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

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S

spekkeh

Banned
Fine Ham Abounds said:
?
Click to expand...
Huygens was both the most awesome and the most disappointing space exploration mission in recent history. Here we're landing on a far away alien moon that has a thick atmosphere and the only other body in our solar system with liquid oceans, and all we get is a blurry low res shot with extremely small fov of a few blocks of ice. And then it's dead.
 
K

Kenstar

Member
DrForester said:
Time dilation is very small until you get up to the higher speeds. I think with speed and gravity taken into account that an astronaut on the ISS would age 0.01 second less than people on Earth if they were up there for year.

Something interesting that many don't know is that the GPS satellites have to be constantly updated and monitored because of time dilation. GPS timing is so precise that a single day without the constant monitoring and updating would result in GPS units being off by 6 miles. But unlike the ISS, the GPS satellites are going faster than we are, since they are much further away than the ISS.

EWWzib4.png
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GPS Satellites are going SLOWER than the ISS, higher orbits require less speed.
Low earth orbit like the ISS require around 7KM/s, gps orbit at around 3.8km/s, a slower speed.

That chart is explained by this: As gravity decreases, time speeds up. As speed increases, time slows down. The ISS is farther from earths gravitational center than we (340km), so by that alone it will gain microseconds. However, it's traveling at 7km/s so it's also losing microseconds as well. This very high speed coupled with a very low orbit (and therefore comparatively low gravitational difference) means the speed wins out and there's a net loss in microseconds.

The satellites are farther from the earth's gravity, so time speeds up for them as well. However, they're only around 3.8km/s, so while there is some speed slowdown, it's not enough to counter the fact that they are WAAAY up there(20,000km) and the comparatively lesser gravity wins out, causing it to gain microseconds.
 
D

David Incorporated Esq.

Member
Kenstar said:
GPS Satellites are going SLOWER than the ISS, higher orbits require less speed.
Low earth orbit like the ISS require around 7KM/s, gps orbit at around 3.8km/s, a slower speed.

That chart is explained by this: As gravity decreases, time speeds up. As speed increases, time slows down. The ISS is farther from earths gravitational center than we (340km), so by that alone it will gain microseconds. However, it's traveling at 7km/s so it's also losing microseconds as well. This very high speed coupled with a very low orbit (and therefore comparatively low gravitational difference) means the speed wins out and there's a net loss in microseconds.

The satellites are farther from the earth's gravity, so time speeds up for them as well. However, they're only around 3.8km/s, so while there is some speed slowdown, it's not enough to counter the fact that they are WAAAY up there(20,000km) and the comparatively lesser gravity wins out, causing it to gain microseconds.
Click to expand...

This is my fetish.
 
V

Vagabundo

Member
Just heard a radio interview with one of the NASA guys on the mission. They have some super detailed images they've been looking at. New ones. He said they are planning on releasing them tomorrow.

Looking forward to it.

If you want to listen to a podcast of the show it it should be up here at some point today/tomorrow:

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/ray/podcasts/

The guy talks about the unusual transitions between light and dark areas etc..
 
J

jmdajr

Member
Vagabundo said:
Just heard a radio interview with one of the NASA guys on the mission. They have some super detailed images they've been looking at. New ones. He said they are planning on releasing them tomorrow.

Looking forward to it.

If you want to listen to a podcast of the show it it should be up here at some point today/tomorrow:

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/ray/podcasts/

The guy talks about the unusual transitions between light and dark areas etc..
Click to expand...

tomorrow....but but but...
:(
 
A

Always-honest

Banned
Vagabundo said:
Just heard a radio interview with one of the NASA guys on the mission. They have some super detailed images they've been looking at. New ones. He said they are planning on releasing them tomorrow.

Looking forward to it.

If you want to listen to a podcast of the show it it should be up here at some point today/tomorrow:

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/ray/podcasts/

The guy talks about the unusual transitions between light and dark areas etc..
Click to expand...
Can't wait
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Love the photo from pluto, specially the heart shape.

jmdajr said:
Love for science is good.

Hey we made 18 pages!

edit:

This whole deal gave me flashbacks to this.

Disney's 1957 Mars & Beyond

154961.jpg


It really sparked my imagination as a child. Too bad that whole life on other planets didn't really work out.
Click to expand...

If Walt would have still lived now (and forever with that age becuase why the fuck not) he would probably have helped funding the NASA projects.
The man loved all this stuff.
 
R

RiverBed

Banned
10 questions answered about the mission:
1. Why a flyby? Why not slow down or orbit Pluto?

Simply put, slowing down and orbiting Pluto is nearly impossible if you want to get there in a reasonable amount of time. The planet’s gravity is so weak that a spacecraft pulling into orbit would need to be going really slowly. For New Horizons to slow down enough, it would have to carry enough fuel to fire its brakes and reverse all its forward momentum—that’s about as much fuel as was used to launch the spacecraft and get it zooming along in the first place. Launching all that propellent, plus the spacecraft, is pretty much impossible. (Read about chasing Pluto's shadow).



2. We see amazing shots of faraway galaxies, so why haven't we ever gotten a good picture of Pluto?

Though they’re far away, those distant, glittering galaxies are really big and bright, which is why telescopes like Hubble can see them. But Pluto is too small and dim for even our sharpest Earth-based eyes to get a good look at: It's only about two-thirds as wide as Earth’s moon. Even dwarf planet Ceres, which lives much closer to Earth, is too small to be anything but a blurry blob in Hubble pictures. (Learn more about Pluto's first close-up).


3. What's the biggest thing that could go wrong?

It could be disastrous for the spacecraft to run into a dust particle as it flies through the Pluto system. Because the spacecraft is going so fast, colliding with something the size of a rice pellet could be catastrophic. So, the team has spent the last few weeks intensively surveying the system for anything that might be shedding dust and debris in the spacecraft’s path, and so far have found nothing to be concerned about. (Learn what happened when the spacecraft went silent).


4. What will the pictures of Pluto look like?

The images coming back from New Horizons are already by far the best ever taken of the dwarf planet, even though the latest image, on July 12, was taken from about a million miles away. Tuesday’s encounter will produce close-up, detailed images of Pluto and Charon, plus some images of the smaller moons. (Also see "Three Possible Plutos").

On the side of Pluto that the spacecraft will be able to see, features as small as the lakes in New York City’s Central Park will be visible. But that’s not all: After New Horizons zooms by Pluto, it will swivel around and take a look at the planet’s south pole, which we haven’t seen yet. (Check out the weirdest feature I'd like to see on Pluto). Facing away from the sun, that pole is in the dark, except for the soft glow of sunlight reflected off Charon. In other words, New Horizons will give us a glimpse of Pluto’s wintry pole, in Charon's moonlight. (Also see: "Proposed Names for Pluto System's Features Include Kirk and Spock").

5. How long does it take to send a photo of Pluto to Earth?

Radio signals traveling at the speed of light take 4.5 hours to travel between Pluto and Earth. So, data received from New Horizons will have been on the road for about as long as it takes to drive between San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Because of that, it will take about 16 months for all of New Horizons’ flyby data to make it to Earth—meaning that new discoveries will be trickling in through the end of 2016. (See the first color image of Pluto from New Horizons).


The New Horizons spacecraft, illustrated here flying past Pluto, traveled about 3 billion miles to visit the dwarf planet and its five known moons.
6. What are we going to learn about Pluto?

New Horizons will take a good, detailed look at Pluto and its large moon Charon (in fact, Charon is so large it forms a binary system with Pluto). Scientists are curious about Pluto’s terrains and composition, whether there’s evidence for geologic activity, and what the planet’s thin, nitrogen atmosphere is doing. They’ll also be looking for clues to how the Pluto system formed and evolved—and many of those clues might lie in the features of the four small moons Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx. (Check out Pluto's possible polar cap).

7. What will New Horizons do after it passes Pluto? How long can it keep going?

After New Horizons passes Pluto, it will continue sailing on into the Kuiper Belt, which is a vast, icy debris ring outside the orbit of Neptune. If NASA approves it, New Horizons will sail past and study another icy world within the next five years. The spacecraft carries enough fuel for that encounter (it’ll use the propellent to adjust its course), and will still be able to send data back to Earth, even though that body is nearly a billion miles farther out. Ultimately, it will continue heading out of the solar system, much as NASA’s Voyager I and II spacecraft are doing. (Learn more about New Horizon's Mission).

8. Is this our only chance, or will any other spacecraft be going to Pluto?

There are no plans at this point to send another spacecraft to Pluto, but it sure would be nice to learn even more about that enigmatic little world and its cousins on the fringe of the observable solar system.

9. Is it carrying a message for aliens?

Not yet. There is a project, called the One Earth Message, that aims to upload a digital message to the spacecraft once it’s done collecting data and sending it all to Earth. That could be years from now, if New Horizons flies by another body in the Kuiper Belt. The message would be something like a new version of the Voyager Golden Record, which carried the sights and sounds of Planet Earth into the cosmos aboard the Voyager I and II spacecraft.

10. What did New Horizons do during the nine years it took to get to Pluto?

It spent a lot of that time hibernating, but did occasionally wake up for system tests. And, of course, it woke up to take a look at Jupiter as it flew by the giant planet in 2007. No sense missing out on that view! Later, when it crossed Neptune’s orbit in 2014, New Horizons woke up again to snap a picture of the icy blue giant—but Neptune was so far away it looked like a faint dot. (Learn about the spacecraft first awakening after a multi-year nap).
Click to expand...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150713-pluto-flyby-ten-questions-answered-space/
 
G

GK86

Homeland Security Fail
Charon has been activated. NASA has doomed us.


I know that is not what he meant.
 
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