Space

[Shockprowl]

NEW HORIZONS AT PLUTO DAY!!!!!!!


10 years we've waited for this. When I think back what was doing ten years ago... my eldest hadn't even been born, only just got married, I hadn't even joined The Hub!

[The Doctor]

In 10 mins we have a spacecraft flying by the planet Pluto!

-Ralph

[legios]

This is a wonderful day. Genuinely amazing stuff. I've been watching a bit of NASA TV over lunch, and it is fascinating looking at the first images from the flyby.

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

Picture

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33524589

[The Doctor]

Managed to catch the audio from the Nasa TV live countdown on my break. Catching up ow on the video of the last media briefing on NASA TV.

Very exciting stuff.

-Ralph

[legios]

I was fortunate in being home for a large part of the NASA briefing that was on over lunchtime, so I ended up watching it on my Ipad over my Spaghetti Bolognese. Really fantastic stuff, and some really sharp questions from the media folks who were there which was really nice to see. Even the greyscaled images they got back in the first downlink were really exciting. I'm really looking forward to seeing them get more colour data and the stereoscopic imagery to work with.

I've been thinking back today to one of my favourite University courses - the first year Astronomy module (as a BSc student I had a very unusual course makeup compared to the rest of the Psychology students)where both our lecturer and our textbook basically said about Pluto "We don't know very much at all. Maybe one day we will actually send a craft there and start to properly learn things" and now here we are, with the data streaming back. Great stuff!

I did have to laugh when one of the project team was explaining the data return rate though - the "very small data rate" that she was quoting - 40kbps on the high end and 10kpbs at the low end - was the kind of data rate I was getting from my first modem ten years ago... There is something amusing about the fact that New Horizons is sending back data at the kind of rates I used to get (on a good day) down my telephone lines ten years ago. I think that is pretty decent going for most of the way to the edge of the Sol System personally.

Karl

[Shockprowl]

Just got home from work and getting caught up. It's absolutely marvelous. I'm actually pretty moved. Little Pluto, revealed at last. All the hours I sat as a child reading my various space books....

[Toph]

And off she goes into the long, lonely night, carrying with her the ashes of the man who discovered pluto. Follow where only Voyagers I and II have been before her.

But she does not go quietly! If all went well, she has so much data from her brief encounter, that it will take a full year to download it all back to earth.

New Horizons is kind of a sad story, that shows the pathetic decline of the american space program.
She originated in the Nineties. The glory days when we had a budget surplus, under one of the most successful presidents we've ever had.
The Nineties that gave us the unbridled success of the Mars Rovers, and the glories of Cassini.
Yet, the window to reach Pluto was closing, and they could not get approval or funding.

FINALLY they got the go ahead in 2001. Probably just before 9/11, because I can't imagine this being approved post. 2015 is the year the window closes for a hundred years.
They had just four years to design, build, and launch the probe, an endeavor that normally takes ten years, so they can hit their three month launch window in 2006 in order to reach Pluto in time by 2015, before it's gone forever (for us).
This means that it had to be super light, in order to be the fastest thing we've ever sent (travelling up to a million miles a day), and they had no room to try anything new. They had to rely on stuff that was tried and true. They didn't have time to design a power source, and had to rely on plutonium (ironically). To keep the weight down, they couldn't shield the radiation, and radiation is bad for electronics. So to minimize the risk, they had to underpower it. Ther gave it only enough to generate 200 watts of power. So NH operates entirely on only enough electricity to power a couple lightbulbs.

As such, she has no mechanical parts. In order to contact home, the entire probe has to rotate and point the antenna towards earth. This is why there's a blackout period as she flies by pluto, because her cameras are on a different side.
Because speed and weight were an issue, they couldn't have breaking thrusters (i'm speculating on this part, to be honest, i might be wrong. But i imagine the weight of the rockets and fuel would have slowed it down and missed Pluto), which is why the mission is just a flyby, instead of parking her perminantly in orbit, like Galileo and Cassini before her.
When it came to launching... They almost basically just pointed her about where they thought Pluto SHOULD be.
They weren't entirely sure it would be there, because when they launched, SO LITTLE WAS KNOWN about Pluto, they only had vague predictions of it's orbit.

Not to degrade the massive accomplishment that is New Horizons, I feel we almost completely dropped the ball. The decade that gave us three of the seven greatest exploration tools (I'm not sure if Curiosity began in the nineties or not), really let us down on this one.
I can't help but wonder what we could do if NH had been a Cassini type probe. Had they been greenlit with enough time to clone Cassini and send it off.

[The Doctor]

One of the greatest accomplishments in human history. Wonderful and astounding work by everyone involved. Looking forward to seeing what the team working on New Horizon learn over the next few years.

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

The speed needed to get NH out to Pluto in any reasonable time frame meant there was no possibility of braking it enough to go into orbit around Pluto. This was entirely due to the physics involved and not any technical or economic skimping on NASAs part.

NASA continue to do great and amazing things and have massive cock ups and failures. As they have always done and always will do.

[legios]

I have to say that I remain amazed and astounded by what the New Horizons team have achieved. From a standing start they got a platform and a payload together in time to make the Jovian Gravity Assist window, got their spacecraft all the way to Pluto where it is doing fantastic science, with the strong probability of a KBO intercept to come and then who knows, maybe on towards the heliopause. It is a amazing achievement.

Karl

[Shockprowl]

The pictures and information coming in are pure joy. A young surface in places?!?!

[kayevcee]

Makes sense. It's a binary planet swinging around a moon a quarter of its size like a pair of country dancers. The gravitational effect they have on each other should be enough to cause a fair bit of vulcanism on both bodies. I wonder what a Plutonian volcano is like. Maybe they're like Triton, where cryovolcanoes make it rain ammonia snowflakes on an almost daily basis. Maybe they're like nothing we've ever seen.

Fun, innit?

-Nick

[Fortmax2020]

The Pluto-Charon system gravity isn't enough to cause vulcanism on either so it is (for now) a mystery what energy source is driving these changes. It's also possible that our calculations of impact frequency (and hence craters) in this part of the solar system are totally wrong, so the surfaces of Pluto and other KB objects may be virgin but ancient.

[kayevcee]

Probably best if I stick to the aerosol chemistry, innit?

-Nick

[Fortmax2020]

There is still scope for you to use your Atmospheric Doctoring to model the transfer of Pluto's sublimed atmospheric ices to that red splotch on Charon. Get to it, soldier.

[Benn]

It's been a long time since I felt this much awe about something.

Now, can we get Pluto reinstated as a planet please?

[Fortmax2020]

That would be difficult since it has never not been a planet.

[The Doctor]

I'm sure Ig-88 from Star Wars is behind everything.

-Ralph

[Shockprowl]

Prowl controls IG-88. Like he controls everything.




Pluto a Planet.... Ooooohhhh.... I LOVE Pluto. As a child... the last planet in the books... mysterious... intriguing.... but, sorry, it's too small. Way too small. 25% the mass of the Moon is it? Can't be bothered to look it up, but I know it's something like that. Pluto, like Eris and others, are Dwarf Planets. It is the perfect classification for them. BUT, my beautiful Cyber-darlings, it does not mean they're any less interesting than a planet! Spank my arse, the Pluto fly-by has filled me with more wonder than anything since Voyager 2. Dwarf Planet is not a dirty word. Pluto is fascinating and vibrant and can teach us so much. But Pluto is not a Planet. It is a Dwarf Planet. Dwarf Planet and Proud. (and I want to go there)

[Philip Ayres]

The dwarf planet debate is very much a live one again.

The term was only coined when Eris was discovered and estimated as bigger than Pluto but New Horizon's measurements of Pluto now make it larger than Eris!

[Shockprowl]

But Eris is more dense, fascinatingly.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Pluto is a bazillion times older than the word 'planet'. Ancient celestial bodies are indifferent to how puny flesh creatures whose species didn't exist a 1/10000th of the solar system's lifetime ago choose to classify them. Space fans should focus on the reality of what's out there, not worry about how we label it.

Pluto is the size it is, whatever we call it.

Martin

[Shockprowl]

I love you, Martin.

[Toph]

What do we want?!?
EQUAL REPRESENTATION FOR DWARF PLANETS!

When do we want it?!?
Within a reasonable amount of time!

The problem with pluto as a planet is that there would have to be five new planets immidiately.
With a thousand others then needing to be named, and seriously considered.

This would piss off most of the people pissed off at pluto's "demotion," because most of them only care about it because it's what they learned in the fifties.
And five new planets (Eris, Ceres, Vesta, Sedna, and I forget the last) isn't how it always was, either.

Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered. Before they knew about the asteroid belt.
When they realized the belt existed, and that it was unlikely Ceres was an actual planet, it too was reclassified. And that pissed off a bunch of people back then, too.
They had the exact same debates over Ceres that we have now, over pluto.
Planetary science has no room for sentimentality. You operate under a set of facts generated by information available to you. When new information is available, you act accordingly, and change your facts. That's science.
A dinosaur doesn't stop being a bird because we thought they were lizards in the fifties.

[Fortmax2020]

All planets are planets, whether they are major, dwarf or minor. I don't see many of these Plutonians campaigning to make all dwarf or minor planets major.

Gross hypocrisy! Strike them down.

[Shockprowl]

Your sexy white coat can only take you so far, sir!

There has to be a line, somewhere, otherwise you'll end up with, potentially, thousands of 'Planets'!

Planets are the 'Major' objects that orbit a Star, Dwarf Planets are the 'Minor' objects that orbit a Star. It makes sense. One needs order! (I need order)

But, as the beautiful Martin says, who are we to judge? Pluto, I love you and thank you for being part of my Solar System!


"Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you!
More than a hundred men or more could ever do!
I bless the rains down in Africa! (I bless the Nitrogen rain down in Pluto)
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had! Oh oh"




....It felt like a Toto moment

[Benn]

Wow. I did not expect this to lead to Toto. WHAT HAVE I DONE?

[Toph]

You're not in Kansas anymore.
Just like New Horizons.

[Shockprowl]

Jul 16, 2015 20:00:17 GMT Benn said:

Wow. I did not expect this to lead to Toto. WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Everything.... leads to Toto.