Updates NASA New Horizons Mission Updates

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php?page=piPerspective_01_23_2015

The PI's Perspective
Something Special in the Air

January 23, 2015

The earliest stages of our Pluto encounter have begun, and New Horizons remains healthy and on course.

Already, the SWAP, PEPSSI and SDC instruments are taking daily science data — measuring the charged particle and dust environment of the space near Pluto’s orbit. Next week, on Jan. 25, the sensitive LORRI long focal length camera aboard New Horizons will begin imaging the Pluto system for navigation purposes. This will yield dozens of images that our navigation teams will analyze for positional information about Pluto and Charon against star fields, allowing us to home in more accurately than by radio navigation from Earth alone.

 

[N_Molson]

Next door, really, with only 1.37 AU to go ! : :thumbup:

 

[Notebook]

BBC article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30954673

A Nasa probe is to start photographing the icy world of Pluto, after travelling 5bn km (3bn miles) and nine years to get near the dwarf planet.

The mission to Pluto is being billed as the last great encounter in planetary exploration.

N.

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150204

February 4, 2015
Happy Birthday Clyde Tombaugh: New Horizons Returns New Images of Pluto

N.

 

[Unstung]

NASA: "85 Years after Pluto’s Discovery, NASA’s New Horizons Spots Small Moons Orbiting Pluto"

Exactly 85 years after Clyde Tombaugh’s historic discovery of Pluto, the NASA spacecraft set to encounter the icy dwarf planet this summer is providing its first views of the small moons orbiting Pluto.

The moons Nix and Hydra are visible in a series of images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft from Jan. 27-Feb. 8, at distances ranging from about 125 million to 115 million miles (201 million to 186 million kilometers). The long-exposure images offer New Horizons’ best view yet of these two small moons circling Pluto which Tombaugh discovered at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Feb. 18, 1930.

[...]

Assembled into a seven-frame movie, the new images provide the spacecraft’s first extended look at Hydra (identified by a yellow diamond ) and its first-ever view of Nix (orange diamond). The right-hand image set has been specially processed to make the small moons easier to see. “It’s thrilling to watch the details of the Pluto system emerge as we close the distance to the spacecraft’s July 14 encounter,” says New Horizons science team member John Spencer, also from Southwest Research Institute. “This first good view of Nix and Hydra marks another major milestone, and a perfect way to celebrate the anniversary of Pluto’s discovery.”

These are the first of a series of long-exposure images that will continue through early March, with the purpose of refining the team’s knowledge of the moons’ orbits. Each frame is a combination of five 10-second images, taken with New Horizons’ Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) using a special mode that combines pixels to increase sensitivity at the expense of resolution. At left, Nix and Hydra are just visible against the glare of Pluto and its large moon Charon, and the dense field of background stars. The bright and dark streak extending to the right of Pluto is an artifact of the camera electronics, resulting from the overexposure of Pluto and Charon. As can be seen in the movie, the spacecraft and camera were rotated in some of the images to change the direction of this streak, in order to prevent it from obscuring the two moons.

The right-hand images have been processed to remove most of Pluto and Charon’s glare, and most of the background stars. The processing leaves blotchy and streaky artifacts in the images, and also leaves a few other residual bright spots that are not real features, but makes Nix and Hydra much easier to see. Celestial north is inclined 28 degrees clockwise from the “up” direction in these images.

[...]

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150310

March 10, 2015
With Trajectory Correction, NASA’s New Horizons Homes in on Pluto

N.

 

[Andy44]

Light time delay is 4 and a half hours, wow! The operators commanding the spacecraft at that immense distance surely must've set a record for most remote jet firing ever.

 

[Keatah]

Light time delay is 4 and a half hours, wow! The operators commanding the spacecraft at that immense distance surely must've set a record for most remote jet firing ever.

What about the Voyagers?

 

[Andy44]

What about the Voyagers?

I don't think the Voyagers did any propulsive maneuvering at that distance. Would have to look it up to be sure.

 

[Keatah]

Voyagers are still firing RCS today to maintain antenna orientation.

 

[statickid]

Yes, they use hydrazine for attitude control, IIRC

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150312

A Record Day for New Horizons



Next exit: Pluto!

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.

N.

 

[lairdwilcox]

Pluto

I've wondered about Pluto all of my life. It will be fascinating when we finally get there. I wonder if it will become a planet again?

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_04_13_2015

Capstone: 2015

New Horizons remains healthy and on course for its prime Pluto system science in July!

Artist rendition of old spacecraft
Fifty years to the day before we explore Pluto, humankind's first exploration of Mars by a spacecraft took place, with the historic flyby of 14 July 1965 by NASA's Mariner IV. (NASA images.)

On July 14, New Horizons will make its closest approach to Pluto and its system of moons. In a cosmic coincidence, that will occur 50 years to the day after the historic first flyby of Mars, on July 14, 1965!

It's amazing – in less than one human lifetime, from innermost Mercury to outermost Pluto – all nine classical planets of our solar system will have been explored. Equally amazing, NASA spacecraft have led the way: from the very first such flyby of Venus in 1962, to the New Horizons flyby of Pluto in 2015, NASA has been first to every one of those planets.

Carl Sagan used to say that there would only be one or two generations of humans who would share that special moment in time, who as children know the planets only as points of light but as adults know them all as places, imaged and studied – real worlds that have become part of human experience.

 

[statickid]

I've wondered about Pluto all of my life. It will be fascinating when we finally get there. I wonder if it will become a planet again?

No, the classification is based on characteristics such as size and orbit description. Nothing we can see "more close up" will change its classification.

 

[Unstung]

No, the classification is based on characteristics such as size and orbit description. Nothing we can see "more close up" will change its classification.

Scrutinizing Pluto will likely reveal the dwarf planet to be a dynamic world which may result in a desire to change the IAU's definition of a planet. Two out of the three criteria to be a planet are flawed and could be replaced by a universal requirement that is not exclusive to the Solar System, such as requiring a celestial body to have a differentiated interior. New Horizons should be able to determine whether Pluto's interior is differentiated, so the spacecraft's discoveries can actually help change Pluto's classification.

Now, onto the definition of a planet:

A planet [1] is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

The hydrostatic equilibrium criterion provides an acceptable size requirement that can apply to any object in the universe. However, as mentioned before, the other two criteria are terrible.

Regarding (a), there are exoplanets that have been ejected from their solar systems. Obviously a planet is not a star, but it does not have to orbit a star, and whether a celestial body orbits another planet should not matter either. All part (c) does is dramatically reduce the number of objects that can be considered planets based on arbitrary equations.

Overall, the definition is unacceptable and it should be replaced by one that can describe all objects in the universe. A new definition might not include Pluto, but having more objective criteria is an improvement.

 

[Pipcard]

First color image of Pluto/Charon from 0.77 AU

 

[fsci123]

Pluto detects possible ice caps on new horizons

http://www.nasa.gov/pluto042915

These "movies" show a series of New Horizons images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, taken at 13 different times spanning 6.5 days, starting on April 12 and ending on April 18, 2015. During that time, the NASA spacecraft's distance from Pluto decreased from about 69 million miles (93 million kilometers) to 64 million miles (104 million kilometers).

The pictures were taken with the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI. Pluto and Charon rotate around a center-of-mass (also called the "barycenter") once every 6.4 Earth days, and these LORRI images capture one complete rotation of the system. The direction of the rotation axis is shown in the figure. In one of these movies, the center of Pluto is kept fixed in the frame, while the other movie is fixed on the center of mass (accounting for the "wobble" in the system as Charon orbits Pluto).

 

[Artlav]

Pluto detects possible ice caps on new horizons

Make sure the brain is in gear before posting on the internet.

On topic...
Wow, we are just three month away.
Feels like the launch was just a couple of years ago, not all the way in 2006.

The pictures look a bit weird
Could it be that Pluto is not exactly spherical?

 

[fsci123]

Feels like the launch was just a couple of years ago, not all the way in 2006.

The pictures look a bit weird
Could it be that Pluto is not exactly spherical?

Odds are its in some strange shape or covered in deep craters or enormous mountain ridges. I'm really interested in seeing the point underneath Charon.