Dwarf Planet Ahoy! Spacecraft Spies Pluto and Charon

astroengine writes "As NASA's New Horizons probe powers through interplanetary space, it's keeping a careful eye forward, watching its target gradually loom larger on the proverbial celestial horizon. But earlier this month the spacecraft spotted something right next to Pluto — a pixelated Charon, the dwarf planet's largest moon. 'The image itself might not look very impressive to the untrained eye, but compared to the discovery images of Charon from Earth, these 'discovery' images from New Horizons look great!' said New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD. 'We're very excited to see Pluto and Charon as separate objects for the first time from New Horizons.'"

Comments

Privacy

[maxwell demon]

So the NSA isn't content with spying all over the earth, they now also spy on Pluto and Charon. No, I'm not going to let the extra A after the N fool me. ;-)

It's actually an egg in space!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it's an Angry Bird's egg tossed at Pluto.

Re:It's actually an egg in space!

[BergZ]

"Dwarf Planet" could be a cool name for a sci-fi sequel to "Dwarf Fortress".

Re:It's actually an egg in space!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dwarf Planet" could be a cool name for a sci-fi sequel to "Dwarf Fortress".

Of course, at the rate it's being developed, you'd stand a better chance of being able to construct your own post-Neptunian probe and see it through launch and end-of-life before DF is finished.

Re:It's actually an egg in space!

[kelarius]

"Dwarf Planet" could be a cool name for a sci-fi sequel to "Dwarf Fortress".

Yeah, and here's how it would go:
You fire up the game and it immediately displays "Your settlers die a horrible death in a vacuum, wondering how the hell they got into space from their island"

Re:It's actually an egg in space!

[tnk1]

You mean:

Slaves to Armok, God of Blood
Chapter III: Dwarf Planet

There will be Space Elves and they will be even bigger jerks than the ones in Dwarf Fortress.

Oh wait, they already wrote that game, it's called Warhammer 40K.

That's no moon

[jfdavis668]

It's a space station.

Re:That's no moon

[oodaloop]

That's impossible. It's too small to be a space station.

Re:That's no moon

[Anonymous Coward]

I never got that line in Star Wars. Weren't they flying through interstellar space at the time? I suppose they might have thought it was a rogue, but technically if it's not orbiting something, it's not a moon but a small planetoid.

Re: That's no moon

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that they were flying to Alderaan, not in the middle of nowhere

Chuck Norris

[vikingpower]

roundhouse-kicked a bunch of soldiers from the Civil War into Orbit. That is Pluto. The pixel nearby is their lieutenant.

Just goes to show

[Black Parrot]

these 'discovery' images from New Horizons look great! [..] We're very excited to see Pluto and Charon as separate objects for the first time from New Horizons.

Not everone gets a boner from the same things that give an astronomer one.

Re:Just goes to show

[icebike]

True, especially when it is only going to get better if they can just keep their pants on (to extend the metaphor).

This represents a major milestone on the spacecraft’s 9½-year journey to conduct the initial reconnaissance of the Pluto system

A couple pixels worth of separation hardly seems all that significant against a flood of noise. Ring we when they get close enough to see surface detail on either
Pluto or Charon or some of the larger objects in the Kuiper Belt.

Don't tell the NSA

[intermodal]

They might find the lack of communications coming from those locations to indicate suspicious activity...

It is NOT powering through interplanetary space

[Alain Williams]

It is drifting, continuing it's journey because of its momentum: launched on 19 January 2006 ... velocity of about 16.26 km/s after its last engine was shut down. OK: powering reads more dramatically, but is wrong.

Re:It is NOT powering through interplanetary space

[dmbasso]

"power is the rate at which energy is transferred, used, or transformed." -- from Wikipedia

[pedantic mode on]
It is receiving energy from solar wind, transforming it to motion... therefore it is actually powering, even if at an insignificant rate.

Re:It is NOT powering through interplanetary space

[peragrin]

oh don't forget about internal heating. Internal heating has been slightly altering Voyager's trajectory for the last decade.

Re:It is NOT powering through interplanetary space

[Tim the Gecko]

Meanwhile the Dawn probe is powering through space using its ion drive. It's scheduled to get to Ceres a few months before New Horizons flies past Pluto. Here's the current position, and there's also an interesting journal.

As well as space probes seeing Pluto and Ceres, 2015 should be when the LHC is turned up to higher power, so it could be a good year for science news.

Re:It is NOT powering through interplanetary space

[Anonymous Coward]

New Horizons is the first long range interplanetary probe which managed to sneak up on me. The Pluto bypass is already in 2015!

That term is offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

They prefer to be called "little planets."

Re:That term is offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

If a "dwarf" is a "little person", I think the proper translation would be "little person planets." Much better!

ME

[Anonymous Coward]

Beware... Mass Relay ahead!

New Horizons rehersals

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just an amusing PR opportunity. They had the camera trained on Pluto during a rehearsal for the flyby.

"New Horizons"

[RevWaldo]

Greetings! We come in peace to offer you affordable health insurance, management consulting, and organic gluten-free pasta!

.

You all should be ashamed

[Anonymous Coward]

Not one of your comments was funny.

Re:You all should be ashamed

[xevioso]

tl:dr

Re:You all should be ashamed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yours are funnies.

Re:That's moon, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

in soviet russia