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New Horizons Gets Closer to Pluto, But Mystery Spots Now Out of Sight
The L.A. Times reports that the strange spots spotted on the surface of Pluto by the New Horizons mission will be on the wrong side of the planet for the approaching fly-by that the craft will make of the smallest planet (or dwarf planet, depending) of our solar system. (The BBC makes a similar observation.) That doesn't mean that New Horizons' approach is anything short of "a spectacular event."
but aliens!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
No point linking to an article from July 1 now.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Every time I go to the doctor with some strange spots, they mysteriously clear up.
Have gnu, will travel.
If the probe finds a big enough body, like a burnt-out brown dwarf, can it make a U-turn and visit the other side of Pluto?
Then again, such a discovery would probably change the focus to the brown dwarf such that re-visiting Pluto would become a secondary goal.
Table-ized A.I.
Pluto's embarrassed by its age spots, and so is showing its good side to the probe.
Table-ized A.I.
As soon as I saw the Picture of the spots, it reminded me of when Jupiter got hit by Shoemaker-Levy.
It's the simplest explanation in my opinion.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
How'ed ya do it Timothy??
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Yuggoth.
Isn't Yuggoth supposed to be Pluto?
That's where the Mi-go are.
Nah - probably some primitive type of fungi.
Look before you leap
Still waters run deep
And I won't always be there
To pull your smelly ass out
The dark areas are alien letters, it says "Welcome to the Solar System".
the more we learn about pluto, the more I think the probe sould have had a detachable orbiter to be left around it
I imagine that would have complicated things a lot on its design phase, but now we'll have to wait more than a decade to do it, if it ever comes to pass
Well, yes, everyone knows that would be awesome.
Some rough numbers I did indicate that to stop New Horizons (It is only 400kg) at pluto would take a Delta V heavy. That is - around 500 tons.
A launch campaign to launch 500 tons to pluto is likely to need several thousand rockets.
Stopping is hard.
Pluto is -233 degrees Celsius right? Therefore if there was an alien civilization living on the surface, they would need to use materials that could withstand the awesome cold there. If we went there would a spacesuit not freeze solid and shatter like glass? What materials could stay in one piece in this cold? I think that an alien with Helium II blood could live there, but what could sustain it?
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
One of the researchers who posted on the Unmanned Spaceflight forum wrote about his efforts to design a miniprobe to decelerate at Pluto - if I remember right, 20kg - using atmospheric drag. But the calculations showed it would have to be made of something with a density like that of carbon aerogel (even silicon aerogel would be too much), making deployment of the deceleraiton system unrealistic, and undergo huge G-loads. He also added that people always suggest inflatable decelerators, but the problem with them is that they begin vibrating and rip themselves apart.
I have my own crazy ideas for deceleration involving magnetic and/or RF traps to hold fine ionized (or superconducting) dusts or ions in place around a craft (thus removing all issues of deployment difficulty and structural strength from the equation and allowing for a ridiculously thin layer). No, I haven't yet done any simulations to know whether the mass of such a system works out better than that of a typical drag chute.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
That's to get there in 9 years. If you're willing to get there in 50+ years, then it should be possible to match Pluto's orbit more gently, like other orbiter probes: Galileo, Cassini, and more recently Dawn and Rosetta.
A fraction of a percent of the AMA has, out of concern of students having to learn so many bones, voted to declare that there are only 8 bones in the human body, and all of the others are dwarf bones, and that those don't really count as bones. And to tell the difference between a bone and a dwarf bone you have to do a detailed study using a definition that nobody can agree on. But, if you move a bone from one part of the body to the other, it can change between being a bone and not being a bone. Also, other mammals don't have bones at all - their bodies are held together by "something" that isn't defined at all.
Only a tiny fraction of those present at the AMA vote were in a field doing anything with anatomy; the rests were bacteriologists. But nonetheless, despite the criticism by anatomists, the AMA has adamantly refused to revisit their decision.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
of course trying to make it with new horizon's current trajectory would probably be impossible
I never said that
The problem is that you pretty much can't pick another.
The trajectory chosen was to reduce mission time.
If you have 9 years, then pretty much the only way you can do a pluto probe is blasting past at >10km/s.
If you try to make the trajectory more gentle, then yes, you can do this - a hohmann transfer - but this will take literally a hundred years. There is nothing close to pluto that can slow you down meaningfully at all with a gravitational assist.
Nuclear powered ion engines, nuclear rockets (dusty fission rocket), and aerobraking are all in principle possible, but they all have their own risks.
They saw guests were coming so they cleaned up the place.They're also fixing up some finger sandwiches and tea.
I suppose you can create a trajectory that will end up catching up to Pluto's orbit and position, but that would take decades or even a century.
To use aerobraking as a technique, you have to know detail about the composition and extent of the body's atmosphere. Now that it has taken New Horizons to find this out, we can design an aerobraking orbiter.
not that I care about artificial controversies, but what is the argument against including others?
I agree. It's like putting the ring down and turning around to go home just before you get to Mordor.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
It could be an optical illusion like the Face on Mars or it could be like Saturn's hexagonal storms.
Not really, as winter is coming to Pluto and the atmosphere will freeze.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
...Oh, there goes gravity... you know it won't be that easy... you'd better lose yourself... you only get one shot...
Aerobraking? At Pluto?
They should have added an impactor like this if it is impossible to have an orbiter
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/mission/
Rocket Equation, thou art truly and verily a pitiless bitch...
ohhhh sorry that is incorrect. the correct answer is "what about mickey mouse"
Next contestant COME ON DOWN!!!!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
So it's a Toyota probe?
Table-ized A.I.
It is not in principle insane.
The atmosphere contains a large amount of very light gas, and plutos mass is low.
This means that the atmosphere is quite 'puffed up' - meaning you can skim the planet and get quite a decent brake.
The required large aerosurface due to the low density makes it 'interesting'.
It requires detailed knowledge of the atmosphere.
Even Pluto can't escape George R R Martin Memes....
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
Stopping is hard.
Stopping is easy, just aim for Pluto. Stopping and surviving that stop is hard.