New Horizons

[Starwhip]

I've got no idea what the cameras on New Horizons look like (I suppose I could do some research), but I wanted to test reflection in Cycles and hey!

[Frida Space]

Check me if I'm wrong here Sandy, but Hohman to Pluto is a 90 year trip, and you'll need Hohmann to land, no?

It's 45 years. 90 is the round trip time. Still an awful lot, obviously

If anyone could find this useful for twitter or anything, a graphical thing I made for a website for today's encounter

[Robotengineer]

Check me if I'm wrong here Sandy, but Hohman to Pluto is a 90 year trip, and you'll need Hohmann to land, no?

Sandy who? Is a Hohmann transfer to Pluto 90 years? Either it would have to be a generational thing or they would need a large rocket stopping stage, NH was going about 14 km/s during the flyby, so you would need a little more than that for the stop and land.

[Pixel of Life]

And we have the full res image!

http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/20150714_pluto-nh-ehealth1.png

There's no way that's the full res one. Wasn't the final image supposed to be less than 1 km/px, compared to the 4 km/px of the previous image? At 4 km/px, Pluto would appear roughly 600 pixels wide, just like in that image. At 1 km/px, it would be nearly 2400 pixels wide (much too big to even fit on a FullHD monitor without scaling/zooming - half of it would be off screen).

[Frida Space]

There's no way that's the full res one. Wasn't the final image supposed to be less than 1 km/px, compared to the 4 km/px of the previous image? At 4 km/px, Pluto would appear roughly 600 pixels wide, just like in that image. At 1 km/px, it would be nearly 2400 pixels wide (much too big to even fit on a FullHD monitor without scaling/zooming - you would see less than half of it).

Yes, the resolution is 4 km/pixel as expected for this image. The <1 km/pixel resolution images obviously still have to come down. We won't have any of those for the next 20 hours or so.

[Pixel of Life]

Yes, the resolution is 4 km/pixel as expected for this image. The <1 km/pixel resolution images obviously still have to come down. We won't have any of those for the next 20 hours or so.

That's what I thought. Thanks for the clarification.

[Frida Space]

That's what I thought. Thanks for the clarification.

No problem!

Also, this very interesting detail:

Edited July 14, 2015 by Frida Space

[LordFerret]

No problem!

Also, this very interesting detail:

[Aethon]

Sandy who?

Yes 45 years to Pluto one way, sorry.

Riddle me this space nerds.. A check of the DSN at this second shows no dishes communicating with NH. My understanding was one of them should be sending a signal to the spacecraft through Pluto/Xaron atmosphere? Eyes on the solar system shows it should be.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Edited July 14, 2015 by Aethon

[Frida Space]

I thought I heard them say the 1km/pixel image would be available by 9pm (EST) tonight???

If I understood correctly, at 0100 UT (21 EST) there will be the wake up signal, an 18 minute telemetry only transmission, no photos. First photos should come down in a 1.5 hour long transmission at 10:59 UT tomorrow morning (not sure if that's the start or the end of the transmission, but I'm sure it's Earth time, so no need to add or subtract the 4.5 hour delay). For more information on those images, see this post

Riddle me this space nerds.. A check of the DSN at this second shows no dishes communicating with NH. My understanding was one of then should be sending a signal to the spacecraft through Pluto/Xaron atmosphere? Eyes on the solar system shows it should be.

There's the 4.5-hour delay. They hopefully sent the signals 4.5 hours ago.

Plus, here's Pluto seen from Rosetta two days ago! http://www.mps.mpg.de/4020338/Aktuelles_2015_07_14_Rosetta_richtet_die_Augen_auf_Pluto

[Red Iron Crown]

Riddle me this space nerds.. A check of the DSN at this second shows no dishes communicating with NH. My understanding was one of then should be sending a signal to the spacecraft through Pluto/Xaron atmosphere? Eyes on the solar system shows it should be.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Looks like one of the Canberra dishes is tracking it, waiting for the signal.

[lajoswinkler]

For all we know, the probe might be spinning debris right now.

[Robotengineer]

For all we know, the probe might be spinning debris right now.

Think positive thoughts.

[Xannari Ferrows]

Riddle me this space nerds.. A check of the DSN at this second shows no dishes communicating with NH. My understanding was one of them should be sending a signal to the spacecraft through Pluto/Xaron atmosphere? Eyes on the solar system shows it should be.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

It is. You have to account for sudden eclipses by space objects.

[heng]

Think positive thoughts.

Ok... I'm absolutely positive the probe is spinning deb... *g* SCNR

This might be a stupid question, but is NH getting a gravity boost or gravity brake, or 'only' a change in direction out there?

Edited July 14, 2015 by heng
typo

[Zucal]

This might be a stupid question, but is NH getting a gravity boost or gravity break, or 'only' a change in direction out there?

Neither, Pluto is so small and NH is so fast it's relatively unaffected.

[Aethon]

(face palm).. Oh yeah.. Obviously. Thanks Frida. I got up way too early for this, and I see communication now.

So I was discussing this in the KSP Steam chat, since this is a spacelike event, from our perspective, the flyby hasn't happened yet??

[Endersmens]

From my understanding, none of the above. Pluto is tiny, and NH is going through at. ~14.5 km/s, so it isn't really affected by Pluto at all. (It will, but it'll be very small)

Edit: ninja'd

[Frida Space]

In case anyone missed it or wants to watch it again while we wait for the phone home call (like me )

[Tw1]

Looks like one of the Canberra dishes is tracking it, waiting for the signal.

I follow CSIRO, our national science organisation, and they've been talking about Tidbinbilla's involvement in the project for a while, so that sounds right.

[Frida Space]

(face palm).. Oh yeah.. Obviously. Thanks Frida. I got up way too early for this, and I see communication now.

So I was discussing this in the KSP Steam chat, since this is a spacelike event, from our perspective, the flyby hasn't happened yet??

Haha no worries, I'm helped by the timezone, woke up at 11 am! Yes, I guess so, I remember watching the Curiosity landing livestream and obviously everyone started cheering only once we had confirmation of the success, not when we expected the landing to actually take place, but I guess this time it's a bit different.

Also, coming up on Charon occultations: 14:17:41 UT Charon-Sun, 14:20:01 Charon-Earth.

- - - Updated - - -

Fascinating stuff all over Twitter:

[Aethon]

So would Pluto have had a primordial Hydrogen atmosphere like the inner planets? If so, speculation on the mechanism for it's loss and the acquisition of the Nitrogen?

[lajoswinkler]

Ok... I'm absolutely positive the probe is spinning deb... *g* SCNR

This might be a stupid question, but is NH getting a gravity boost or gravity brake, or 'only' a change in direction out there?

Weird answers you're getting. "No, but it will be tiny" - well is it or is it not?!

Yes, it will alter its trajectory, but the effect will be very small. Gaining or losing speed depends on the angle of arrival.

So would Pluto have had a primordial Hydrogen atmosphere like the inner planets? If so, speculation on the mechanism for it's loss and the acquisition of the Nitrogen?

Hydrogen is lightweight so it's easily blown away by the savage young Sun even that far away, but I'd say that most of it simply reacted with other stuff over the eons. Nitrogen is, unlike hydrogen, almost inert in all those conditions.

[smjjames]

And we have the full res image!

http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/20150714_pluto-nh-ehealth1.png

Awesomeness. Is the color truly accurate though, I wonder? The colors seemed more variable in the blurry hubble image.

[Kryten]

Awesomeness. Is the color truly accurate though, I wonder? The colors seemed more variable in the blurry hubble image.

The hubble image is not just an image from hubble; it's stitched together from lightcurve data from dozens of observations of charon occulting pluto. Trying to get colour out of that kind of dataset is a pretty sketchy process.