New Horizons

Maximus Alexander · 10-03-2015 3:53pm

the_monkey wrote: »

Too fast to drop into orbit ?

Much too fast. About 18 11.5 times too fast.

the_monkey · 10-03-2015 4:39pm

out of curiosity how did you calculate that ?

Maximus Alexander · 10-03-2015 5:07pm

the_monkey wrote: »

out of curiosity how did you calculate that ?

Very much back of the envelope maths. Escape velocity for Pluto is 1.229 km/s, you'd need a relative velocity lower than this to get into any kind of orbit (well, apart from an escape orbit of course).

So, let's take 1.2 km/s (which is still might too fast for any kind of orbit that doesn't end with you crashing into Pluto, but feck it). According to NASA, New Horizons will pass Pluto with a relative velocity of 49,600 km/h, which is 13.77 km/s (49,600 / 60 / 60).

13.77 / 1.2 = 11.4.

Titus Andronicus · 01-04-2015 9:37am

104 days away, whoo hoo

nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VRury-HfeB0

March 12, 2015
"After more than nine years in space, on a voyage taking it farther to its primary destination than any mission before it, NASA'’s New Horizons spacecraft is within one astronomical unit of Pluto – meaning it’s closer to Pluto than the Earth is to the Sun."

Great time lapse of Pluto & Charon
nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh_zoom_bary_03-final.gif

Maximus Alexander · 01-04-2015 10:35am

Titus Andronicus wrote: »

Great time lapse of Pluto & Charon
nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh_zoom_bary_03-final.gif

Comedy of Errors · 08-04-2015 8:39am

I'm so excited for this, I would have been too young to take in the Voyager probes & what they were sending back.
I really hope it all goes to plan & we get great shots.

namloc1980 · 08-04-2015 9:19am

Details of what images to expect and when during the flyby :

Pluto image expectations

B17G · 15-04-2015 12:30am

First colour images.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32311907

mg1982 · 15-04-2015 12:39am

B17G wrote: »

First colour images.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32311907

Should be some cool photos coming back around summertime. Although I always imagined Pluto as being dark and colourless.

namloc1980 · 15-04-2015 11:12am

From mid May onwards the images will be better than the best Hubble images.

_Tombstone_ · 29-04-2015 11:49pm

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

So heres the latest, possible snow cap.

newhorizons_plutospin_apr2015.gif.CROP.original-original.gif

Scientists suggest this brightening in Pluto's polar region might be caused by a "cap" of highly reflective snow on the surface. The "snow" in this case is likely to be frozen molecular nitrogen ice. New Horizons observations in July will determine definitively whether or not this hypothesis is correct.

http://www.nasa.gov/pluto042915

Rubecula · 30-04-2015 11:48pm

From that Pluto looks either misshapen or a funny colour in places.

shedweller · 01-05-2015 12:49am

I'm just amazed they got that detail out of those four raw images! There's what, 40-50 pixels to work with??
Great work. Cant wait for the flyby!

shedweller · 01-05-2015 12:50am

I'm just amazed they got that detail out of those four raw images! There's what, 40-50 pixels to work with??
Great work. Cant wait for the flyby!

mg1982 · 01-05-2015 1:08am

When can we expect to get up close and personal with Pluto?

rolion · 01-05-2015 1:18am

Big accomplishment for human kind !

The first thought that came in my mind is we are really struggling to discover about our solar system's 9 planets while in Star Trek they are walking across galaxies... Big Q is: when ?

namloc1980 · 01-05-2015 8:52am

mg1982 wrote: »

When can we expect to get up close and personal with Pluto?

Closest approach and flyby of Pluto will be 14th July 2015. Two and a half months to go!!!

Zubeneschamali · 01-05-2015 9:03am

namloc1980 wrote: »

Closest approach and flyby of Pluto will be 14th July 2015. Two and a half months to go!!!

But it will take months more to download the images. The connection is slower than dialup over a 20 mile Eircom line.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-05-2015 9:34am

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

But it will take months more to download the images. The connection is slower than dialup over a 20 mile Eircom line.

http://www.geek.com/science/new-horizons-probe-has-a-1-kilobit-per-second-data-connection-from-pluto-1614967/

1Kb/s :eek:

Its optical camera, known as the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) takes 1024 x 1024 resolution images, each of which are 2.5 megabits (0.3125 megabytes) uncompressed. To send that one image back to Earth takes 42 minutes. And you thought your Comcast connection was slow.
...
The biggest bottleneck, though, is the fact that New Horizons can’t send data back to Earth all day every day. There’s a lot of competition for time on the Deep Space Network’s three 70-meter dishes, and the New Horizons team is lucky to get one 8-hour session per day. Additionally, New Horizons can’t acquire new data and send data back at the same time. It’s one or the other.

Yes the images will be compressed so it won't be all that bad

Maximus Alexander · 01-05-2015 9:37am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

http://www.geek.com/science/new-horizons-probe-has-a-1-kilobit-per-second-data-connection-from-pluto-1614967/

1Kb/s :eek:

Yes the images will be compressed so it won't be all that bad

They need to get the Deep Space Network out of the 90s and upgrade it to fibre. :pac:

mg1982 · 01-05-2015 9:44am

Are you telling me they dont have broadband on pluto? What have they been doing on that planet the last millennia.

Curly Judge · 05-05-2015 9:57am

Rubecula wrote: »

From that Pluto looks either misshapen or a funny colour in places.

I agree.... it looks to have a protrusion on the side opposite Charon.
It could be an illusion caused by the snow caps (if that's what they are)?
Or is could be a collided satellite or asteroid that hasn't yet been absorbed and
assimilated by Pluto's gravity.
We should know more by mid month when the next new photos are scheduled.
Plutos end of its reciprocal (or dumbbell) orbit with Charon seems somewhat "jerky", which is what might be expected from an off balance sphere.
Again it could just be a photographic effect caused by the crude pixelation.
One way or the other we have exciting days ahead!

the_monkey · 12-05-2015 10:43am

I read it was even slower ... like 0.25 KB sec ... so even though it's a quick flyby it will feel like an orbital mission cos it will take over a year to get all the photo data ..

rolion · 14-05-2015 10:03am

What is very interesting in the attached here link is the level of "knowledge" today to process a black and white no-sense image in the most left side and get so many results, as in the two pictures right side !

PS
while searching for info, i got a 404 page not found...very funny

Brancott · 27-05-2015 3:15pm

Brancott · 27-05-2015 3:24pm

NASA’s New Horizons Detects Surface Features, Possible Polar Cap on Pluto

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-new-horizons-detects-surface-features-possible-polar-cap-on-pluto

shedweller · 27-05-2015 4:44pm

This just keeps getting better!

Curly Judge · 28-05-2015 8:38am

Brancott wrote: »

NASA’s New Horizons Detects Surface Features, Possible Polar Cap on Pluto

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-new-horizons-detects-surface-features-possible-polar-cap-on-pluto

Pluto is beginning to look like the most misshapen planet in the solar system.
(I know, I know, but I still think of it as a planet)
Could be that it's an amalgam of smaller Kuiper Belt objects that hasn't had the required aeons to form itself into the classic spherical shape?
If so, its research potential as a planetary kindergarten will be enormous.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-05-2015 9:12am

Curly Judge wrote: »

Pluto is beginning to look like the most misshapen planet in the solar system.
(I know, I know, but I still think of it as a planet)
Could be that it's an amalgam of smaller Kuiper Belt objects that hasn't had the required aeons to form itself into the classic spherical shape?
If so, its research potential as a planetary kindergarten will be enormous.

It's not the Roche limit but what's the thing where gravity makes things circular because they aren't strong enough to stand up to their own weight ?

more coffee needed

well anyway Pluto would be very cold and things like Ice would be rock hard so less deformation. or it could be that it just hasn't had time to collapse yet.

Zubeneschamali · 28-05-2015 9:52am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

well anyway Pluto would be very cold and things like Ice would be rock hard so less deformation. or it could be that it just hasn't had time to collapse yet.

Pluto is a sphere, guys, it's just patchy.

Curly Judge · 28-05-2015 10:20am

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Pluto is a sphere, guys, it's just patchy.

You may well be right... but I hope you're wrong.:)

Maximus Alexander · 28-05-2015 4:39pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's not the Roche limit but what's the thing where gravity makes things circular because they aren't strong enough to stand up to their own weight ?

more coffee needed

well anyway Pluto would be very cold and things like Ice would be rock hard so less deformation. or it could be that it just hasn't had time to collapse yet.

Hydrostatic equilibrium. It's one of the defining characteristics of a dwarf planet though, so Pluto has to be some sort of oblate spheroid or it will be in for a further downgrade.

shedweller · 28-05-2015 5:22pm

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Hydrostatic equilibrium. It's one of the defining characteristics of a dwarf planet though, so Pluto has to be some sort of oblate spheroid or it will be in for a further downgrade.

Oblate spheroid ya say! Time to step back from the coffee!
It does look lumpy as hell though. Maybe its just a camera exposure thing. More pics needed!

namloc1980 · 29-05-2015 7:58am

shedweller wrote: »

Oblate spheroid ya say! Time to step back from the coffee!
It does look lumpy as hell though. Maybe its just a camera exposure thing. More pics needed!

It's still 55,000,000 kilometres from Pluto. Too early to say if it is indeed an odd shape or just a camera exposure and resolution effect. Pluto is pretty small so it's still little more than a speck to the spacecraft:

Zubeneschamali · 29-05-2015 8:30am

namloc1980 wrote: »

It's still 55,000,000 kilometres from Pluto. Too early to say if it is indeed an odd shape

Pluto is much larger than Ceres, and Ceres is already big enough to be spherical. We knew from Hubble that Pluto was patchy.

Curly Judge · 29-05-2015 9:09am

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Pluto is much larger than Ceres, and Ceres is already big enough to be spherical. We knew from Hubble that Pluto was patchy.

Patchy ...but not lumpy.

Zubeneschamali · 29-05-2015 9:58am

Curly Judge wrote: »

Patchy ...but not lumpy.

That's because it IS patchy, but not lumpy.

Curly Judge · 29-05-2015 1:46pm

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

That's because it IS patchy, but not lumpy.

We'll talk again in the middle of June....by which time it should be resolved, one way or the other.

mg1982 · 29-05-2015 1:53pm

July 14 is when it arrives at pluto.

Curly Judge · 29-05-2015 5:40pm

mg1982 wrote: »

July 14 is when it arrives at pluto.

Yes ...but by the middle of June it will be approx 36 million K from Pluto and near enough for the cameras to resolve our "Lumpy" dispute.

Brancott · 03-06-2015 2:12pm

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto

More detail now visible, definitely look spherical.

[img][/img]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/nh-apr12-may8-2015.jpg?itok=YCaK9047

Capt'n Midnight · 03-06-2015 9:41pm

Curly Judge · 03-06-2015 11:13pm

Brancott wrote: »

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto

More detail now visible, definitely look spherical.

[img][/img]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/nh-apr12-may8-2015.jpg?itok=YCaK9047

Not from this one, it doesn't. nh-apr15-may10-2015.jpg?itok=-06dC88Z

shedweller · 03-06-2015 11:20pm

That must be one awfully dark area to the bottom left for it to not show up as some kind of data. Its like a bite out of pluto!
Dammit, all my life i was used to the idea of pluto being round. Then it looked lumpy. Now it looks like it has a bite out of it!
Feck sake!

Curly Judge · 04-06-2015 10:28am

It seems to show a different face to our world,depending on what point in its rotation the cameras capture it?

Curly Judge · 04-06-2015 4:04pm

Latest news!

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-hubble-finds-pluto-s-moons-tumbling-in-absolute-chaos

The author suggests that the chaos observed in the system is due to the locked orbits of Charon and Pluto.

A misshapen and "off balance" Pluto (if indeed it is so) would probably offer some contribution also.

Curly Judge · 11-06-2015 10:57pm

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/different-faces-of-pluto-emerging-in-new-images-from-new-horizons.

Apparently the misshapen images are due to a camera processing technique called deconvolution and that the planet's surface is not as lumpy as I thought.
Just the same, even NASA are struggling to explain their own data at the moment so we are undoubtedly in for a few surprises.

Curly Judge · 19-06-2015 10:35am

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php.

Resolution still not good enough, but getting better.

mickmackey1 · 19-06-2015 11:45am

Curly Judge wrote: »

Resolution still not good enough, but getting better.

Horizon won't be approaching closer than 7000 miles to Pluto, which is three times the distance Dawn currently is from Ceres. A lot of questions will be left unanswered I think.

Zubeneschamali · 19-06-2015 12:54pm

mickmackey1 wrote: »

A lot of questions will be left unanswered I think.

Curly is thinking of his question upthread: is Pluto spherical?

New Horizons

Comments