New Horizons: Pluto and Beyond

[Michkov]

...the probe has entered Pluto's Hill Sphere, whatever that means.

That would be the volume of space where Pluto's gravity acts stronger on the probe than the rest of the bodies in the solar system, mainly the sun in our case.

 

[Cheetah]

I just hope that the world is sufficiently changed by the time we start getting data back from Pluto. There can be a LOT of progress in 9 years, but only if we want there to be.

Sorry about that...

But on the other hand, this is awesome. Both this necro, and the New Horizons mission!

 

[El_Machinae]

Ehn, not doing so bad since 2006

 

[LucyDuke]

Oooh a thread. All I've got is

THIS IS SO EXCITING YOU GUYS

 

[Leonel]

Forget Pluto, I want to find out what those bright spots on Ceres are!

Unless Pluto has signs of ancient alien civilizations on it too.

 

[Berzerker]

I'm curious about any similarities Pluto has with Titan... Would anyone with the math skills check to see if Saturn's maximum tilt/rings point to Pluto at closest approach? I believe they do.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Exploration of the Ice Planet commences in 9 years... Man even at 36,000mph (according to figures mentioned by a local news station the other day) it still takes forever to get there. Are we there yet...

Yes, and pretty much on schedule!!

Bozo erectus 'civfinaticus'
Without good bye you did leave us,
Gone to Finland for Mathilda fair,
The empty spot in our hearts' still there;
Now from the depths where dead threads go
A resurrection regarding dwarf planet Pluto:
A rocket probe has made its way
A billion miles for its brief stay;
Hip hip for Bozo and horray for LORRI
Exciting news for a necroed story!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Someone posted the link for this video on CBC.ca. These are artists' impressions, but we'll soon be looking at the real thing!


Link to video.

 

[El_Machinae]

Listened to the Science Friday interview about this. Apparently it will collect so much data that it will take over a year to transmit/download the data to Earth. Wow!

And apparently it will never get as fast as Voyager, since Voyager had so many gravity assists. Though speed is not uber-desirable once the probe gets there, since it limits observation time.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's a shame that Carl Sagan didn't live long enough to see this.

 

[Tee Kay]

Woah, blast from the past.

I've been basically reading/watching mostly Pluto stuff for the past two weeks or so. I'm pretty hyped

 

[LucyDuke]

http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-pluto.html

Underwhelming but still exciting.

NASA's site is not great design so here's the latest post!

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-big-is-pluto-new-horizons-settles-decades-long-debate

How Big Is Pluto? New Horizons Settles Decades-Long Debate
NASA’s New Horizons mission has answered one of the most basic questions about Pluto—its size.

Mission scientists have found Pluto to be 1,473 miles (2,370 kilometers) in diameter, somewhat larger than many prior estimates. Images acquired with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were used to make this determination. This result confirms what was already suspected: Pluto is larger than all other known solar system objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.

“The size of Pluto has been debated since its discovery in 1930. We are excited to finally lay this question to rest,” said mission scientist Bill McKinnon, Washington University, St. Louis.

Pluto’s newly estimated size means that its density is slightly lower than previously thought, and the fraction of ice in its interior is slightly higher. Also, the lowest layer of Pluto’s atmosphere, called the troposphere, is shallower than previously believed.

Measuring Pluto’s size has been a decades-long challenge due to complicating factors from its atmosphere. Its largest moon Charon lacks a substantial atmosphere, and its diameter was easier to determine using ground-based telescopes. New Horizons observations of Charon confirm previous estimates of 751 miles (1208 km) kilometers) across

LORRI has also zoomed in on two of Pluto’s smaller moons, Nix and Hydra.

“We knew from the time we designed our flyby that we would only be able to study the small moons in detail for just a few days before closest approach,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “Now, deep inside Pluto’s sphere of influence, that time has come.”

Nix and Hydra were discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005. Even to Hubble, they appeared as points of light, and that’s how they looked to New Horizons until the final week of its approach to Pluto. Now, the latest LORRI images show the two diminutive satellites not as pinpoints, but as moons seen well enough to measure their sizes. Nix is estimated to be about 20 miles (about 35 kilometers) across, while Hydra is roughly 30 miles (roughly 45 kilometers) across. These sizes lead mission scientists to conclude that their surfaces are quite bright, possibly due to the presence of ice.

What about Pluto’s two smallest moons, Kerberos and Styx? Smaller and fainter than Nix and Hydra, they are harder to measure. Mission scientists should be able to determine their sizes with observations New Horizons will make during the flyby and will transmit to Earth at a later date.

Can anyone explain to me why the relative speed of the craft to the body is decreasing?

 

[Michkov]

http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-pluto.html
Can anyone explain to me why the relative speed of the craft to the body is decreasing?

Suns gravity most likely.

 

[Serutan]

The Johns Hopkins APL site for New Horizons: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php

Also, the story of what PI Alan Stern called New Horizon's Apollo 13 moment on July 4.

 

[Perfection]

http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-pluto.html

Underwhelming but still exciting.

NASA's site is not great design so here's the latest post!



Can anyone explain to me why the relative speed of the craft to the body is decreasing?

Suns gravity most likely.

I'm not sure what you're looking at (I'm on my phone) but are you sure it's relative speed of craft to Pluto not change in distance to Pluto? The later might be simply explained by the fact that the probe is flying by Pluto not actually hitting it.

 

[LucyDuke]

Yeah, now it seems obvious that it's the sun.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-spacecraft-displays-pluto-s-big-heart-0

Three billion miles away, Pluto has sent a “love note” back to Earth, via NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.

At about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13 - about 16 hours before closest approach - New Horizons captured this stunning image of one of Pluto's most dazzling and dominant features. The “heart,” estimated to be 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across at its widest point rests just above the equator. (The angle of view displays mostly the northern hemisphere.) The heart’s diameter is about the same distance as from Denver to Chicago, in America’s heartland.

“Wow!” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, as the image was unveiled before the New Horizons science team at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “My prediction was that we would find something wonderful, and we did. This is proof that good things really do come in small packages.”

The newest image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) shows an almost perfectly shaped left half of a bright, heart-shaped feature centered just above Pluto’s equator, while the right side of the heart appears to be less defined.

The image shows for the first time that some surfaces on Pluto are peppered with impact craters and are therefore relatively ancient, perhaps several billion years old. Other regions, such as the interior of the heart, show no obvious craters and thus are probably younger, indicating that Pluto has experienced a long and complex geological history. Some craters appear partially destroyed, perhaps by erosion. There are also hints that parts of Pluto’s crust have been fractured, as indicated by the series of linear features to the left of the heart.

Below the heart are dark terrains along Pluto’s equator, including, on the left, the large dark feature informally known as the “whale.” Craters pockmark part of the whale’s head; areas that appear smooth and featureless may be a result of image compression.

New Horizons traveled nearly a decade to receive its summer valentine, launching on January 19, 2006.

This is just the latest in a series of the New Horizons Pluto "picture show." On Wednesday July 15, more images of surface close-ups will make the more than four-hour journey to Earth at the speed of light to give Pluto fans details as small as New York’s Central Park.

“Our data tomorrow (Wednesday, July 15) will have ten times the resolution of what we see today and it will knock your socks off,” said Stern.

Curt Niebur, New Horizons program scientist with NASA Headquarters in Washington notes, “The science is amazing, but the team’s excitement reminds me of why we really do this.”
#
At 7:49 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 14 New Horizons sped past Pluto at 30,800 miles per hour (49,600 kilometers per hour), with a suite of seven science instruments. As planned, New Horizons went incommunicado as it hurtled through the Pluto-Charon system busily gathering data. The New Horizons team will breathe a sigh of relief when New Horizons “phones home” at approximately 9:02 p.m. EDT on July 14. The mission to the icy dwarf planet completes the initial reconnaissance of the solar system.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Why was I not subscribed to this thread previously?!

Regardless, I'm hyped!

 

[Perfection]

Yay PE. Glad you showed up.

The picture is awesome. Pluto has some complex geology.

 

[Serutan]

Signal lock and telemetry is coming in. Reported nominal.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I saw that. That was glorious!

Yay PE. Glad you showed up.

Thanks.