SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

That's no moon!
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's no planet, either.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Kraken »

I thought it was supposed to be some weeks before we see the real hi-rez pictures. That image is already pretty awesome.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by stessier »

It is - that was taken from 476k miles. The closest approach was under 8k miles. It should phone home around 9pm tonight to start the data download...that will last 16 months.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

stessier wrote:The closest approach was under 8k miles.
Which was mere hours ago.

NASA
New Horizons' almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile (60 by 90 kilometers) window in space -- the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball.

Because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched - hurtling through the Pluto system at more than 30,000 mph, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft. Once it reestablishes contact Tuesday night, it will take 16 months for New Horizons to send its cache of data - 10 years' worth -- back to Earth.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by LawBeefaroni »

So the nail-biting continues.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by stessier »

XKCD - what if New Horizons hit my car.

Spoiler: It would not be good.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by stessier »

Ack - what has been seen cannot be unseen (SFW).
Spoiler:
Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Enough »

stessier wrote:Ack - what has been seen cannot be unseen (SFW).
Spoiler:
Image
Image

And now this image can get properly updated:

Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

:shock:

Thankfully, New Horizons is not coming back. And good luck following the path back past Jupiter.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

xkcd

Image
After decades of increasingly confused arguing, Pluto is reclassified as a "dwarf Pluto."
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Kraken »

I totally understand why we couldn't have realtime coverage of the Pluto flyby -- time delay, low bandwidth, limited power. But as someone who sat up watching all of Voyager's flybys -- including the "Neptune All Night" coverage -- I'm a little disappointed. And the most exciting feature of Neptune's flyby was a cloud named Scooter.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by DD* »

Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Daehawk »

Heard a rumor Pluto is larger than they thought.

I love that pic of all the planets. Pluto should still be a planet.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by stessier »

DD* wrote:Enlarge Image
More like as fast as we possibly could.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Paingod »

stessier wrote:
DD* wrote:Enlarge Image
More like as fast as we possibly could.
Cosmically speaking, we rolled by at an idle.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by raydude »

Kraken wrote:I totally understand why we couldn't have realtime coverage of the Pluto flyby -- time delay, low bandwidth, limited power. But as someone who sat up watching all of Voyager's flybys -- including the "Neptune All Night" coverage -- I'm a little disappointed. And the most exciting feature of Neptune's flyby was a cloud named Scooter.
In addition to the things you mentioned: low signal means only the 70-meter dishes of the Deep Space Network can pick up New Horizons' signal. And there are only 3 of them. And the Earth rotates, so they're not all pointing at NH at the same time, and NH has to wait in the queue for dish time just like any other spacecraft. Talking to Pluto is hard.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Daehawk »

Pluto and Charon 2 days away at 2.5 million km.

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Enlarge Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

Nice subtle touch in the last panel.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Brian »

Try the animated version.

Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

:(
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by raydude »

This just in! We discovered nitron!
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Daehawk wrote:Heard a rumor Pluto is larger than they thought.

I love that pic of all the planets. Pluto should still be a planet.
Enlarge Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by raydude »

Watching NASA TV showing one of the hi-res images of Pluto. I have to say, I'm impressed. And amazed. No impact craters on the image they showed, suggesting that it could be geologically active. And that the mountains could very well be made of water ice.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by stessier »

We ain't seen nothin' yet. Click to embiggen slightly.

Enlarge Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by AWS260 »

Charon.

Enlarge Image
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

stessier wrote:XKCD - what if New Horizons hit my car.

Spoiler: It would not be good.
But what about my insurance rates?
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by cheeba »

raydude wrote:This just in! We discovered nitron!
Wow.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Holman »

AWS260 wrote:Enlarge Image
And the dark patch on Charon has been dubbed "Mordor."
Much prefer my Nazis Nuremberged.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Daehawk »

AWS260 wrote:Charon.

Enlarge Image
I see a teddy bear wearing a hat there..seriously.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Kraken »

stessier wrote:We ain't seen nothin' yet. Click to embiggen slightly.

Enlarge Image
I caught just a glimpse of that image on a bar TV tonight. Was hoping the newscast would come back to the story but I missed it if they did. When you vacation in the mountains you're nearly off the grid. Or rather, you're on the emergency backup grid.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Enough »

Cool article about the camera on board New Horizons.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Binktopia »

Enough wrote:Cool article about the camera on board New Horizons.
WOW! Wonder what would be different if they made that camera today.

Also, I would have thought the Hubble Telescope could take better and sharper images of Pluto than that! I mean it can take amazing photos of galaxies light years away! Why can't it take really sharp photos of something relativity really close?
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by AWS260 »

Binktopia wrote:Also, I would have thought the Hubble Telescope could take better and sharper images of Pluto than that! I mean it can take amazing photos of galaxies light years away! Why can't it take really sharp photos of something relativity really close?
Emily Lakdawalla to the rescue:
Galaxies are far away, it's true, but many of them are bigger than they are far, at least by comparison to the worlds within our solar system! Think about that for a moment -- how something that is millions of light-years away can still appear a thousand times bigger than something that's inside our own solar system.
Math at the link.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by wonderpug »

Binktopia wrote:Also, I would have thought the Hubble Telescope could take better and sharper images of Pluto than that! I mean it can take amazing photos of galaxies light years away! Why can't it take really sharp photos of something relativity really close?
Pluto is super crazy tiny:
Image

so while it's relatively close on an interstellar scale, it's still pretty darn far for something so tiny. Meanwhile, the other things Hubble took pictures of were very far away but also HUGE.

You see something like the Pillars of Creation:
Image

and you think "ok, that's probably pretty big." But you may not realize that each pillar is 4 light years tall.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

reddit wrote:Hubble can see things incredibly far away but only if they are incredible large. The Hubble's angular resolution is 0.1 arcseconds. Pluto's diameter is about 1200km and is about 4.2 billion km from Earth at its closest, giving it an angular diameter of about .06 arcseconds. For comparison the largest of the Pillars of Creation is about 7 light years long and about 7000 light years from Earth giving it an angular diameter of over 200 arc seconds. If you could see them and Pluto the Pillars would take up a much larger portion of the sky than Pluto, since they're bigger than they are far away (compared to Pluto).
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Isgrimnur wrote:
reddit wrote:Hubble can see things incredibly far away but only if they are incredible large. The Hubble's angular resolution is 0.1 arcseconds. Pluto's diameter is about 1200km and is about 4.2 billion km from Earth at its closest, giving it an angular diameter of about .06 arcseconds. For comparison the largest of the Pillars of Creation is about 7 light years long and about 7000 light years from Earth giving it an angular diameter of over 200 arc seconds. If you could see them and Pluto the Pillars would take up a much larger portion of the sky than Pluto, since they're bigger than they are far away (compared to Pluto).
FWIW, that's 3,330 times bigger. Pluto's .06 arcseconds = 0.00001666666 of a degree. POC is 0.0556 of a degree.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Binktopia »

That is super crazy and cool!
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