New Horizons

[Tom]

14 days until it whizzes past Pluto and its moons at high speed. Here's an image released today:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html



Not even Hubble can get a decent image of Pluto. I can't wait to see what it looks like. This mission has been decades in the making.

Interestingly, the data transmission rate from the probe back to Earth is so low that it'll take over a year for the probe to transmit all of its data back home.

 

[Job]

Didn't real8se it was just whizzing past...is it not going into orbit?
Guess too fast for Pluto to grab it.

 

[Scouse]

I always name any Dungeon's n Dragon's wizard characters Charon. I made the name up when I was a kid for some book role-playing game only to discover it was a moon of Pluto.

And I don't give a fuck what science says. Pluto's a planet*











* and a plutoid. Or whatever science really wants to call it in it's correct-ness. But it's definitely still a planet.

 

[Tom]

Didn't real8se it was just whizzing past...is it not going into orbit?
Guess too fast for Pluto to grab it.

Pluto is extremely far away, you'd either have to spend many many years slowly catching it up at a speed where Pluto could "grab" it, or you'd have to take a shit load of fuel along for the ride and use it to slow down.

It's not really a huge deal though. Remember how much good science was done by the two Voyager probes - they didn't orbit either.

 

[Job]

So what's it gonna do after Pluto

 

[Tom]

Look at a few Kuiper Belt objects before sailing off forever into space.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Not even Hubble can get a decent image of Pluto.

Maybe there's a huge sign saying "We're so a planet your planetist f*cks!"

 

[chipper]

will be great to finally get high res images of pluto and see what it looks like. personally i find ceres a bit more interesting atm i really wanna know what those white spots are!

 

[Lakih]

Interestingly, the data transmission rate from the probe back to Earth is so low that it'll take over a year for the probe to transmit all of its data back home.

They should get some decent fiberoptic lines on that badboy so it doesn't take forever to download the pictures, at least a crappy dsl connection.

 

[Syri]

They should get some decent fiberoptic lines on that badboy so it doesn't take forever to download the pictures, at least a crappy dsl connection.

That'd keep the cable manufacturers in business for years!

 

[fettoken]

How is it exactly with the transfer rate over such 'vast' distances?

 

[Zarjazz]

How is it exactly with the transfer rate over such 'vast' distances?

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/01300800-talking-to-pluto-is-hard.html

Good article on the technical details for transmitting data over such large distances.

tl;dr

at 1 kilobit per second: it takes 42 minutes to return one photo to Earth. Most communications sessions last about eight hours. That's eleven images per communications session. And that assumes that New Horizons is transmitting only image data, which it's not; there are other science instruments and spacecraft housekeeping data, too

 

[TdC]

frankly it's amazing to me that they even make that speed given the distances involved. when I read Protector I thought it was awesome that Niven had the people in the Solar System use lasers to communicate, but he also carefully explained how crap even that could be. all fiction and lots of theory ofc, but even so. anyone know which installations are listening to NH? I'd like some sweet pics of those dishes 0_o

 

[Tom]

 

[TdC]

amazing

 

[Lamp]

Fantastic stuff

You guys seen the 3D interactive map of the Milky Way? Thats cool

 

[old.Tohtori]

I don't know what i was expecting, but i certainly wasn't expecting pluto to look like a shriveled testicle

 

[CorNokZ]

View attachment 26116

Your mole doesn't look cancerous, mate

 

[Job]

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/01300800-talking-to-pluto-is-hard.html

Good article on the technical details for transmitting data over such large distances.

tl;dr

The sensitivity of those recievers is unbelievable, they reckon all the outerspace signals collected by all the telescopes in the world since the first is less than the energy of a snowflake hitting the ground...so you can imagine how weak one Horizon probe is.

 

[caLLous]

 

[Tom]

Damn.

 

[Shagrat]

Damn.

View attachment 26229

wow!

 

[Scouse]

Protector

Such an awesome book.

Tam's reading Ringworld's Children right now

 

[Calaen]

That's fucking amazing, so beautiful!

 

[Ormorof]

Incredible, great year for space exploration so far!

 

[Job]

Downloaded the Nasa app, pretty cool to click on missions then have to scroll down for frickin ages to find New Horizons.

 

[Raven]

Alphabetical order?

 

[Zarjazz]

Some HD images starting to be released now.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/...-from-new-horizons-released-in-pictures#img-1
Icy mountains seen on the surface of Pluto.

 

[Job]

Alphabetical order?

Yes, but so many missions, and loads still phoning home.

 

[Tom]

And here's Charon: