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#1
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Pluto Fly By
The New Horizons spacecraft is the size of a baby grand piano with a salad bowl — the dish antenna — on top. It will come closest to Pluto at 7:49 a.m. EDT Tuesday. Thirteen hours later, around 9 p.m. EDT, flight controllers will learn if everything went well. The spacecraft will have sent the confirmation signal 4½ hours earlier; that's the one-way, speed-of-light, data-transit time between New Horizons and Earth.
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#2
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Why the tiny pic? I had to borrow my dad's glasses to see this one...
__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes 1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod 2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." |
#3
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Quote:
New Horizons NASA Page https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html |
#4
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Pic now too blurry, but have been following Pluto's future, I was taught it was a planet, but if NDT says it ain't, it ain't.
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83 SD 84 CD |
#5
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If the space from our sun to Pluto is 200 meters a few minutes walk, how far away is the nearest star? Washington DC to California.
Shamelessly stolen from an astronomy textbook. |
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Last edited by MTI; 07-15-2015 at 01:35 PM. |
#7
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lol, maybe.
The paper today had a big pic.
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83 SD 84 CD |
#8
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Its going to take over a year to download all the data gathered in 1 day by New Horizons but some of the preliminary images from 3 billion miles away are amazing.
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#9
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There's some geophysicist that are going to have to rethink the geoforming theories "tidal heating."
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#10
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Fascinating stuff. You almost wish it was possible to leave it in orbit around Pluto. Not sure how much it can be directed - I gather they have some navigational capability but I'm sure it would have to slow a lot to go into Pluto oribt. And then it will likely send more good images further out. Maybe some freaky asteroid pics.
This underscores the bang for your buck of unmanned missions. If people were on this mission we likely would have mourned their passing a few years back. An odd thing about this, some of us (me) who are digging this are more or less opposed to hoisting nuclear materials into orbit. But this vessel needed plutonium in order to continue producing electricity far away from the sun.
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1986 300SDL, 362K 1984 300D, 138K |
#11
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I think when we do simple (relatively) like New Horizons, Pioneer, Voyager.... as opposed to Space Shuttle we do much better and get a much better return on the dollar spent.
Stuff like this is why we need NASA.
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Sent from an agnostic abacus 2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD** - With out god, life is everything. - God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson - You can pray for me, I'll think for you. - When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. |
#12
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This calls into question the business of Pluto not being a planet. It has several moons. I'd say that's evidence of 'clearing its orbit' somewhat. I can only imagine that moons come about because the host body of matter attracted bits of matter in its journey and some amount of it was attracted strongly enough to not merely slingshot by out into space but not strongly enough to strike the body's surface.
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1986 300SDL, 362K 1984 300D, 138K |
#13
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Quote:
If we establish a permanently manned lunar base that changes the whole paradigm here on earth. It jump starts a whole new technology rather like air travel did in the last century. Unfortunately while NASA is still the best by far in solar system exploration, our enemies will outstrip us in space colonization while the US as a society gives up. - Peter.
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2021 Chevrolet Spark Formerly... 2000 GMC Sonoma 1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021 2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels 1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles. 1984 123 200 1979 116 280S 1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille 1971 108 280S |
#14
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The moon does make some sense. Would seem to be the perfect spot for the next stage of Hubble telescopes. Beyond that, I'm hard pressed to see the value though. And Mars, yeah, doesn't really make sense for humans. The solar radiation they would get there and enroute would likely be too much. Similar problem on the moon you would think.
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1986 300SDL, 362K 1984 300D, 138K |
#15
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The moon has all the raw materials (metals to be mined and water) as well as the weak gravity well to make it the logical launching pad for manned and unmanned missions far beyond. 3d printing will make a mannded moon base a necesity if we want to go far beyond earth. Launching an ambition mars mission from the moon will be far easiler than do it from earth once a moon base is establishes and built with local resources.
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