New Horizons Pluto Flyby

eg2505 said:
really cool;

but forgive my ignorance; didnt voyager 1/2 pass by pluto already?
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Nope, the two voyagers went past Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.

edit: Bio beat me to it...
 
eg2505 said:
really cool;

but forgive my ignorance; didnt voyager 1/2 pass by pluto already?

didnt that probe send photos back?
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The only pics we had prior to this flyby of Pluto was from the Hubble space telescope which as you can see by the image attached wasnt really giving us that much to look at.
421596main_s1006ay.jpg
 
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New Horizons has obtained impressive new images of Pluto and its large moon Charon that highlight their compositional diversity. These are not actual color images of Pluto and Charon—they are shown here in exaggerated colors that make it easy to note the differences in surface material and features on each planetary body.

The images were obtained using three of the color filters of the “Ralph” instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT. New Horizons has seven science instruments on board the spacecraft—including “Ralph” and “Alice”, whose names are a throwback to the “Honeymooners,” a popular 1950s sitcom.

“These images show that Pluto and Charon are truly complex worlds. There's a whole lot going on here,” said New Horizons co-investigator Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona. “Our surface composition team is working as fast as we can to identify the substances in different regions on Pluto and unravel the processes that put them where they are.”

The color data helps scientists understand the molecular make-up of ices on the surfaces of Pluto and Charon, as well as the age of geologic features such as craters. They can also tell us about surface changes caused by space “weather,” such as radiation.

The new color images reveal that the “heart” of Pluto actually consists of two remarkably different-colored regions. In the false-color image, the heart consists of a western lobe shaped like an ice cream cone that appears peach color in this image. A mottled area on the right (east) side looks bluish. A mid-latitude band appears in shades ranging from pale blue through red. Even within the northern polar cap, in the upper part of the image, various shades of yellow-orange indicate subtle compositional differences. This image was obtained using three of the color filters of the Ralph instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT and received on the ground on at 12:25 pm.

CHARON IS JUST AS COLORFUL
The surface of Charon is viewed using the same exaggerated color. The red on the dark northern polar cap of Charon is attributed to hydrocarbon and other molecules, a class of chemical compounds called tholins. The mottled colors at lower latitudes point to the diversity of terrains on Charon. This image was obtained using three of the color filters of the Ralph instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT and received on the ground on at 12:25 pm.

“We make these color images to highlight the variety of surface environments present in the Pluto system,” said Dennis Reuter, co-investigator with the New Horizons Composition Team. “They show us in an intuitive way that there is much still to learn from the data coming down.” Due to the three-billion-mile distance to Pluto, data takes 4 ½ hours to come to Earth, even at the speed of light. It will take 16 months for all of New Horizons’ science data to be received, and the treasure trove from this mission will be studied for decades to come.
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Source
nh-071315_falsecolorcomposite.jpg
 
herbertk said:
Not so the radio waves take 4.5 hours not light....
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1. They only travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, when propogating through a medium they are slowed according to the permeability and permativity of the medium. C = 1/sqrt(Permeability * Permativity) 2. Air has nearly normal permeability and permativity so in practice they do travel a nearly the speed of light.

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/radio-waves-travel-at-speed-of-light.151920/
 
Zyraz said:
1. They only travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, when propogating through a medium they are slowed according to the permeability and permativity of the medium. C = 1/sqrt(Permeability * Permativity) 2. Air has nearly normal permeability and permativity so in practice they do travel a nearly the speed of light.

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/radio-waves-travel-at-speed-of-light.151920/
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I stand corrected made a mistake in calculating it 3bil miles is indeed 4.473 light hours... interesting... some bad latency haha
 
herbertk said:
I stand corrected made a mistake in calculating it 3bil miles is indeed 4.473 light hours... interesting... some bad latency haha
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No worries , so we all learn ;)
Whats important is having an interest.
 
Interesting New Horizon trivia .. mementos on board the craft.

Clyde Tombaugh's ashes

The remains of the man who discovered Pluto are on board in the New Horizon's spacecraft in a container with the inscription "Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system's ‘third zone’ Adelle and Muron's boy, Patricia's husband, Annette and Alden's father, astronomer, teacher, punster, and friend: Clyde W. Tombaugh (1906-1997)."

"Send Your Name to Pluto" CD

Headed to Pluto is a CD-ROM containing the names of 434,738 people who signed up to be part of history before launch. On the other side of the spacecraft is another CD-ROM containing images of the New Horizons personnel.

Florida and Maryland state quarters

New Horizons is carrying the state quarter from Florida, the state from where the spacecraft launched nine years ago. Also on board is Maryland's state quarter, which represents where New Horizons was built.

A stamp from 1991

New Horizons crew added a stamp from 1991 that proclaims: "Pluto: Not Yet Explored."

"We thought it would be great to have this stamp fly past Pluto while its message becomes obsolete!" — Alan Sterm

A piece of another spacecraft

A small piece of SpaceShip One — the first privately funded manned spacecraft, which launched from the U.S. in 2004 — was installed on the lower inside deck of New Horizons. The inscription on the front reads: "To commemorate its historic role in the advancement of spaceflight, this piece of SpaceShip One is being flown on another historic spacecraft: New Horizons. New Horizons is Earth's first mission to Pluto, the farthest known planet in our solar system."

http://mashable.com/2015/07/12/pluto-new-horizons-mission-nasa/
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Scientists sometimes do have a sense of humour it seems..
 
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SOURCE
NEW HORIZONS
TYPE
DATA
DATA RATE
1.68 kb/sec
FREQUENCY
8.44 GHz
POWER RECEIVED
3.04 x 10-22 kW

Yeah its gonna take a while....
 
SeRpEnT said:
Daaaaaaaaaaarrnnnnnn! That telescope needs an upgrade!
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Soon :

The-Anatomy-of-the-JWT.jpg
http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope model
Full-scale James Webb Space Telescope model at South by Southwest in Austin
Names Next Generation Space Telescope
Mission type Astronomy
Operator NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI [1]
Website jwst.nasa.gov
sci.esa.int/jwst
stsci.edu/jwst
Mission duration 5 years (design)
10 years (goal)
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer Northrop Grumman
Ball Aerospace
Launch mass 6,500 kg (14,300 lb) [2]
Dimensions 20.1 m × 7.21 m (65.9 ft × 23.7 ft) (sunshield)
Start of mission
Launch date October 2018 [3]
Rocket Ariane 5 ECA
Launch site Kourou ELA-3
Contractor Arianespace
Orbital parameters
Reference system Sun–Earth L2
Regime Halo orbit
Periapsis 374,000 km (232,000 mi)[4]
Apoapsis 1,500,000 km (930,000 mi)[4]
Period 6 months
Epoch planned
Main
Type Korsch telescope
Diameter 6.5 m (21 ft)
Focal length 131.4 m (431 ft)
Collecting area 25 m2 (270 sq ft)
Wavelengths from 0.6 µm (orange)
to 28.5 µm (mid-infrared)
Transponders
Band S-band (TT&C support)
Ka band (data acquisition)
Bandwidth S-band up: 16 kbit/s
S-band down: 40 kbit/s
Ka band down: up to 28 Mbit/s
Instruments
NIRCam Near IR Camera
NIRSpec Near-Infrared Spectrograph
MIRI Mid IR Instrument
NIRISS Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph
FGS Fine Guidance Sensor


The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is a space observatory under construction and scheduled to launch in October 2018. The JWST will offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength visible to the mid-infrared, and is a successor instrument to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The telescope features a segmented 6.5-meter (21 ft) diameter primary mirror and will be located near the Earth–Sun L2 point. A large sunshield will keep its mirror and four science instruments below 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F).
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