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New Horizons phones home
- Lennu 11y agoIt amazes me that we humans have made something that has travelled over seven billion kilometers in cold dark emptiness and sends us highly detailed photographs of things we have never seen before.
- zapdrive 11y agoIt would be awesome if artificial structures are discovered on Pluto. What would be mankind's next step, if say life is discovered on Pluto?
- douche 11y agoClearly, we would be all about the heechee land grab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee
- rz2k 11y agoThat's an interesting idea. On one hand I would think that something intelligent living with that little energy available per square meter would operate very slowly, such that we could communicate with it like a correspondence chess game. However, on the other hand that it alternates between pretty different climates every 250 years suggest the type of pressures that lead to different eras in Earth's history where life was predominantly smaller or more 'simple' before becoming bigger and more complex again. Maybe at low temperatures though, 250 years is a short hibernation.
- soperj 11y agoThis implys that the only way that organism can obtain energy would be from the sun, and not from some internal process on Pluto.
- rz2k 11y agoI was actually thinking of the evidence of tectonic forces, too. Like a long inhale and exhale collected by the mass of the body and realized at the borders of geologic transformation every plutonic year? There's something beautiful about the image. An even more exotic arrangement, beyond electrochemical processes, to somehow 'metabolize' matter directly into energy would exceed the definition of life in my opinion, as though it would be life 2.0 or something, and also have a pretty fascinating impact on the universe.
- lfowles 11y agoSounds a bit like the planet from A Deepness in the Sky. Are the spiders in hibernation now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nkozyra 11y agoAnecdotally, I've seen it quite a bit in mainstream news. It was ~ the first or second teased story on NBC nightly news, and they spent some time on it yesterday, as well.
- pdabbadabba 11y agoPerhaps one might wish there were more, but I have seen numerous stories in the mainstream press. In fact, I missed my subway stop this morning reading a very good article about NH in the New York Times.
- coffeecheque 11y agoThere's been wall-to-wall coverage on Australia's national broadcaster for days (and online). EDIT: Ah the parent comment has been deleted. It was saying that there hasn't been much mainstream news coverage of the New Horizons probe.
- zacharycohn 11y agoThis is the most incredible picture I have ever seen. In May, the best picture of Pluto was a couple blown up pixels. Now, it looks like a render from a Pixar movie. https://twitter.com/tothur/status/620601134651166720/photo/1 https://twitter.com/tothur/status/620601134651166720/photo/1
- steckerbrett 11y agoI'm still amazed we knew about its existence any time prior, the best picture we had in may is just 9 pixels wide. There's more visual information in Google's favicon.
- colechristensen 11y agoHowever, it's not quite true. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/pluto-20100204.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/pluto-2010... Shows better the previous best.
- teraflop 11y agoThose represent our previous best information about the surface of Pluto, but they're not individual photos -- they're composite reconstructions from a number of different images taken over a long period of time, as the planet rotated. > The Hubble images are a few pixels wide. But through a technique called dithering, multiple, slightly offset pictures can be combined through computer-image processing to synthesize a higher-resolution view than could be seen in a single exposure. "This has taken four years and 20 computers operating continuously and simultaneously to accomplish," says Buie, who developed special algorithms to sharpen the Hubble data.
- Zardoz84 11y agoIt's interesting notice that the white heart and the black whale could be found on these maps.
- k_ 11y ago
- mercurialshark 11y agoWhy does the BBC refuse to capitalize the letters in NASA as an acronym? Is it British grammar or do they not realize it's in all caps?
- _asummers 11y agoFrom their style guide[0]: Acronyms Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector union Unite). Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec). [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-guide/article/art20131010112740749 http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-guide/art...
- mercurialshark 11y agoGreat answer, thanks!
- greenyoda 11y agoThat's apparently correct British usage. From The Guardian Style Guide:[1] "Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card." [1] http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a
- joshuapants 11y agoDo they actually pronounce it as "vee-ay-tee" instead of just "vat?"
- artursapek 11y agoI can't wait, hopefully they get the higher resolution ones tomorrow!
- idlewords 11y agoI believe tomorrow we get a higher-resolution Charon and a similar resolution picture of Pluto. The incredible Emily Lakdawalla has a full list of what's coming when: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/06240556-what-to-expect-new-horizons-pluto.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/0624055...
- ashmud 11y agoNice "not-planets" montage by Emily Lakdawalla here: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07141338-the-not-planets.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/0714133...
- multibear 11y ago'"With this mission, we have visited every single planet in the Solar System," said Nasa's administrator Charles Bolden.' Uhhhhhhh... Should somebody tell him?
- breitling 11y agoI don't follow...have we not visited all the planets? Perhaps he means we have flown past them all?
- mercurialshark 11y agoPluto = dwarf planet, so it's irrelevant to statement. Also, we certainly haven't visited all dwarf planets.
- electic 11y agoThe probe was launched before Pluto was re-classified as a dwarf planet. Either way, this is an immense achievement in both will and engineering.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Thorondor 11y ago> Should somebody tell him? Bolden says he still considers Pluto a planet. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11739763/Pluto-I-still-call-it-a-planet-says-head-of-Nasa.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11739763/Pluto...
- supermatt 11y agoConsidering the definition of a plutoid is effectively "a planet further away than neptune", I'm inclined to shun the plutoists and agree with him.
- fpgaminer 11y agoHere's an enhanced version of the color photo of Pluto released today (taken on July 13th, 768,000 km): https://i.imgur.com/BiR2WNO.png https://i.imgur.com/BiR2WNO.png
- solotronics 11y agoTotally amazing! Perhaps one day with hard work and lots of luck humanity may reach to the stars and beyond.
- Yhippa 11y agoAd astra per aspera.
- feelnaren 11y agoGaint leap
- junto 11y agoI assume that the probe is travelling in a straight line? I also assume that each planet is busily orbiting the sun. How on earth (pardon the pun) did they work out the exact speed the probe should travel at (I also assume it accelerates) in order to fly past each planet and moon at exactly the right point of time and space?
- incepted 11y agoSimple ballistics. The probe is still subject to gravity and it can receive trajectory adjustments as needed. It's not like it was launched ten years ago and then it was on its own: it's been piloted remotely from the Earth as necessary. It's a remarkable achievement but the science behind it has been known and used successfully for decades.
- azernik 11y agoHave a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_mechanics The short version is - for the most part these trajectories can be calculated with a decent degree of accuracy with relatively simple equations. Rocket engines tend to give acceleration in short bursts (which simplifies the computations a lot as well), so New Horizons was launched out of Earth orbit at about 16km/s and since then has only fired its own engines for short correction burns.
- jobigoud 11y agoI think you misunderstood the statement about "visiting every single planet in the Solar System with this mission". It's not meant to imply that this specific mission visited all the planets, just that this mission completes the achievement. (In his opinion).
- danieltillett 11y agoWhat I find interesting is how few craters there are compared to other planets (yes I know pluto is no longer a planet). Does this reflect that meteor bombardment is rare in the outer solar system, or that there is some sort of geological process going on that is removing craters?
- LordIllidan 11y agoPerhaps Pluto's gravitational field is not strong enough to trap meteors?
- danieltillett 11y agoIt is not a matter of trapping - even asteroids which are much smaller have many more craters.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoInitial interpretation of the first image apparently suggested an active (geologically speaking) surface. This would tend to remove visible craters. Think Venus (highly active surface) vs the Moon.
- danieltillett 11y agoInteresting. I wonder is powering this as there is no obvious energy source - maybe tidal?
- JupiterMoon 11y agoI'm not sure. I did wonder about this interpretation myself. It does not make much sense in terms our understanding of tectonics (or lack thereof) for other bodies in the solar system.
- maaku 11y agoPluto may have a young surface due to the collision which created its moons.
- ChrisGranger 11y agoThat infographic appears to have the colors for Mars and Jupiter reversed...
- chrisBob 11y agohttp://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-new-horizons-phones-home-safe-after-pluto-flyby http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-new-horizons-phones-... It seems strange that the highest ranked story about Pluto for the past few days has been from BBC not NASA. Check out www.nasa.gov for the original press release and updates as they come in.
- callumprentice 11y agoI love that we have an operational “deep space network” - emotional moment as New Horizons reconnects after Pluto fly past last night https://amp.twimg.com/v/e360e83b-b3dd-4862-9a7f-7b111b33e27d https://amp.twimg.com/v/e360e83b-b3dd-4862-9a7f-7b111b33e27d