NASA's Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Has Awakened

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Brown Dwarf Aurora Found: Could Inform Exoplanet Searches


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


Richard

 

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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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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

 

[DaveNV]

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

Dave

 

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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