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A Journey Into the Solar System's Outer Reaches, Seeking New Worlds To Explore (nytimes.com)
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will visit a tiny and mysterious object in the Kuiper belt on Tuesday, seeking clues to the formation of our cosmic neighborhood. From a report: In June 1983, newspaper headlines declared that NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft had left the solar system, crossing beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the common view of the time: All of the solar system's big, interesting things -- the sun and the nine planets -- were behind Pioneer 10. Thirty-five years later, the Kuiper belt -- the region Pioneer 10 was just entering -- and the spaces beyond are perhaps the most fascinating parts of the solar system. In their vast, icy reaches are clues about how the sun and planets, including ours, coalesced out of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago. Even farther out might be bodies the size of Mars or Earth, or even a larger one some astronomers call Planet Nine, and technological advances could usher in a new age of planetary discovery.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 -- its designation in the International Astronomical Union's catalog of worlds -- or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 -- its designation in the International Astronomical Union's catalog of worlds -- or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.6 m/s and pass within about 3,660 km of the surface.
>It was the common view of the time: All of the solar system's big, interesting things -- the sun and the nine planets -- were behind Pioneer 10.
At the time, i.e. in June 1983, there were nine astral bodies considered planets. I'm fairly sure whoever wrote the article put that sentence in there as a bait.
I use Convert version 4.08 by Joshua F. Madison copyright 1996-98. https://joshmadison.com/conver...
Most planetary scientists and many astronomers regard Pluto as a planet.
Even those that don't expect to find an Earth-sized planet in the Kuipier belt.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Because the con artist shut down the government, or at least part of it, only essential personnel at NASA will be on duty when the flyby happens.
This also affects another NASA flyby the same day:
Someone I know from another site has a niece whose husband works at NASA and is a big supporter of the con artist. He's taking a little bit of pleasure knowing the guy won't be around for the momentous occasion and won't get to see it until afterwards. Nor is he getting paid and won't get a pay raise next year.
when it was such for most of a century.
So was Ceres, wasn't it?
Ezekiel 23:20
Those units do make sense - it just isn’t in your preferred system of measurement.
It’s not as if the article said New Horizons made the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.
#DeleteChrome
In 1983 we did know about the Oort Cloud - We just hadn’t directly observed objects out there yet. I don’t recall anyone with any scientific knowledge making this “left the solar system” claim back then.
Actually, just found a NY Times archive article. The headline made that statement, but the article itself just says Pioneer 10 is past “the known planets”. Even then, headline writers went for the “clickbait”.
#DeleteChrome
I saw a sign on the news about Brexit. They were talking about the border, and the sign said "Welcome to Northern Ireland, all speed limits are in miles per hour." I'm glad Great Britain switched to the metric system back in the '70s.
New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.1 km/s and pass within about 3,540 km of the surface.
FTFY. Note in particular that it's km/s not m/s. You drive your car around your neighbourhood at about 14 m/s.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
This. The boundary of the solar system is open to definition, but the generally accepted one is the heliopause -- the boundary at which the sun's effect on space mingles with and is weaker than that of interstellar space.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If what other people say and do really bothers you, do something which solves the problem. Simply install an extension which auto-converts Imperial units to metric. You will never have to see Imperial units in your browser again.
No, it isn't the generally accepted definition. The heliopause is merely the edge of the heliosphere and nothing more. The "sun's effect on space" includes its gravitational influence, which extends well beyond the heliopause.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Any news on what objects New Horizons can explore after "Thule"? The Hubble telescope spent a good many hours searching out targets explicitly for New Horizons, which is what found Thule. I wonder if any Earth scopes can help in the hunt for new targets.
Table-ized A.I.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Even worse are variants depending on what you measure: nautical inch vs avoirdupois inch, dry vs wet vs slightly moist gallon.
Q: There's a straight road surveyed as 100 miles long. At one end, there's a car going 100mph, and a plane also going 100mph. After one hour, where will they be?
A: The plane will be past the road's end (somehow aircraft speed is measured in sea miles even above land), the car won't make it yet as car speeds are in land miles which are shorter than survey miles.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re: "...the spaces beyond are perhaps the most fascinating parts of the solar system."
This may be true from the perspective of, 'where we haven't visited yet'. However I'd challenge the notion that the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud are intrinsically more interesting than the 9 planets (yes, I said 9 planets). The 9 planets are extremely diverse.
The outer bodies are likely to have a certain amount of sameness to them, if the theories of solar system formation and dynamics hold up. Of course we won't know for sure until we visit a few.
I'm going to guess that whoever wrote the article knows the oft forgotten fact that because of Pluto's orbit eccentricity, it moves closer to the sun than Neptune for a portion of that orbit.... or is at least pointing out that planetary scientists at that time knew that. The date given, June 1983, is within that last window (from Feb. 7th, 1979 to Feb 11th,1999, Pluto was the eighth planet and Neptune was the ninth).
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
The NY Times article wasn't clickbait, it was simply stating the fact that Pioneer had passed the known planets. Given than in 1983 Pluto was closer to the sun than Neptune was, the statement is correct.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Fair enough. Using gravity to define the solar system would include the Oort Cloud, which is further out than the heliopause.
Perhaps the "end" of the solar system depends on your field. My background is in space science (plasmas and EM fields) so I suppose my bias is showing.
Thanks for the improvement.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The tired old metric flame again? Seriously? *YAWN*
There are two types of countries in the world: those who use the metric system, and those whose flag is on the moon.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
FTFTFS
Pluto is a planet, has been for a very long time and will remain so, despite an unfortunate mutual bewilderment that afflicted attendees at an IAU meeting.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This tired old "flag on the moon" flame again? Sorry to bust your bubble, but I'm pretty sure that both the USSR and China use(d) the metric system as well. Not sure about the Lunakhod rovers, they may have just have the "CCCP" text, but Chang'e 3 definitely had the Chinese flag on the side.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Yes, along with Pallas, Juno, Vesta. In total 37 asteroids were assigned planetary symbols, although astronomers realised these were not actually "proper" planets about 50 years after Ceres was first identified and recategorised them.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.6 m/s...
No, you're off by 3 orders of magnitude. 31,500 miles per hour is 14 km/s
Nautical miles are actually more logical than kilometers, since the French messed up the calculation to get the meter.
What does make sense is that 1 liter of water has mass of 1 kg, and a thousand of these makes up 1 cubic meter. It's too bad a calorie and a joule didn't come out to the same value. That would make life even better.
Google is your friend. You can even ask Siri to convert to your preferred units of choice if you're that bored on a long commute.
You mean "comet"? Freudian Slip there, Bub.
Table-ized A.I.
I thought that the engineers used metric? I know that the U.S. military does. It's just the general population.
The bootprints on the moon are measured in US sizes.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You seriously intentionally misunderstood the meaning of "flag"? As in, the flag. As in an actual flag, not a print on the side of an unmanned spacecraft. Jeez, really scraping here. Just stop with the metric flame, it's such a tired old meme by now. So predictable.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Three and a half. The UK seems to be hedging its bets. Beer is in pints but diesel is in litres, and don't get me started about plumbing.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
pass within 2,200 miles of the surface ...
what's that in units that make sense?
... sounds like a solid hit to me.
Does not really matter
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The airplane has to "navigate". ... so the measurement of the distance can be arbitrary.
A nautical mile is the "natural size" (or part of it) of the planet. Anything else than nautical miles make no sense for navigating either planes or ships.
But a car has a road
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It's too bad a calorie and a joule didn't come out to the same value. That would make life even better.
Calories actually come from that value. Increase the temperature of 1 liter of water from 14.5 degrees C to 15.5 Cis equivalent to one kilo Calorie.
And what exactly have the french to do with it? Oh, they keep the "meter" and the "kg" in a "museum" ... why are you blaming them for that?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hm, AFAIK distances and speeds in UK are still miles and mp/h ....
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
A nautical mile is the "natural size" (or part of it) of the planet. Anything else than nautical miles make no sense for navigating either planes or ships.
And why exactly would one kind of mile be better for navigation than, let's say, nanolightyear (which fits among the range of historical miles)? A nautical mile has no upsides above any other arbitrary unit, but has the downside of making calculations hard when dealing with any other unit. The value of metrication is not in the metre being somehow better, but in ease of dealing with bigger and smaller metric units.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
"the car won't make it yet as car speeds are in land miles which are shorter than survey miles": Huh? Are you saying the survey miles are measured through the earth, as opposed to over its surface?
I believe that what he meant was that the meter was originally supposed to be defined relative to the size of the earth: on ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. It was later re-defined.
"statute" ("land", "international" (heh)) mile: 1.609344 km; "survey" mile: 1.609347 km. Sea miles had different sizes until late 20th century before coalescing into 1.852 km. You get an error of over 15% if you say just "mile" without specifying what kind of mile you mean.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
originally supposed to be defined relative to the size of the earth: on ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole
Oh, thanx. I never heard about that.
The redefinition however did not change its length, only the base on which it is defined.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why don't you simply google what a nautical mile is?
Sigh ...
The value of metrication is not in the metre being somehow better, but in ease of dealing with bigger and smaller metric units.
Or in angles? Perhaps? Being able to make simple calculations in your mind? This is the position of Greenwich: 51.48ÂN 0.00ÂE. What is the coordinates 100 nautical miles north? What is it south? What is the _approximated_ position 100 nautical miles west or east?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What is the coordinates 100 nautical miles north? What is it south? What is the _approximated_ position 100 nautical miles west or east?
Depends on where you are. Newsflash: no matter how Mercator would wish, Earth is not a cylinder. Nor even a ball. At least no one seriously considers calculating west-east position in miles, but for north-south, there's indeed that temptation. And errors are big enough to make any navigation that'd use miles dangerous. You want your plane to land on the airport rather than somewhere the next city.
Miles were useful for 16th century navigation when the winds drifted you so much that you had to see where you are upon reaching land anyway. They are useless today. So is their associated Comic-Sans-of-map-projections.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
So we are all lucky that you are not sailing a ship or commanding an airplane ...
And errors are big enough to make any navigation that'd use miles dangerous.
Err... no?
At least no one seriously considers calculating west-east position in miles
Between 70degrees north and 70degrees south: everyone does that. Actually we do it all over the planet, but if you get closer to the poles you can not do simple math in your mind anymore.
Will my wondering ever cease why people talk about stuff they have no clue about?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Nope, I know full well what the saw is about and the literal intent of the statement. You apparently missed the sarcasm over the implied irony in mine over your use of one tired old saw to dismiss another though. Still, while we're on the topic:
Liberia and Myanmar also still officially use the imperial system and neither have even launched a space probe, let alone put a flag on the moon, so the statement is actually demonstrably false as a logical construct.
Notes from multiple European engineers on the various early NASA space projects show that they used the metric system for calculations and drawings, at least in part, so it wasn't just the Imperial system that ultimately got Apollo to the moon. (Given how that hybrid usage worked out for the Mars Climate Orbiter, it would be quite interesting to know how many measurement system conversion errors were caught due to NASA's diligence of checking everything multiple times, but alas that data point doesn't seem to have been recorded, at least not in any public source I've found.)
The US - like the rest of the world - uses metric for pretty much everything connected with STEM or that matters that isn't entirely contained within its own borders, and much of the stuff that is besides. For its part, NASA ostensibly transitioned to metric around 1990, although some imperial usage does persist, most notably on the ISS, and made it official in 2007. The only real difference compared to the legacy usage in the UK is that at least the US didn't bother to make metric official before deciding to pick and mix.
Really, *both* the metric vs. imperial saws are stale, wrong, and need to die.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
That is a really great thing
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