3 ms·

I think the suggestion was to send the data after impact. I guess the idea is to basically fire a shock-absorbing crate full of scientific instruments, let the

by chc 11y ago

I think the suggestion was to send the data after impact. I guess the idea is to basically fire a shock-absorbing crate full of scientific instruments, let the impact destroy the crate, and hope the instruments survive and get to work.

chasing 11y ago
Yup, that was my idea. Or to have NH itself fire off some very tiny instruments that might weight little enough to not go off like an atom bomb when hitting the ground. A GoPro, for example. (I KNOW: NOT AN ACTUAL GOPRO. A small armored camera.) Or a thermometer. The constraint there, though, might be designing equipment that is both very low mass and also capable of talking back to either Earth or the rest of NH as it zips away.
- danbruc 11y ago
  I fear that won't work. The speed relative to Pluto during closest approach was 13.78 meters every millisecond, I can't imagine that anything larger than a grain of sand will not behave like a liquid upon impact.
  - idlewords 11y ago
    Even a grain of sand will go boom. Here's what a particle of similar size did to the space shuttle windshield, traveling at half the speed of New Horizons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_debris_impact_on_Space_Shuttle_window.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_debris_impact_...
    - socceroos 11y ago
      wow.
    - blazespin 11y ago
      How does new horizons survive? Space must be pretty empty.
      - idlewords 11y ago
        That's why they call it space! More seriously, there's a dust counter on the probe whose entire job is to be hit with stuff. But it's much tinier than a sand grain.