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Pluto New Horizons |OT| New images. Pluto/Charon still geologically active

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GK86

Homeland Security Fail
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Live conference happening now (7/17 1-3pm eastern time): Youtube, NASA TV Educational, and NASA TV.


News/Discoveries:

-Pluto may still be geologically active today. Mountains might only be 100 million years old.
-Pluto’s atmosphere is being lost in space. It’s lost about 300 meters of nitrogen
-Charon terrain is varied and reshaped by geologic activity.

New Images Being Released:
Pluto's heart:
MfXtbvV.jpg


JrcJzs9.jpg


Nix:
pcruXML.jpg


Charon:
nl4UqzY.jpg


charon20for207-16-15.jpg


Icy Mountains of Pluto:
8MZcSod.png


Charon:
PfhbOT7.jpg


OmMAxoH.png


Hyrda:
UbM3Dnn.jpg


Schedule:


Monday, July 13th

11:15pm: Last image sent from NH before it goes dark.

Tuesday, July 14th

7:30AM - 9:00AM ET: NASA TV coverage begins. Pluto and Charon images released.
7:49AM ET: New Horizons flies by Pluto at a distance of 7,800 miles away.
8:30PM - 9:10PM ET: NASA TV coverage of New Horizons' "phone home" from mission control.
8:53PM ET: New Horizons' scheduled data connection.
9:30PM - 10:00 PM ET: NASA TV coverage of a scheduled media briefing on the health and mission status of New Horizons.

Wednesday, July 15th

3:00PM - 4:00PM ET: NASA TV coverage of media briefing and high-resolution images of Pluto. An image of Nix, another one of Pluto's moons, will also be released.

Thursday, July 16th

12:24AM ET: New Pluto mosaic released.
3:24AM ET: Highest resolution mosaic image of Charon released.
9:23AM ET: Color image of Pluto and Charon orbiting each other released.

Friday, July 17th

12:33PM ET: Best-resolution photo of a fully lit Hydra, one of Pluto's moons.

Saturday, July 18th

6:30AM ET: Crescent photo of Pluto from its backside. Best color image of Nix, one of Pluto's moons.

Monday, July 20th

12:03PM ET: Final Pluto mosaic image downlinked until September.



New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006. It is currently traveling around 31,000 miles per hour. By the time it reaches Pluto, the spacecraft would have traveled more than 3 billion miles and will fly within 7,750 miles of Pluto.

When will New Horizons reach Pluto? Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:49:57 UTC (7:49:58 am Eastern time)

What do you mean, flyby? Due to New Horizons current speeds, and Pluto's weak gravitational pull, the spacecraft is unable to "fall" into orbit around Pluto. Thus, it will flyby the loveable (dwarf) planet.

When will we get the close-up photos of Pluto? It takes 4.5 hours for data to be sent back to Earth. However, because New Horizons will be too busy taking photos and performing scientific experiments during the flyby, we won't receive any data/photos until around July 16th.

So, how good will the photos be? This is what we should expect:


Besides taking pictures, what else will New Horizons do? It has seven different scientific instruments aboard. Which will measure everything from the atmosphere of Pluto, to it's solar winds.

It is also carrying the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh (who discovered Pluto), CD-ROMs with the names of 434,000 people (including fellow gaffers: BKK, Space Monsters, and Schrade), two state quarters, two US flags and a 1991 stamp that says "Pluto: Not Yet Explored."

What is next after the flyby? New Horizons will head towards the Kuiper Belt. There are currently two targets in mind: 2014 MU69 or 2014 PN70. Either way, the spacecraft will take until 2019 to reach one of them.

Wait, I thought Pluto was blue? What gives? Pluto has long been thought to be a blue planet. Probably because Neptune and Uranus were both blue. But, that isn't the case. Pluto is mostly a brownish/orangeish color.

Why is this a big deal? Why? Because little is known about Pluto. Until this past week, the best picture we had of Pluto was this:


NASA's Eyes: This Windows/Mac app gives you a simulation of what the spacecraft is looking at.

Images taken so far:

Some Pluto facts:

Discovery:

Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930.

Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, at the Lowell Observatory.

Name:

Venetia Burney, then 12 yrs old, submitted the name Pluto, after the god of the underworld. On March 24th, 1930, Pluto was chosen.

Moons:

Pluto has five moons (Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx). The discoveries of Kerberos and Styx happened in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Comparison:

 

RCSI

Member
Soon, Pluto, soon. Looking forward to what surprises lay in store, and the images that will be used when referring to Pluto for the next half century.
 
For funsies, here's a timeline of our first flyby missions of each planet. (Dates are when probes achieved closest approach).

Source (Dates on this page are when probes were launched, dates of closest approach found on individual pages): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Solar_System_exploration

14 December 1962
Mariner 2 - First successful planetary encounter, First successful Venus flyby

15 July 1965
Mariner 4 - First Mars flyby

4 December 1973
Pioneer 10 – First Jupiter flyby

29 March 1974
Mariner 10 - First Mercury flyby

1 September 1979
Pioneer 11 - First Saturn flyby

24 January 1986
Voyager 2 - First Uranus flyby

25 August 1989
Voyager 2 - First Neptune flyby

[why not count it?]
6 March 2015
Dawn - First Ceres flyby/orbiter

14 July 2015
New Horizons - First Pluto flyby
 

xbhaskarx

Member
What if Pluto turns out to be even smaller than they expect and they downgrade it further, from planetoid to somewhat large rock...
 

Uhyve

Member
There's an annotated version of one of the latest pictures on NASAs site:
071015_Puto_Image_Annotated%20(2).jpg


It's not much, but it's interesting.
 

Oozer3993

Member
So excited for this. It's amazing to me that a heavenly body that has spent 80 years in the human consciousness as nothing more than a speck is now a full world.
 
Been waiting so long for this day, hopefully all goes well. Would love to see a future orbital mission, but it woudl take much, much longer to get out there.

Who knows, if we find some interesting stuff, maybe we'll get such a thing funded some day.
 

vareon

Member
There's an annotated version of one of the latest pictures on NASAs site:
071015_Puto_Image_Annotated%20(2).jpg


It's not much, but it's interesting.

It's interesting how much they can study from just one photo. If it was me I'd just go "hmm oh yeah that's a round thing alright."
 

MrOogieBoogie

BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
It drives me insane that I can't comprehend how some humans launched a FUCKING ROCKET INTO SPACE WITH ENOUGH CONFIDENCE TO KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS BY A TINY ROCK FLOATING 4.6 BILLION MILES FROM EARTH IN A DECADE'S TIME AND NOT ONLY THAT, BUT FIGURED OUT SOME WAY TO TRANSMIT PHOTOS OVER THAT DISTANCE IN THE TIME THAT IT TAKES TO FLY FROM LA TO NYC.

What the fucking fuck HOW DOES ANY OF IT WORK.

Rant done. I'm sorry.
 
It drives me insane that I can't comprehend how some humans launched a FUCKING ROCKET INTO SPACE WITH ENOUGH CONFIDENCE TO KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS BY A TINY ROCK FLOATING 4.6 BILLION MILES FROM EARTH IN A DECADE'S TIME AND NOT ONLY THAT, BUT FIGURED OUT SOME WAY TO TRANSMIT PHOTOS OVER THAT DISTANCE IN THE TIME THAT IT TAKES TO FLY FROM LA TO NYC.

What the fucking fuck HOW DOES ANY OF IT WORK.

Rant done. I'm sorry.

You're not alone. Sooooo many thing can go wrong:
-And asteroid can hit it
-Aliens can abduct it
-Lose communication with it.

But it's all going so well. How in the hell can they send back those pics billions of miles away back to us so fast?
 

Tesseract

Banned
It drives me insane that I can't comprehend how some humans launched a FUCKING ROCKET INTO SPACE WITH ENOUGH CONFIDENCE TO KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS BY A TINY ROCK FLOATING 4.6 BILLION MILES FROM EARTH IN A DECADE'S TIME AND NOT ONLY THAT, BUT FIGURED OUT SOME WAY TO TRANSMIT PHOTOS OVER THAT DISTANCE IN THE TIME THAT IT TAKES TO FLY FROM LA TO NYC.

What the fucking fuck HOW DOES ANY OF IT WORK.

Rant done. I'm sorry.

based inverse squares
 

Ding II

Member
How in the hell can they send back those pics billions of miles away back to us so fast?
They can't. It takes several hours for even the beginning of a transmission to get all the way back to Earth from Pluto, and since the bandwidth is so low it will take months to get all the flyby data back. Don't expect to watch a movie of the flyby next week.

(And the "secret" to hitting such a small target so accurately, after so many years and so many miles of travel.... is to, you know, steer. It's not like they just shot a rocket out of the atmosphere and then hoped it was pointed in the exact right direction. They make continual (well, intermittent) adjustments all along the way. It's similar to way a person can drive a car clean across a continent, and manage to hit a parking space the size of a bathroom. It's damn impressive, but hardly miraculous.)
 

NateDog

Member
Even though I know so little about space exploration I have such a big interest in it, been a while since I've been more excited for anything like this. Going to be an amazing week I hope.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
It drives me insane that I can't comprehend how some humans launched a FUCKING ROCKET INTO SPACE WITH ENOUGH CONFIDENCE TO KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS BY A TINY ROCK FLOATING 4.6 BILLION MILES FROM EARTH IN A DECADE'S TIME AND NOT ONLY THAT, BUT FIGURED OUT SOME WAY TO TRANSMIT PHOTOS OVER THAT DISTANCE IN THE TIME THAT IT TAKES TO FLY FROM LA TO NYC.

What the fucking fuck HOW DOES ANY OF IT WORK.

Rant done. I'm sorry.

I'll tell you what, even though it's a game, Kerbal Space Program has given me a whole new perspective on just how amazing and awesome a feat like this is, and more importantly how something like this is even accomplished. There is so much planning, so much preparation, so much work just to get a small probe into such proximity to such a far away planetoid. I encourage anyone who wants to learn more about realistic space travel and orbital mechanics in a fun way to pick KSP up and mess around with it.

It seems like everyone I talk to about New Horizons is so confused as to why the probe can't simply jump into Pluto orbit and stay there, while I know full well what's involved in getting a fast object into orbit around a low gravity planet thanks to KSP. I almost wish schools would use something like KSP to give kids not only an understanding of space exploration but an admiration for the realistic challenge of it.


I'm looking very forward to Tuesday's pictures!
 

HeySeuss

Member
Love this stuff. Wish it could do a slingshot orbit but its all good. Can't wait to see the pics.

Pretty cool that the one that discovered Pluto has his cremains on board. Didn't know about that.
 
All 4 Pluto moons other than Charon do not orbit Pluto, but rather have orbits around both Pluto & Charon. It should really be considered a Binary system.

New Horizons will head towards the Kuiper Belt. There are currently two targets in mind: 2014 MU69 or 2014 PN70.

I know the objects should be in the direction New Horizonts is already in, in its way out of the Solar System, and that Kuiper Belt is sparce and its Main objects are all around it in every possible direction, but those targets are Just large pieces of rock, kind of disapointement.

I wonder of I will see in my lifetime humanity exploring all those strange world out there, like Sedna, Makemake, Eris,Haumea (this one is really interesting), Quauar, among what the hell else is there.
 
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