New Horizons

[smjjames]

It's noticeably getting bigger Awesome and exciting at the same time.

Yep, approaching fast.

Those white spots/areas... Clouds?

I don't think it's atmosphere is thick enough for clouds.

Anyways, I wonder what that string of roughly evenly (more or less) spaced dark spots are? Maybe it had a debris ring at one point, Charon formation perhaps?

[lajoswinkler]

There is a high probability of clouds, but they won't be this visible. Remember Triton? Very thin clouds in a haze of nitrogen.

[LordFerret]

All the speculation about Pluto in this thread, yet no mention about a possibility of a subsurface ocean? I found the following an interesting read.....

A Subsurface Ocean on Pluto?

and from that article, a reference to...

Tectonic Activity on Pluto After the Charon-Forming Impact

[lajoswinkler]

Subsurface oceans or at least liquid pockets should be a rule for all such bodies.

[Scotius]

A subsurface ocean... Fascinating theory, but i'm afraid it's a bit too optimistic hoping for parts of that ocean still being liquid. Pluto is small after all, and its really freaking cold out there.

[LordFerret]

From the second link I posted -

"The Pluto/Charon system is unique among major bodies in the solar system because it has reached the endpoint of its dynamical evolution: the so-called “dual synchronous†state in which Charon’s orbital period, spin period, and Pluto’s rotation period are equal; ..."

I was unaware of this dual synchronous state, and find it interesting; Mention being made about the possibility of evidence of the situation shown in surface features.

"As the orbit evolved to its present state and Pluto’s spin rate changed to match Charon’s orbital period, changes in the equilibrium tidal and rotational figures of the two bodies may have left their mark as systems of tectonic features on the surfaces of each body."

I'm eager to see better resolution images.

[Frida Space]

The smallest feature in this image is 160 km wide.

[Mitchz95]

Ten days to go!

[Frida Space]

Hydra targeting has begun!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php

[smjjames]

Hydra targeting has begun!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php

It's a teeny dot near the top of the image.

[Coupon]

Charon looks like an olive with that dark spot on the north pole.

[windows_x_seven]

10 days.

OHGODTHEHYPE

SCIENCE

- - - Updated - - -

Also, fun fact: There's a city called "Ceres" in the state where I live in Brazil.

[-Velocity-]

SERIOUSLY?!?! I just love the timing on this crap:

http://www.nasa.gov/nh/new-horizons-responds-spacecraft-anomaly

The New Horizons spacecraft experienced an anomaly the afternoon of July 4 that led to a loss of communication with Earth. Communication has since been reestablished and the spacecraft is healthy.

The mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft -- now 10 days from arrival at Pluto -- at 1:54 p.m. EDT, and regained communications with New Horizons at 3:15 p.m. EDT, through NASA’s Deep Space Network.

During that time the autonomous autopilot on board the spacecraft recognized a problem and – as it’s programmed to do in such a situation - switched from the main to the backup computer. The autopilot placed the spacecraft in “safe mode,†and commanded the backup computer to reinitiate communication with Earth. New Horizons then began to transmit telemetry to help engineers diagnose the problem.

A New Horizons Anomaly Review Board (ARB) was convened at 4 p.m. EDT to gather information on the problem and initiate a recovery plan. The team is now working to return New Horizons to its original flight plan. Due to the 9-hour, round trip communication delay that results from operating a spacecraft almost 3 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, full recovery is expected to take from one to several days; New Horizons will be temporarily unable to collect science data during that time.

Status updates will be issued as new information is available.

Hopefully, it was just some random cosmic ray it can fully recover from quickly... loss of science data for "several days"... I don't like the sound of that.

[Motokid600]

Nor do I like the sound of such an event occurring again just before the flyby :/

[Scotius]

I too hope it was just one-off fluke Losing the probe on the very doorstep of Pluto, would be heartbreaking for mission team and space enthusiasts following it.

[Mitchz95]

SERIOUSLY?!?! I just love the timing on this crap:

http://www.nasa.gov/nh/new-horizons-responds-spacecraft-anomaly

Hopefully, it was just some random cosmic ray it can fully recover from quickly... loss of science data for "several days"... I don't like the sound of that.

Well, now I'm terrified.

Thank god this happened now, while we have time to fix the problem. Imagine if it happened the day before the flyby.

[Frida Space]

Dear cosmic ray/glitch/whatever, you had 3453 other days during which you could strike New Horizons without causing any major issue. And you chose today, P-9 days. You jerk

Thank god this happened now, while we have time to fix the problem. Imagine if it happened the day before the flyby.

Many observations are planned before​ the encounter. The loss of science could actually be kinda bad, depending on how much time it takes them to recover, but I'm confident it won't be anything serious. obviously better now than July 12 or 13!

Not the first time either: NH encountered its first safe mode on March 19, 2007, due to an uncorrectable memory error in the primary command and data handling (C&DH) computer.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Frida Space

[epoca]

Not the first time either: NH encountered its first safe mode on March 19, 2007, due to an uncorrectable memory error in the primary command and data handling (C&DH) computer.

Very interesting, thanks.

How bad is this actually?

[Frida Space]

How bad is this actually?

It depends on how long it takes them to fully recover, but with the 9-hour round trip time I fear it might take a day or two.

If they manage to recover in said time, we shouldn't lose too much data. But what many people don't realize is that a lot of science actually happens during this approach phase, and not during encounter itself. According to the flight plan, Approach Phase 3 (AP3, P-21 to P-1) science activities include, but are not limited to:

- atm. escape: ambient plasma

- opnav/orbits/masses (now pretty useless)

- surface albedo variability

- surface color variability

- satellite & ring search (now pretty useless, but still ongoing)

- atm. escape: pickup ions and bow shock

- surface composition variability

- clouds/haze/winds from imaging

- geologic, color and composition maps

Obviously a few days' stop wouldn't completely mess things up, but still, definitely not what they were hoping to be doing right now.

[Kerbart]

To come within 6200 miles? Should make for some great observations/pictures!

It's nice to know NASA is metric

[PakledHostage]

It's nice to know NASA NASA's PR department is metric

Fixed that for you.

[Frida Space]

Just because I had nothing else to do, here's a chart showing the high-gain downlink data rates (in kbps) of some probes around the solar system. Obviously it doesn't depend only on distance, but still, that's the main reason why New Horizons' data rates are so low.

Two fun facts:

1 - during yesterday's safe mode, New Horizons' downlink data rate fell under 9 bps! That's 0.009 kbps!!

2 - while I was watching NASA's Eyes on DSN website, I noticed that STEREO-A and Dawn are exactly (+/- 0.03 mln kms) the same distance from Earth right now!

[lajoswinkler]

Noice. You've made a typo there. It's hundreds, not hundreths.

[Frida Space]

Noice. You've made a typo there. It's hundreds, not hundreths.

oops.. thanks!

[Superfluous J]

1 - during yesterday's safe mode, New Horizons' downlink data rate fell under 9 bps! That's 0.009 kbps!!

Or to put it another way, a byte is 8 bits, and a(n ASCII) character is 2 bytes. So, to send what I've typed here the probe would have taken over 5 minutes.