar to your mobile phone, but while your phone can receive and send signals in every direction, the probe uses directional radio antennas, which can amplify its signal, so it's still "strong" enough when it reaches Earth. To be more precise it has two broad-beam low-gain antennas (used when the probe was near Earth), a 12 inch (30 cm) medium-gain dish and a 83 inch (2.1 meter) high-gain dish. The high gain antenna (which is used to send data to us from Pluto) has a very narrow 0.3 degrees wide beam, so it must be pointing precisely towards Earth, and the medium-gain dish (which has 4 degrees wide beam) is used when accurate pointing is not possible,
New Horizons has a nuclear power source (RTG), but NASA was a bit short on Plutonium when they built the probe, so it can't use as much power for its instruments (including its antennas) as how it would be optimal, and it can only send data with 1KB/sec (note: because of that, even the "ancient" voyager 1 probe has a higher down-link speed).

When they want to receive or send data from or to the probe, the New Horizon ground team books a time-slot with Nasa's "Deep Space Network", which is a series of radio dishes all around the globe (USA, Spain and Australia) and it's used to communicate with pretty much everything NASA sent into space.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

i found this, its interesting