# NASA's Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Has Awakened



## MULTIZ321 (Dec 8, 2014)

NASA's Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Has Awakened - by John Wenz/ Science/ Space/ Deep Space/ PopularMechanics.com

"On Saturday, the New Horizons spacecraft will awaken from slumber for the final time as it nears its final approach to Pluto—NASA's first ever visit to the formerly ninth planet, and the first time it will get clear pictures of the small, chilly world. The mission's July 2015 approach to Pluto is still seven months away, but New Horizons' science mission will officially begin on Dec. 6..."





NASA


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jan 10, 2015)

NASA Probe to Arrive at Pluto Carrying Ashes of Clyde Tombaugh - by Sarah Knapton/ Science Editor/ The Telegraph/ telegraph.com

"NASA’s New Horizons probe will arrive at the dwarf-planet carrying the astrophysicist’s ashes.

 When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 he could never have imagined that the icy world would one day be his final resting place.

But this week NASA’s New Horizons probe will arrive at the dwarf-planet carrying the astrophysicist’s ashes.

The mission is hoping to answer fundamental questions about the 9th rock from the Sun and will send back the first close-up pictures of our elusive neighbour. It could even help explain the origin of life on Earth..."





An artist's impression of the New Horizons probe approaching Pluto Photo: Nasa/Rex Features


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jan 25, 2015)

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30954673New Horizons Probe Eyes Pluto For Historic Encounter - By Jonathan Amos/ Science Correspondent, BBC News / Science / bbc.com 


A Nasa probe is to start photographing the icy world of Pluto, to prepare itself for a historic encounter in July.

The New Horizons spacecraft has travelled 5bn km (3bn miles) over nine years to get near the dwarf planet.

And with 200m km still to go, its images of Pluto will show only a speck of light against the stars.

But the data will be critical in helping to align the probe properly for what will be just a fleeting fly-by.

Pluto will be photographed repeatedly during the approach, to determine the probe's position relative to the dwarf planet, explained Mark Holdridge, from the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) in Baltimore.

"We then perform a number of correction manoeuvres to realign our trajectory with the reference trajectory, thus ensuring we hit our aim point to travel through the Pluto system," he said.

Any initial correction is likely to be made in March.


The Pluto system has five known moons. Others may be discovered in the coming months
When New Horizons arrives at Pluto it will be moving so fast - at almost 14km/s - that going into orbit around the distant world is impossible; it must barrel straight through instead.

One complication is that the seven different instruments aboard the spacecraft need to work at different distances to get their data, and so the team has constructed a very elaborate observation schedule for them all.

But what this means is that very precise timing will be required to make sure the flyby runs smoothly.

The closest approach to Pluto is set for around 11:50 GMT on 14 July - at a miss distance of roughly 13,695km from the surface.

Mission planners want the exact timings nailed to within 100 seconds. New Horizons will know then where and when to point the instruments.






When it gets to Pluto, the New Horizons Probe  Will Have a Packed Schedule of Observations 

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Feb 5, 2015)

New Horizons Probe Delivers Pluto Pictures as a Birthday Tribute - by Alan Boyle/ Science/ Space/ nbcnews.com

"It's been 18 years since Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto's discoverer, passed away — but on Wednesday the late astronomer got a birthday present that would have made him beam with joy: the closest close-ups ever taken of the dwarf planet, delivered by NASA's New Horizons probe.

"This is our birthday tribute to Professor Tombaugh and the Tombaugh family, in honor of his discovery and life achievements — which truly became a harbinger of 21st-century planetary astronomy," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said Wednesday in a news release about the images. 

The pictures, taken on Jan. 25 and Jan. 27, were the first views of Pluto acquired during an imaging campaign that will climax on July 14 with the first-ever flyby of that icy mini-world, 3 billion miles from the sun. 

New Horizons is still roughly 126 million miles (203 million kilometers) away from Pluto — which means the dwarf planet and its largest moon, Charon, show up as mere dots. But the view is due to improve in the months ahead: By May, the pictures taken by New Horizons' LORRI camera should outdo the best that the Hubble Space Telescope can manage..."





NASA / JHUAPL / SwR
An image acquired by the New Horizons spacecraft's LORRI high-resolution imager shows Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, as seen from a distance of nearly 203 million miles on Jan. 25. The view should improve as New Horizons nears its July 14 flyby of the dwarf planet.


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Feb 10, 2015)

NASA's Pluto Bound Spacecraft Has Awakened - by John Wenz/ Space/ Deep Space/ PopularMechanics.com

"Update, January 29: The countdown to New Horizon's approach is officially on, with the craft already taking pictures for its closest approach in July. There's a counter on NASA's page if you need the info down to the second, but in the meantime, we should soon have images of the once-and-not-so-future ninth planet (or second dwarf planet)..."

Latest New Horizon Images of Pluto from NASA


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 5, 2015)

Pluto: NASA Probe Set for Fly-Past of Frozen 'Dwarf-Planet' - by Joel Achenbach for the Washington Post/ Space/ Science/ The Guardian/ theguardian.com

"Pluto is so far away (4.8bn km) and so small (about two-thirds the size of the Earth’s moon) that we’ve never had a good look at it, not even with the Hubble space telescope. In Hubble images, Pluto has always been a tiny, pixelated blob. Until now.

A Nasa spacecraft, New Horizons, is bearing down on the dwarf planet at 5,100km/h. The robotic probe, which weighs half a tonne and is shaped like a vacuum cleaner attachment, will fly past Pluto, its cameras and instruments ravenously gobbling data, at 11.49am GMT on 14 July.

That, at least, is what we can expect to happen given the current trajectory of New Horizons and the laws of physics. But this is not a mission free of hazard. A craft travelling so fast – New Horizons is the fastest spaceship ever launched from Earth – can be disabled by a collision with something as small as a grain of rice..."



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 5, 2015)

NASA'S New Horizons Team Works To Revive Pluto-Bound Probe After Anomaly - by Alan Boyle/ Science/ Space/ nbcnews.com

 "NASA said its New Horizons probe suffered a temporary communication breakdown on Saturday, 10 days before it's scheduled to fly past Pluto, and the mission team is working to restore normal operations.

In a mission update, NASA said the team lost contact with the piano-sized probe at 1:54 p.m. ET, when it had less than 7.5 million miles left in its 3 billion-mile journey to the dwarf planet. The spacecraft's autopilot system switched control from its primary to its backup computer and restored communications at 3:15 p.m., NASA said..."

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 6, 2015)

Something 'Scary' Went Wrong with NASA's Probe to Pluto - by Jessica Orwig/ Science/ Business Insider/ businessinsider.com

"NASA got an unexpected surprise on Saturday: Its New Horizons spacecraft cut off communications with Earth as it was headed toward Pluto.

NASA was able to re-establish communications with the spacecraft within 90 minutes, and it reported that it was "healthy" and still on course to fly by Pluto.

But to reconnect with Earth, the spacecraft kicked itself into safe mode, and it is now no longer taking photos or collecting other scientific data.

"This is scary," planetary scientist Emily Lakdawalla wrote for The Planetary Society. "It's not what the team wanted to be dealing with right now."...

...But it looks as if NASA has resolved the issue:...

...NASA reported on Sunday that it planned to re-establish normal operations and start collecting scientific data on Tuesday..."







Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 12, 2015)

Pluto's Spots Turn Into Weird Splotches in New View From New Horizons - by Alan Boyle/ Science/ Space/ nbcnews.com

LAUREL, Md. — "Remember those weird black spots that showed up on Pluto's surface a couple of weeks ago in pictures from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft? Now that the piano-sized probe has closed in to a distance of less than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers), the spots look like even weirder splotches. 

This view of the dwarf planet, captured on Saturday, may be the "last, best look that anyone will have of Pluto's far side for decades to come," the $728 million mission's principal investigator, Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, said in an image advisory. 

That's because the splotches are turning out of the field of vision for New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. When the spacecraft makes its climactic flyby on Tuesday, coming within 8,000 miles (12,500 kilometers) of the surface, a different swath of territory will be turned toward the camera — with a bright heart-shaped region front and center..."





New Horizons' last look at Pluto's Charon-facing hemisphere reveals intriguing geologic details that are of keen interest to mission scientists. This image, taken early Saturday morning, 2015, shows newly resolved linear features above the equatorial region that intersect, suggestive of polygonal shapes. This image was captured when the spacecraft was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto. NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 12, 2015)

Infographic: New Horizons' Path to Pluto - by Raoul Rañoa /Science/ Science Now/ Los Angeles Times/ latimes.com

"NASA's New Horizons is the first spacecraft designed to study objects in the Kuiper belt, the region of the solar system beyond Neptune. After traveling 3 billion miles, the craft is about to fly by Pluto, giving humanity its first detailed look at the dwarf planet and its large moon, Charon. New Horizons will collect all sorts of data as it flies past, and mission managers say it will take more than a year for all of it to reach Earth.

Here's a look at how New Horizons got to Pluto and how it will study the distant planet..."


Amazing accomplishment.  Kudos to all involved!


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 12, 2015)

How New Horizons Survived the 40-Year Glitch and Made It to Pluto - by Corey S. Powell/ Out There/ Discover/ Science for the Curious/ The Magazine/ discovermagazine.com

"In space exploration, there are a million ways that things can go wrong and just one way that they can go right. When the New Horizons probe skims less than 8,000 miles past the surface of Pluto on July 14, it will happen only because a large team of scientists, engineers, and mission planners managed to eliminate all the wrong and navigate their way to the right, a process that has taken more than 40 years to fully unfold..."





Pluto and Charon seen by New Horizons from 3.7 million miles. This spectacular view, and the mission that made it possible, nearly didn’t happen–not once, but over and over. (Credit: NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI)



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 12, 2015)

Pluto Probe Finds Surprises Ahead of Its Close Encounter - by Jesse Emspak/ Science/ SmithsonianMag.com

"From dark poles to weird "whales", New Horizons is giving us a taste of the historic science we can expect from its visit to Pluto.

Pluto has long been a mystery among the classical planets—baffling astronomers since its discovery in 1930. The tiny world is dark and distant, orbiting so far from the sun that a Plutonian year lasts for about 248 Earth years.

So far, the best images of Pluto and its system of oddball moons have been blurry and showed no surface detail, leaving Pluto's geography trapped in the realm of artists and science fiction writers. What little data we have about its atmosphere and composition has been gleaned from telescopic observations, as no human-made spacecraft has ever come in close for a visit.

Now, all that is about to change. After a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey—and a brief technical hiccup on July 4—the New Horizons probe will get within 7,750 miles of the mysterious world during a flyby on July 14. The spacecraft has been making observations as it closes in on its target, and already it's found things that tantalize the science teams at NASA:..."

The article has a very cool Tanimation made from New Horizons data shows Pluto and its largest moon Charon in their orbital dance. 


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 13, 2015)

New Horizons Spacecraft Closes In On Pluto for First Close-Ups -  by David Perlman/ Science/ SFGate/ sfgate.com

"Pluto, the mysterious dwarf planet that no spacecraft has ever visited and no earthbound telescope has ever seen in any detail, is about to yield its secrets.

On Tuesday morning, Earth time, seven instruments aboard a spinning NASA vehicle called New Horizons will fly past icy Pluto and its five moons on a perilous discovery mission through the far distant reaches of our solar system.

Nearly 10 years after its launch from Cape Canaveral and a voyage of 3 billion miles, the spacecraft will fly less than 7,800 miles above Pluto’s surface for the world’s first encounter with the dark Plutonian system.

The flyby, at close to 31,000 miles an hour, will last barely six hours in all.

But during those fleeting moments, New Horizons’ long-range telescope and its six other instruments will harvest far more information about Pluto and its role in the solar system than earthbound astronomers have ever gathered.

The instruments will map the icy surfaces of Pluto and its largest moon Charon, and reveal the first details of their geology and composition.

They will analyze the chemicals in Pluto’s icy atmosphere — like nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide — and ferret out any unknown exotic ones..."





Photo: Nasa/seti Institute, New York Times 
In an illustration provided by NASA and the SETI Institute, Pluto and its moons, seen from the perspective of Hydra, the outermost of the five. New research has offered a more precise look at the wobbly orbit of Nix, which is jostled by the competing gravitational pulls of Pluto and Charon â€” so close in mass that some scientists regard them as a double planet.


Be sure to click through the 25 images  - simply amazing.


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 13, 2015)

NASA Probe Nears Pluto, Carrying Ashes of Man Who Discovered It - by Jethro Mullen, CNN/ US/ cnn.com

 (CNN) "When a NASA probe whizzes past Pluto on Tuesday, the man who discovered the dwarf planet 85 years ago will be there.

A small amount of the ashes of American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh are on board the New Horizons spacecraft, which has spent more than nine years traveling to the outer reaches of the solar system.

The probe is set to pass within about 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto' s surface, the closest any spacecraft has got to the icy world, beaming back data and images.

Rewind to 1930, and Pluto wasn't even on the solar system map.

Tombaugh, who grew up on a farm in Kansas, was working at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. Previously an amateur astronomer, he had been hired to help find a planet beyond Neptune..."





Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto on February 18, 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 13, 2015)

Pluto is Larger Than We Previously Thought - by Jacob Koffler/ Science/ Space/ time.com

"The former planet is 1,473 miles in diameter, according to new images from NASA's New Horizons mission

It’s still not a planet, but Pluto is bigger than experts thought.

NASA reported on Monday that scientists on their New Horizons Mission have determined the size of Pluto. The former planet is 1,473 miles in diameter, slightly larger than previous estimates, making it the largest known object in the solar system beyond Neptune’s orbit.

Pluto’s size has been notoriously difficult to determine since its discovery in 1930 due to what NASA called “complicating factors from its atmosphere.”

“We are excited to finally lay this question to rest,” said Bill McKinnon, a scientist on the mission..."

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 14, 2015)

What New Horizons Is Looking For on Pluto, and How - by Jay Bennett/ Popular Science/ popsci.com

"At 7:50am EDT tomorrow, July 14, New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever launched, will perform the first close-encounter flyby of Pluto and its system of five known moons. During that approach, New Horizons will be flying within 6,000 miles of Pluto and collect 100 times more data than it can send home in a single day. The instruments on the spacecraft will take thousands of photos, measure Pluto’s temperature and magnetic field, map the surface topography, determine Pluto’s atmospheric composition, and search for undiscovered moons, rings and subterranean oceans. To send all of that data back to Earth will take 16 months.

“We’ll be sending home things that nobody has ever seen through the rest of 2015 and into October of 2016,” says Alan Stern, principal investigator for the New Horizons mission. “We could be running down the hallways with huge discoveries 12 or 15 months after the encounter.” ..."





Pluto by moonlight
JHUAPL / SwRI
The sun on Pluto's moon Charon is 1,000 times dimmer that here on Earth, but it will still be bright enough to capture the first images of Pluto's night region.


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 14, 2015)

A New Horizons' Pluto Flyby Timeline - by Kenneth Chang/ Science/ International New York Times/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is now less than one day and one million miles from Pluto.

"Everything is going great," Glen Fountain, the mission's project manager, said on Sunday.

Here's what to expect when you're expecting Pluto:

    The spacecraft is on target, so the mission team has passed on making any small corrections to the trajectory or the computer programming for the encounter.
    At 11:17 p.m. Monday, the mission control at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland will receive the last update from the spacecraft before the flyby begins. The spacecraft then begins 22 hours of complicated choreography for its observations as it speeds toward Pluto at 30,800 miles per hour. Because of the spacecraft's design, it cannot collect data and talk to Earth at the same time.

Around 7:50 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, give or take a minute or so, it will zip 7,800 miles above Pluto's surface, providing an extraordinary close-up first look. The clearest photos of the surface will have a resolution of about 75 yards per pixel. NASA TV will provide coverage beginning at 7:30 a.m.
At the time of the flyby, no one on Earth will know the fate of New Horizons and whether it is accomplishing its tasks. Around 4:30 p.m. the spacecraft will turn its antenna back toward Earth to send a brief "Hi, I'm still alive" message..."


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 14, 2015)

The Camera Behind the New Pluto Photos - by Robinson Meyer/ Technology/ The Atlantic/ theatlantic.com

"How to build a camera that travels billions of miles from Earth.

For decades after its discovery in 1930, Pluto looked like nothing more than a gray smudge in the abyss of space. We knew it was there—even knew its size and gravity—but, without better images, we could not answer seemingly basic questions about it. Was it pocked by craters? What was its atmosphere like?

Our understanding of the orb has slowly improved (with the Hubble Space Telescope’s help), but this week it takes a cosmic step forward. On Tuesday morning, NASA’s New Horizons probe zipped by Pluto and its dwarf moon, Charon. After a nine-year journey from Earth, New Horizons took hundreds of images in mere hours on Tuesday—images that will fill textbooks and museum exhibits for decades, as well as help scientists figure out how our solar system came to support life.

There are three cameras aboard New Horizons.

I talked to Lisa Hardaway, an engineer at Ball Aerospace in Colorado who led technical development of the one called “Ralph.” Ralph captures visible and some infrared light. When you see Pluto looking tan- and sepia-toned in the new, high-resolution photos, you’re looking at data captured by Ralph..."





The highest-resolution photo of Pluto ever, captured by the New Horizons probe this week (NASA)


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 14, 2015)

Pluto Mission: NASA's New Horizons 'Phones Home" After Blackout - by Amanda Barnett, CNN/ US/ cnn.com

Laurel, Maryland (CNN) "NASA has re-established contact with its New Horizons spacecraft after a planned communications blackout as the probe completes humankind's first flyby of Pluto.

Mission managers who were packed into the New Horizons "mission control" room anxiously waiting to hear from the spacecraft broke into applause.

The probe had spent more than 12 hours out of contact while it collected data from Pluto and its five moons.

The communications outage was planned, but it still had scientists on edge. The flyby was the most dangerous part of the mission; there was a chance that stray dust in the Pluto system could collide with the spacecraft..."


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 15, 2015)

New Horizons Reveals Ice Mountains on Pluto - by Jonathan Corum/ Science/ Space/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"A day after its successful flyby, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sent back the first close-up photographs of Pluto, revealing a young surface dotted with ice mountains. The piano-size spacecraft traveled nine years and three billion miles to study the dwarf planet and its five moons..."





NASA 

"A day after its successful flyby of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sent back the first close-up images of Pluto, revealing 11,000-foot ice mountains and a surprising absence of craters."


Richard


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## pedro47 (Jul 15, 2015)

To the OP can you give us the website to your thread that showed the various photos of the universe ?


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 15, 2015)

pedro47 said:


> To the OP can you give us the website to your thread that showed the various photos of the universe ?



Hi Pedro,

I'm not sure what you're asking for. Are you talking about the Hubble Telescope photos of the universe?


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 15, 2015)

First Look at New Horizons' Pluto and Charon Images: "Baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way" - by Emily Lakdawalla/ Blogs/ planetary.org

"The New Horizons spacecraft has only had time to downlink seven LORRI images since its flyby of Pluto yesterday. Today's press briefing at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland was preceded by hours of New Horizons team members cryptically dropping hints on Twitter at astonishing details in those few images. And the images are astonishing, as well as beautiful, surprising, and puzzling. Team member John Spencer aptly summed them up when he described them as "baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way." ..."





NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI
Charon’s surprising, youthful, and varied terrain
Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 466,000 kilometers. The LORRI image has been combined with color information obtained by New Horizons’ Ralph instrument on July 13.


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 17, 2015)

Pluto Shows Its 'Heart' in Stunning Flyover Animation - by Rachel Feltman/ washingtonpost.com

"On Friday, NASA released a new image of Pluto's surface, revealing the icy plains that make up part of the "heart" first spotted in earlier images. Now informally named “Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930, the "heart" is revealing strange geological features — which you can see firsthand in the stunning animation below..."






Peering closely at the “heart of Pluto,” in the western half of what mission scientists have informally named Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), New Horizons’ Ralph instrument revealed evidence of carbon monoxide ice. The contours indicate that the concentration of frozen carbon monoxide increases towards the center of the “bull’s eye.” These data were acquired by the spacecraft on July 14 and transmitted to Earth on July 16. Full credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 18, 2015)

The First Photos Taken of Every Planet in Our Solar System - by David Tobia/ Space/New Republic/ newrepublic.com

"In honor of Pluto, we look back at the visual history of space exploration.

Scientists may no longer consider Pluto a planet, but it remained the last unexplored world of our solar system until Tuesday, when the fastest spacecraft to ever leave Earth reached its elusive goal. New Horizons launched January 19, 2006, hurtling through space at about 34,000 miles per hour. The spacecraft has traveled 3 billion miles on its way to Pluto, which shows how far space exploration has come: The first missions to photograph planets from space traveled just 65 and 6,118 miles to capture Earth and Mars. Here are the first photos taken of every planet in our solar system..."





NASA
Venus



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 19, 2015)

Around the Universe: Ariane 5 Launch, New Horizons Reaches Pluto, and Jupiter Has a Twin - by Alex Knapp/ Tech/ Forbes/ forbes.com

"Taking a look back at the past seven days of breathtaking discoveries and images being gathered from space, this week’s Around The Universe features stories on the Earth, the space station, Ceres, Pluto and beyond.

Around The Universe is here to highlight a few of the coolest images, discoveries, and human activities taking place in the final frontier over the past seven days...."





(Image Credit:ESO/L. Benassi)
Beyond Pluto: Jupiter Has A Twin


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 19, 2015)

These Pictures Give a Rare Glimpse Into the Heart of the Pluto Flyby - by Victoria Jaggard/ Science/ SmithsonianMag.com

"Spanning the full 9.5 years of the mission to date, the images by Michael Soluri capture the people behind the epic close encounter.."


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 20, 2015)

Pluto Revealed - Graphics/ from Los Angeles Times/ graphics.latimes.com

"New images give closest look ever at the dwarf planet and its moons

9-1/2 years, 3 billion miles and $700 million later, humanity has finally reached Pluto. New images released by NASA show detailed views of the the Pluto system..."





How do Pluto and Charon move?
Sources: NASA EPA, John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Graphics by Raoul Ranoa. Graphics reporting by Deborah Netburn. Design by Priya Krishnakumar and Kyle Kim.


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 20, 2015)

NASA RELEASES NEW IMAGE OF EARTH - By Alexandra Sifferlin/ Science/ Space/ time.com

"NASA released the first image of Earth from its Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite on Monday.

The image shows a sunlit Earth from one million miles away. NASA says the photo was snapped with a Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel CCD camera, and a telescope..."


2015.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



The newest "Blue Marble", Earth seen from a distance of one million miles captured by a NASA scientific camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft on July 6, 


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 24, 2015)

NASA'S Kepler Spacecraft spots Planet 'Somebody else might call home

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ft-spots-earths-bigger-older-cousin/30571723/

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 26, 2015)

New Horizons says Goodbye to Pluto with Beautiful High-resolution Photos

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/24/9036103/pluto-new-horizons-last-images-silhouette-nasa

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 26, 2015)

A Peek Inside Pluto's Icy Heart
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/24/9036341/ice-flows-glaciers-pluto-NASA-new-horizons

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 26, 2015)

NASA Unveils Pluto's Icy Plains in Simulated Flyover 


http://www.theguardian.com/science/...ideo?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 26, 2015)

Pluto's Flowing Ice and Mysterious Red Haze Highlight  'a Scientific Wonderland 


http://www.theguardian.com/science/...haze?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 29, 2015)

Why 'Earth 2.0' is Actually Nothing Like Earth

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/24/why-earth-20-is-nothing-like-earth


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jul 30, 2015)

Brown Dwarf Aurora Found: Could Inform Exoplanet  Searches


http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84092916/


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Sep 7, 2015)

NASA's Pluto Probe Starts a Year-Long Data Upload - by Jon Fingas/ Engadget.com

"NASA's New Horizons probe didn't swing by Pluto just to snap a few photos and run off -- it collected a ton of extra data that hasn't seen the light of day. Well, it's finally sending that data back to Earth... very, very slowly. The spacecraft has started an upload of "tens of gigabits" of information that, at a pokey 1KB to 4KB per second transfer rate, won't finish until fall 2016..."







Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Sep 10, 2015)

NASA Just Released the First New Images of Pluto Since the New Horizons Flyby by Sean O'Kane/ Science/ Space/ theverge.com

NASA, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Southwest Research Institute just released the first new images of Pluto since the New Horizons spacecraft's historic flyby of Pluto almost two months ago.

Perhaps the most striking image of the bunch is the one you see above. It's a mosaic that simulates what it would look like if you were about 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Pluto’s equator. In the picture you can see the diversity of Pluto's surface: the dark and crater-filled region informally called "Cthulhu" by the New Horizons team, the cracked and icy plains referred to as the Sputnik Planum, and even some of Pluto's mountains.

These images, like the others released today, were taken by New Horizons' LORRI camera. It's the same black-and-white camera that captured all those wonderful images as New Horizons approached Pluto,..."

Wow.  Again, thanks to the engineers, scientists and support staff that made this possible. Job well done.


Richard


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## DaveNV (Sep 10, 2015)

This stuff absolutely fascinates me.   Thanks for sharing, Richard.

Dave


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## MULTIZ321 (Oct 6, 2015)

Images of Pluto and Charon Continue to Captivate NASA: 'This World is Alive' - by Alan Yuhas/ Science/ Pluto/ The Guardian/ theguardian.com

"The newest images and data from Pluto continue to astound Nasa scientists, lead researcher Alan Stern said on Monday, telling a university hall that “2015 will be a year in textbooks forever” as the point when mankind unveiled the world on the edge of its solar system.

“This world is alive,” Stern said of Pluto to a packed room at the University of Alberta. “It has weather, it has hazes in the atmosphere, active geology.”

Last week Nasa released its highest resolution photos yet of the dwarf planet and its largest moon, Charon, revealing new mysteries that its spacecraft New Horizons had uncovered at the edge of the solar system..."




Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Oct 10, 2015)

Skies are Blue on Pluto, New Horizons Finds - by Scott Dance, The Baltimore Sun/ News/ Nation/ World/ chicagotribune.com

"Pluto may be a strange, faraway world, but scientists have learned it shares a familiar trait with Earth -- a blue sky.

The first color images of a thin haze that surrounds Pluto show it to be reflecting a pale blue light, scientists working on NASA's New Horizons mission said Thursday. 

"Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt?" said the mission's principal investigator, Alan Stern, referring to the region at the edge of the solar system that includes Pluto. "It’s gorgeous." "...





Haze around Pluto appears blue in this image captured by New Horizons and processed to replicate the color a human eye would see. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Oct 18, 2015)

First Official Data from the Pluto Flyby Reshapes the Dwarf Planet's History - by Maya Wei-Haas/ Science/ Nature/ SmithsonianMag.com

"“The ‘little spacecraft that could’ is making a lot of big discoveries,” says Alan Stern

Barreling into distant space—over 3 billion miles away—NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been busily beaming back data it logged during its historic rendezvous with Pluto just three months ago.

Downloading data over such long distances is a beast of a task. Trickling at a speed roughly 100,000 times slower than standard high-speed Internet on Earth, it will take 16 months to download completely. But now scientists have analyzed the initial data and released their first official findings Thursday, published in the journal Science..."






A color composite image highlighting pluto's brilliant diversity of color and texture. The western lobe of the heart—an area rich with nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ice—is brightly displayed in the right of the image. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Nov 21, 2015)

Newest Pluto Pics Show Day in Life of Dwarf Planet - from Science Now/ Los Angeles Times/ latimes.com

"NASA's newest Pluto pictures depict an entire day on the dwarf planet.

The space agency released a series of 10 close-ups of the frosty, faraway world Friday, representing one full rotation, or Pluto day. A Pluto day is equivalent to 6.4 Earth days.

The New Horizons spacecraft snapped the pictures as it zoomed past Pluto in an unprecedented flyby in July. Pluto was between 400,000 and 5 million miles from the camera for these photos..."





The New Horizons spacecraft snapped a series of 10 close-ups representing one Pluto day or 6.4 Earth days in July 2015. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI)

NASA's newest Pluto pictures depict an entire day on the dwarf planet.

The space agency released a series of 10 close-ups of the frosty, faraway world Friday, representing one full rotation, or Pluto day. A Pluto day is equivalent to 6.4 Earth days.

The New Horizons spacecraft snapped the pictures as it zoomed past Pluto in an unprecedented flyby in July. Pluto was between 400,000 and 5 million miles from the camera for these photos..."


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Dec 5, 2015)

NASA Releases Clearest Images of Pluto World Might See for Decades - by Hilary Whiteman/ Space/ Science/ cnn.com

 "(CNN)Black and white images beamed to Earth could be some of the clearest close-ups of Pluto's surface humans see for decades, NASA says.

The images, taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, show craters, mountains and glacial terrain along a strip 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide.

The spacecraft took them in July during its closest flyby of Pluto --- which is at a distance from Earth that varies from 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) to 2.66 billion miles (4.28 billion kilometers) -- and they were among the most recent batch sent to back to our planet..."

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Dec 13, 2015)

NASA Releases an Even Closer Look at Pluto's Heart - by Mariella Moon/ Science/ Engadget/ engadget.com

"Even Pluto's heart is full of scars.

Now that you're better acquainted with Pluto's mountains and ice fields, it's time to examine its heart. We're talking about the dwarf planet's heart-shaped region called Tombaugh Regio, of course, which is prominently displayed in many of its most famous images. During New Horizons' closest flyby in July, the probe's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) zoomed in on the area and took photos within 9,550 miles of its surface.

As you can see, Pluto's heart is scarred with pits, which New Horizons' scientists believe may have formed due to "a combination of ice fracturing and evaporation." These pits seem to follow a pattern, and the team believes it could provide clues on the planet's ice flow and the exchange of nitrogen between its surface and atmosphere..."






Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Mar 18, 2016)

What We've Learned About Pluto - by Kenneth Chang/ Science/ Interactive/ International New York Times/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"The story of Pluto is largely a story of ice.

On Earth, the only ice is frozen water. On Pluto, nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide also freeze solid.

The most striking feature that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft saw when it flew past Pluto last July was a heart-shape region now named Tombaugh Regio after Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto.

The left half is covered by mostly nitrogen snow; the right side is more methane ice.

Eight months since NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft had its quick, close-up look at Pluto, scientists are reaping the scientific rewards from a bounty of data the spacecraft collected. Mission scientists reported their findings in five articles published Thursday in the journal Science..."





Wright Mons, a two-mile high mountain on Pluto. The hole at its center could be evidence of an ice volcano. Credit NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute 


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Mar 20, 2016)

New Studies Detail Just How Complex Pluto and Its Moons Are - by Mariella Moon/ Latest in Science/ engadget.com

"The New Horizons scientists published five new papers on the probe's findings.

Before New Horizons started sending back data and close-up images of Pluto, we barely knew the dwarf planet. We were like a love-sick fool who could only observe from afar. Now, the New Horizons scientists have enough material to publish five new papers that detail the probe's findings on the dwarf planet and its moons in Science. One of its most important discoveries is that Pluto has been geologically active for 4 billion years. Its heart-shaped region's western lobe, the Sputnik Planum, however, is relatively young at only 10-million-years-old..."

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Mar 24, 2016)

Pluto May Have Had Lakes and Flowing Rivers Once - by Rachel Feltman/ Speaking of Science/ The Washington Post/ washingtonpost.com

"At a news conference at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on Monday, NASA scientists made it clear that we're not even close to being done puzzling out Pluto's weird little secrets. It's been more than eight months since the historic New Horizons flyby gave us an unprecedented look at that distant little dwarf planet, but the scientific findings are just starting to roll in.

"As planetary scientists, what the data revealed did not surprise us. It shocked us," NASA's Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green said during the Monday briefing. "What a beautiful system to study."..."



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Oct 27, 2016)

NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Just Sent Back the Last Bit of Its Pluto Data - by Loren Grush/ Science/ Space/ NASA/ The Verge/ theverge.com

"It's been a 15-month process.

NASA now has all the science data that the New Horizons spacecraft gathered of Pluto and its moons over a year ago. Early in the morning on October 25th, the vehicle sent back the last bit of the more than 50 gigabits of information it collected during its flyby of Pluto in July 2015. It marks a big milestone for the New Horizons mission, as the team prepares for the spacecraft’s next flyby of any icy space rock.

It’s taken 15 months for New Horizons to send back all of its Pluto flyby data — a process that was always meant to be slow. The mission team designed New Horizons so that it could store as much information about Pluto as quickly as possible. So in order to fit big enough memory banks on the vehicle, the communications system was a little less robust than previous spacecraft systems...."

Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Dec 28, 2018)

NASA's New Horizons Probe Prepares to Make History - Again
By Robbie Gonzalez/ Science/ Wired/ wired.com

"Way, way out at the cold, dark edges of the solar system—past the rocky inner planets, beyond the gas giants, a billion miles more remote than Pluto—drifts a tiny frozen world so mysterious, scientists still aren't entirely sure if it's one world or two.

Astronomers call it Ultima Thule, an old cartography term meaning "beyond the known world." Its name is a reference to its location in the Kuiper Belt, the unexplored "third zone" of our solar system populated by millions of small, icy bodies.

Numerous though they are, no Kuiper Belt object has ever been seen up close. NASA's two Voyager probes—which traversed the third zone decades ago—might have spied a glimpse of one had they been equipped with the right instruments, except that the Kuiper Belt hadn't even been detected yet. On New Years Eve, for the first time, NASA will get a chance at some facetime with one of these enigmatic space rocks.

At 9:33 pm PST, 33 minutes past midnight on the East Coast, the agency's New Horizons probe will make a close pass of Ultima Thule, making it the most distant object ever to be visited by a spacecraft.

Astronomers have almost no idea what awaits them. “What’s it going to look like? No one knows. What’s it going to be made of? No one knows. Does it have rings? Moons? Does it have an atmosphere? Nobody knows. But in a few days we’re going to open that present, look in the box, and find out,” says Alan Stern, the mission's primary investigator.

New Horizons has traveled for 13 years and across 4 billion miles to reach this point, and the probe looks to be in fine shape: Mission planners confirmed earlier this month that it will pass within 2,200 miles of Ultima Thule after determining that large objects, like moons, and smaller ones, like dust, were unlikely to pose a threat to the spacecraft as it blazed past in excess of 31,000 miles per hour. ("When you're traveling that fast, hitting something even the size of a grain of rice could destroy the spacecraft," says Hal Weaver, the mission's project scientist.)....."





Artist's conception of New Horizons encountering Ultima Thule
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI



Richard


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## pedro47 (Dec 28, 2018)

Richard, are we along in this huge universe?


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## Panina (Dec 28, 2018)

pedro47 said:


> Richard, are we along in this huge universe?


I personally feel we are not alone. The universes size is really unknown, where did it come from? Out of nothing? From something? Theories exist but that is what they are theories not proven fact.  Somewhere the probability is there is life out there, like us? different?   

I always joke is Earth a lab experiment? We really don’t know as much as we think we do.


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## MULTIZ321 (Dec 31, 2018)

Way Beyond Pluto, an Icy World Is Ready For Its Close-Up
By Nell Greenfieldboyce/ Space/ Heard on Morning Edition/ National Public Radio (NPR)/ npr.org

"About a billion miles beyond Pluto, a spacecraft is closing in on an icy minor planet — a mysterious little place that's only about 20 miles across.

If all goes well, NASA will start the new year with the most far-off exploration of a world ever, flying past it about 2,200 miles from the surface while taking images with an onboard telescope and camera. The closest approach will be at 12:33 a.m. ET on Jan 1.

"Really, we have no idea what to expect," Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission, said during a recent news conference....."





An artist's impression of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft encountering Ultima Thule, a Kuiper Belt object that orbits 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019.

JPL/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Steve Gribben



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jan 2, 2019)

NASA's New Horizon Spacecraft Is Triumphant In Encounter With the Most Distant Object Ever Visited
By Kenneth Chang/ Science/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"Now scientists await clearer pictures and a bounty of new data about a small, mysterious icy body four billion miles from Earth.

LAUREL, Md. — Thirty-three minutes into the new year, scientists, engineers and well-wishers here at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory celebrated the moment that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to a small, icy world nicknamed Ultima Thule.

Almost 10 hours later, the New Horizons team finally received confirmation that the spacecraft had executed its planned observations flawlessly. In the days and months to come, the mission’s scientists expect to receive pictures of Ultima Thule and scientific data that could lead to discoveries about the origins of the sun and the planets.

That is the latest triumph in a journey that started in 2006, when the spacecraft launched on a mission to explore Pluto. Thirteen years and more than four billion miles later, New Horizons has provided humanity’s first glimpse of a distant fragment that could be unchanged from the solar system’s earliest days.

Ultima Thule, the name that the mission team selected for the object from more than 34,000 suggestions from the public, means “beyond the borders of the known world.” (Thule is pronounced “TOO-lee.”)

During the flyby, at a distance of about 2,200 miles, the spacecraft was out of communication with Earth because it was busy making scientific observations. Only hours later did New Horizons turn its antenna toward home. Then, it sent a 15-minute update, confirming it had survived the flyby. The message took six hours to travel the 4.1 billion miles at the speed of light to Earth. Future transmissions are expected to convey new pictures and readings from the flyby.

At 10:31 a.m., the operations center at Johns Hopkins, which runs the mission for NASA, confirmed that a radio dish in Madrid, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, had locked in to the signal from New Horizons.

“We have a healthy spacecraft,” Alice Bowman, the mission operations manager, announced following a methodical check of the spacecraft’s systems. “We’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby.”......"





S. Alan Stern, center, New Horizons’ principal investigator, surrounded by children at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., on Tuesday.CreditCreditMatt Roth for The New York Times




Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jan 4, 2019)

New Horizon's Images Reveal Ultima Thule's Odd 'Snowman Shape'
By Jay Passachoff/ Science/ Space/ Mach/ NBC News/ nbcnews.com

"Only this snowman is about 21 miles high and made of icy rubble.

NASA's far-flung New Horizons spacecraft has revealed for the first time a clear picture of Ultima Thule, the icy object it flew by shortly after midnight on New Year's Day.

The city-size object is made up of a pair of roughly spherical lobes, mission scientists said at a press conference Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, to discuss the new findings.

The scientists dubbed the larger lobe "Ultima," the smaller one "Thule."

"The bowling pin is gone," Alan Stern, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and the mission's principal investigator, said, referring to the shape scientists had preliminarily ascribed to the object. "It’s a snowman if it’s anything at all."

The images were obtained by cameras aboard the spacecraft as it sped by the "bi-lobed" object, which orbits the sun about 1 billion miles beyond the orbit of Pluto. At that distance, it takes radio signals more than six hours to travel back to Earth.

Stern said only about 1 percent of the data collected by the spacecraft had been beamed back to Earth. In coming days, the scientists will be getting images with greater detail.

The best image revealed Wednesday has a resolution of about 130 yards per pixel, for a total of 2,800 pixels in the image. In the next few days, we'll see images with resolutions four times finer with a full megapixel of data in the image.






This image from video made available by NASA on Jan. 2, 2019 shows the size and shape of the object Ultima Thule, about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto.NASA via AP



Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jan 21, 2019)

New Horizos' Big Reveal On MU69: Ultima Thule Is a Typical 'Future Comet'
By Ethan Siegel/ Science/ Forbes/ forbes.com

"As 2018 ended and 2019 began, NASA's New Horizons flew past its first target after Pluto: 2014 MU69.

Nicknamed Ultima Thule, it's transformed from a single pixel in our detectors to a red-hued, mottled snowman.

The first three weeks of data have revealed spectacular details concerning this distant world.


Aside from its inactivity, it conforms perfectly to our expectations of cometary nuclei.

In 1986, Halley's comet was imaged by the ESA's Giotto mission, revealing a two-lobed core......"





This view of Comet Halley's nucleus was obtained by the Halley Multicolour Camera (HMC) on board the Giotto spacecraft, as it passed within 600 km of the comet nucleus on 13 March 1986. The comet was clearly quite active at the time.ESA/MPAE LINDAU


Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Jan 26, 2019)

Distant Ultima Thule Looks Amazing in Best New Horizons Photo Yet
By Meghan Bartels/ Space.com/ Science & Astronomy/ space.com

"NASA's New Horizons mission has shared its most detailed view yet of the Kuiper Belt object, nicknamed Ultima Thule, that the spacecraft flew past on Jan. 1. It's become nearly impossible to remember that just a few weeks ago the object was a fuzzy blur.

The image was taken when the spacecraft was about 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) away from Ultima Thule, about 7 minutes before the probe made its closest approach to the object. Between the close proximity of the object and the angle of the light hitting it, the image is already helping scientists better understand the distant object.

"This new image is starting to reveal differences in the geologic character of the two lobes of Ultima Thule and is presenting us with new mysteries as well," Alan Stern, principal investigator for the mission, said in a statement. "Over the next month, there will be better color and better-resolution images that we hope will help unravel the many mysteries of Ultima Thule."......"





The New Horizons spacecraft captured this image of the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, snapping the picture from about 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) away on Jan. 1.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute


Richard


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## Talent312 (Jan 26, 2019)

I find it just amazing that we-humans have managed to create a device that can send us photos from four billion miles away after 13 years in space... Meanwhile, I had to jump start my car in my own garage this week.


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## MULTIZ321 (Feb 11, 2019)

New Horizons Final Ultima Thule Images Reveal True Shape
By Ewdison Then/ Slash Gear/ slashgear.com

"Given the vastness of outer space, it’s no surprise we know very little about it. Most of the time, we can only make guesses based on images our terrestrial telescopes and a few orbital satellites have captured of celestial objects few spacecraft have reached. It wasn’t until New Horizons made its historic flyby of Pluto that we finally got our up-close look at the demoted planet. Now New Horizons is bidding farewell to another long-distance neighbor, but not before throwing scientists new puzzles to munch on about the odd Ultima Thule.

Ultima Thule, more formally named 2014 MU69, is Kuiper Belt Object (KBO), is so far the most distant world ever explored in our solar system. Or perhaps it’s better to say “worlds”. Ultima Thule is actually composed of two joined shapes, named “Ultima” and “Thule”, that were first thought to be both spherical, earning the nickname “snowman”. But like with anything in space, nothing is what it seems.

It’s not that easy to get accurate photos of the complete form of Ultima Thule, considering factors like distance from the sun, the side facing the light, and New Horizon’s 50,000 km/h speed. Add the fact that the spacecraft used long exposure times to boost the camera’s signal level, and you’ve got some heavy blurring going on. Thanks to some processing and tracking which stars are being blocked by Ultima Thule’s shape, scientists at NASA were able to get a better estimate of the KBO’s body....."








Richard


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## MULTIZ321 (Aug 28, 2019)

:
Everything you need to know about the Voyager mission.


https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-voyager-mission/


Richard


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