|
On July 14th, after a nine and a half year journey, the New Horizons space probe will make its first fly by of Pluto, giving us our first ever glimpse of what the dwarf planet. It's already giving us the clearest pictures we've ever had of Pluto:    So are we gonna get excited or are we gonna gently caress this up by whining about how NASA's largesse is an affront to all the world's poor and needy? 
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2015 09:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:46 |
|
|
Latest pic from 27.7 million kms away: Think we're starting to see some pretty clear hints of surface features on Pluto now, or at least some light and dark patches. Hopefully this means that the surface will be interesting to look at and study, and not just some undifferentiated, cratered grey rock. I also like this picture because it gives a pretty clear indication of how much darker Charon is than Pluto, another indication that we're actually going to visit two quite different worlds, not just one. If the origins of Pluto and Charon are quite different, that should lead to some more interesting science on the origin of these bodies and of the solar system in general - but perhaps some more cosmology / geology minded goons can comment more intelligently on this point. 21 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes to go.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2015 13:02
|
|
|
Processed pic w/ colour: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/06230439-new-horizons-update.html
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2015 21:45
|
|
|
Latest unprocessed pic: Some very clear surface features on both bodies now. Too early to make any predictions about what we might be seeing, but it's encouraging to know that these won't be barren, featureless worlds. Should also stress that all these unprocessed pics will be black and white until New Horizons gets much closer to Pluto, but Pluto in actuality is a reddish colour. Also interesting is this processed pic of Charon. It has a large, dark spot on its northern pole, so is starting to give off a bit of a death star vibe:  And here is a picture of an African child, starving and left to die by NASA and its greedy plutocrats: 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2015 07:52
|
|
|
12 days until the flyby! The Earth's poor remain malnourished! toggle posted:how long is the next flyby? or where does the orbit go after it zooms past? it comes back to pluto, right? Unfortunately not. The mission was basically a choice between a shorter journey and a quick flyby, and a long journey and the possibility of getting the spacecraft into orbit around Pluto. They opted for the former, which means that the spacecraft is moving much too quickly to fall into an orbit. The entire surface of Pluto and Charon will still be mapped, but the highest resolution mapping will only be possible on whichever sides of Charon and Pluto are facing the spacecraft when it makes its closest pass of the system. After that they're hoping to use the spacecraft to explore other trans-Neptunian objects. At the moment they've identified three possible Kuiper belt objects that they'd be hoping to reach by 2018-19, but it's yet to be decided which they'll visit. (wiki link). Unfortunately the other dwarf planets beyond Pluto (Eris, Sedna etc.) aren't accessible.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2015 15:06
|
|
|
 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2015 18:24
|
|
|
Parallax Scroll posted:when do we get to see the other moons Nix and Hydra are finally visible, but there's not much to see yet:  
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2015 20:14
|
|
|
5 hours until closest pass! Here's an image one of the guys from unmannedspaceflights.com made of the areas that will be mapped in the highest resolution by New Horizons:  The yellow framse are the data that we'll get first, the red and purple frames will come later. There's a pretty good mix of terrain there, so hopefully we'll get a good look at all the different terrain types there are to see on Pluto!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2015 07:41
|
|
|
spanky the dolphin posted:So what is the ETA for cool pluto images? Factoring in the 4 hour communication times and what have you. We should have a couple of hi-res pics by this evening, and I think NASA will organise a press conference to show them off (on a mobile now, so it's difficult to check, but I'm sure that someone will be able to tell you exactly when it's scheduled for). We won't gt much else for a few days though, as the spacecraft will be using all its resources gathering as much data as possible rather than on transmitting them back to earth. With the 1kb/s link they have, be prepared for a slow trickle of pics over the next few weeks rather than a huge slurry of high quality pics. But we should have enough hi-rs pics by the end of the week to have a good idea of what Pluto looks like close up.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2015 09:01
|
|
|
Live stream from NASA! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9I1KyNa8M
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2015 12:17
|
|
|
 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2015 12:22
|
|
|
Woooo! Well done people! 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2015 12:51
|
|
|
The Whole Internet posted:the colors are from another instrument that has worse range, so it's a blurry color image on top of a clear b+w image Actually for the one they released I don't think they used any colour data from the spacecraft at all, it looks like they've just kind of brushed it with a universal hue. Some of the gurus on unmannedpaceflights have been trying to play with it to get more accurate colours, but we won't know until all the colour data has been transferred from New Horizons how accurate they are: 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2015 07:12
|
|
|
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2015 17:33
|
|
|
And Charon: Kilmers Elbow posted:Hope they aren't all as blurry as that one. I think all the pictures we're going to get over the next few days will compressed somewhat. Full resolution pics will come later. Blurred fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jul 15, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2015 22:13
|
|
|
They've started calling the dark region on Pluto "cthulhu regio". 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2015 07:14
|
|
|
Cool people talking about cool things: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0jTdaOhG9wE
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2015 17:34
|
|
|
NTT posted:I need more high resolution pictures! Have a close-up of Charon, the highlight being the mountain on the top left that's in a hole for some reason:  And a 3D view of Pluto's mountains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37TNyDHZExA
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2015 06:44
|
|
|
cmndstab posted:What is that dark line on the top-right of Charon, that looks like it's cutting off a tiny sliver of the surface? A 10km deep canyon. VectorSigma posted:That almost looks like an impactor with a low enough relative velocity to just barely dig itself into the crust and toss aside a minimal amount of ejecta. I think that's one possibility they've cited. It could be debris flung out from an impact event, which then landed at low-speed on the surface, melting the surrounding ice before freezing over again. Blurred fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Jul 17, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2015 07:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:46 |
|
|
spasticColon posted:Weren't we supposed to get some of the high resolution pictures today? It's been pushed back to the end of the week. We'll get a big image dump on Friday and then possibly nothing more until September. 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2015 11:30
|
|