Closest ever Pluto flyby expected at 12.30 pm LIVE

Boring username

For those of you with an interest in astronomy and space-there will be a live feed of the closest ever flyby of Pluto at approximately 12.30pm, you can watch it here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11737738/Watch-live-Nasas-New-Horizons-Pluto-flyby.html

It has taken 9 years for the New Horizons spacecraft to reach Pluto. Another small achievement for mankind hopefully.
Of course, Pluto is no longer designated a planet, but has been relegated to 'dwarf planet' status.

Wacker The Attacker

go on the pluto

Kermit.de.frog

Amazing what we can do now. Can see the most distant "planet" in real time without leaving your office/house.

seamus

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Amazing what we can do now. Can see the most distant "planet" in real time without leaving your office/house.

"Real time". NH already did it's fly-by at 8:30 this morning. We're just waiting for the images to reach us

Captain Chaos

seamus wrote: »

"Real time". NH already did it's fly-by at 8:30 this morning. We're just waiting for the images to reach us

It's actually doing the flyby right now. It will be midnight before the first images get back. It will take months for them all to be sent back.

Junkyard Tom

[pedant]It can't be live.[/pedant]

Captain Chaos

A nice way of thinking about it is, it takes light from the Sun 8 minutes to get to us. It takes another 4.5 hours for that light to get to Pluto.

Son Of A Vidic

Nine years of travel and New Horizons is still well inside our Solar System. The vastness of the Universe just boggles the mind.

Article from October 2013....

The twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2 were launched in 1977, 16 days apart. As of Thursday, according to NASA's real-time odometer, Voyager 1 is 18.8 billion kilometers (11.7 billion miles) from Earth. Its sibling, Voyager 2, is 15.3 billion (9.5 billion) kilometers from our planet.

Voyager 1 is being hailed as the first probe to leave the solar system. But under a stricter definition of "solar system," which includes the distant comets that orbit the sun, we'd have to wait another 30,000 years for it to get that far, Stone said.

Another milestone for long after we're gone: The probe will fly near a star in about 40,000 years, Stone said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/12/tech/innovation/voyager-solar-system/

namloc1980

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Amazing what we can do now. Can see the most distant "planet" in real time without leaving your office/house.

Even travelling at the speed of light it would take around 4.5 hours to reach Pluto. Space is so vast.

asteroids over berlin

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Nine years of travel and New Horizons is still well inside our Solar System. The vastness of the Universe just boggles the mind.

Article from October 2013....



http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/12/tech/innovation/voyager-solar-system/

lol

kneemos

Should have just gone to Disnyland.

seamus

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It's actually doing the flyby right now. It will be midnight before the first images get back. It will take months for them all to be sent back.

So...what are all the live feeds going to be? People standing around talking about how great it's going to be to get telemetry back in 4.5 hours?

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems pointless to have a "live" feed of an event which we can't even verify on the simplest level for another few hours.

Dyr

namloc1980 wrote: »

. Space is so vast.

Deep.

Space is deep.

Man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGwq620thqo

Agent Smith

Dont worry Pluto... You're Still a planet to me....

kneemos

Agent Smith wrote: »

Dont worry Pluto... You're Still a planet to me....

You're in denial.

Junkyard Tom

I can't wait to see the images of dwarfs, or at least their structures, on Pluto seeing as it is known to be a dwarf planet.

Captain Chaos

seamus wrote: »

So...what are all the live feeds going to be? People standing around talking about how great it's going to be to get telemetry back in 4.5 hours?

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems pointless to have a "live" feed of an event which we can't even verify on the simplest level for another few hours.

That's basically it. The probe is in black out mode right now, it's too busy using all it's camera to capture Pluto and all it's 5 moons to talk back to Earth. It will even try and get the dark side of Pluto by flipping around as it flies past using reflected light off Charon hopefully. After all those pre programmed moves are done it will start calling home.

It will take about an hour to try and capture the full moon system.

So what exactly will we be watching?

FloatingVoter

The important questions are ... does Pluto have an Eircode ? And is it the correct one ?

Rhys Essien

Captain Chaos wrote: »

A nice way of thinking about it is, it takes light from the Sun 8 minutes to get to us. It takes another 4.5 hours for that light to get to Pluto.

Another one

If Earth is a basketball,Pluto is a tennis ball 50 miles away.

laugh

Nasa TV: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#media

Junkyard Tom

Just saw a man hoovering in mission control.

Boring username

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Just saw a man hoovering in mission control.

That was the vacuum of space.

Herpes Cineplex

asteroids over berlin wrote: »

lol

Just wondering what did you find funny about a post that was certainly interesting, but most definitely not funny.

That was the most lacklustre USA chant I've ever heard.

Boring username

Deleted User wrote: »

That was the most lacklustre USA chant I've ever heard.

"GET JOHN BRUNSROE DOWN HERE REAL QUICK!"

That what I took away from the presentation.

NachoBusiness

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It's actually doing the flyby right now. It will be midnight before the first images get back.

Seriously? That's ridiculous. There's a place on Liffey St that can do it in under an hour.

namloc1980

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Seriously? That's ridiculous. There's a place on Liffey St that can do it in under an hour.

Light time to Pluto is 4.5 hours.

SEPT 23 1989

Its all a bit Mickey Mouse

jester77

namloc1980 wrote: »

Light time to Pluto is 4.5 hours.

They just need to send the signal back at least 16200 times the speed of light so that we get near real time transmission

Peregrine

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Seriously? That's ridiculous. There's a place on Liffey St that can do it in under an hour.

If they can send it to you 4.8 billion kilometers away then I'll be impressed

Boring username

And here's the first picture, it turns out Pluto is red and not grey. Plenty of road frontage there too by the looks of it:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589

namloc1980

Boring username wrote: »

And here's the first picture, it turns out Pluto is red and not grey. Plenty of road frontage there too by the looks of it:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589

Pluto has been known to be red orange colour for a long time - since long before New Horizons even launched.

Peregrine

Boring username wrote: »

And here's the first picture, it turns out Pluto is red and not grey. Plenty of road frontage there too by the looks of it:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589

It's actually not the first picture from the mission but it may be the latest one. Taken some time in the last few days.

Ri_Nollaig

Boring username wrote: »

And here's the first picture, it turns out Pluto is red and not grey. Plenty of road frontage there too by the looks of it:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589

That image was taken when it was at 476,000 miles away, the flyby was at 8,000 so those images [hopefully] will have unbelievable detail.

Flukey

Today I watched the last episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Co-incidentally and appropriately on the day of the Iran deal and the Pluto flyby. You can get the book and the series on Amazon. I would recommend it. I've been watching all of the episodes over recent times. The final episode deals with issues around the future of our planet and what we can do with our technology, for good and for bad. It gave the example of how a 2 megaton bomb is about equivalent to all of the bombs dropped in the 6 years of World War II. It also looked at the wonders of the planet and how things like space exploration have helped our day to day lives. It looked at how some societies and great places of knowledge and learning were destroyed, like what the conquistadors did to the Aztecs or the loss of the great library of Alexandria, which was a vast storage of scientific work. It made me think of the destruction of ancient artefacts that ISIS have done recently. Just after I finished watching, I turned on the radio, with the headlines featuring the nuclear deal being the top story and the Pluto flyby also being in the headlines. A strange, but true coincidence.

Kermit.de.frog

The technology on board is already 9 years old.

namloc1980

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The technology on board is already 9 years old.

It's actually older than that as the instruments etc were built in the early 2000's.

Son Of A Vidic

Boring username wrote: »

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Just saw a man hoovering in mission control.

That was the vacuum of space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOwHeRAOnCI

darkpagandeath

I wonder if this will be overshadowed again by what someone wears.

darkpagandeath

darkpagandeath wrote: »

I wonder if this will be overshadowed again by what someone wears.

"Oh my God! He's not wearing a tie. SEXIST!"

cowboyBuilder

OK, I can't post links, but Google image search "Pluto I have no sun"

Elmer Blooker

I was watching BBC News earlier and apparently the sun is 250 times weaker on Pluto than it is on Earth ..... seems Ireland and Pluto are very similar then.

Junkyard Tom

Captain Chaos wrote: »

A nice way of thinking about it is, it takes light from the Sun 8 minutes to get to us. It takes another 4.5 hours for that light to get to Pluto.

It would take 6200 years to drive there at 65 MPH hour non-stop and 680 years at the cruising speed of a modern jet airliner.

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space".

keith16

seamus wrote: »

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems pointless to have a "live" feed of an event which we can't even verify on the simplest level for another few hours.

Sure, they've launched something to a precise location at the ends of the solar system, but are not sure it's actually there. Please.

Peregrine

The signal was received a few minutes ago.

seamus

keith16 wrote: »

Sure, they've launched something to a precise location at the ends of the solar system, but are not sure it's actually there. Please.

That's not what I said

My point has been borne out. At the time of the flyby yesterday, it was a few people standing around a control room talking and showing simulations of what's currently happening. Great achievement, but was there a need to host a "live" event?
How about a live event when the first telemetry started coming in?

SeanW

darkpagandeath wrote: »

I wonder if this will be overshadowed again by what someone wears.

Was thinking the same myself!

Boring username

seamus wrote: »

That's not what I said

My point has been borne out. At the time of the flyby yesterday, it was a few people standing around a control room talking and showing simulations of what's currently happening. Great achievement, but was there a need to host a "live" event?
How about a live event when the first telemetry started coming in?

I think this is a fair point. I was a tad underwhelmed when the clock counted down to zero. Pretty much nothing happened, apart from seeing some fella dressed like Abraham Lincoln, and a Bill Bailey lookalike beside him.

I'll never love anything again.

RayCon

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Nine years of travel and New Horizons is still well inside our Solar System.

I got the Dublin <-> London bus via Holyhead once ... it was exactly like that.

take everything

Amazing the technology involved to communicate and control a craft like this. Wikied it yesterday trying to understand it a bit more.
Just the idea of dealing with a latency of 9 hours when communicating is interesting.