"...looks like sumtin I chased under the sofa last week"
Posted on 07/14/2015 12:30:15 PM PDT by BenLurkin
At 7:49 a.m. EDT today New Horizons made history when it zoomed within 7,800 miles of Pluto, the most remote object ever visited in the Solar System.
Pluto has a very complex surface. The fact that large areas show few craters – as compared to say, Ceres or Vesta – shows that there have relatively recent changes there. Maybe very recent. Alan Stern, principal investigator for the mission, was asked by a report at this morning’s press conference if it snows on Pluto. His answer: “It sure looks like it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Looks like a dog I know
The camera they use was probably the highest resolution available 10-12 years ago when they were building the spacecraft.
Although these are preliminary and not close-up photos, I’m surprised that the impact crater edges don’t appear better-defined. They seem eroded or weathered. If true, I’m curious what force(s) might have caused that.
Looks like a typical Muslim country...
Well, considering the fabrication costs, the R&D, the cost of fuel for 9 years and the salary to pay the PHD braniacs who run this thing, I think it's money well spent.
Just think how much it would cost if they were union employees (the IBPHD...The International Brotherhood of PHDs)..........LOL!
I bought a small estate on it. What better fence to have than 5 billion miles?
Besides the obvious science, we (USA) get prestige.
We keep attracting the best and brightest, which we need to outsmart our enemies and grow the economy.
That and the amount of light and heat that would be available to get information would be very, very minimal.
No way.. I do not see even one beheaded body
Can you imagine the people who worked on this for year after year? They will start getting layoff slips tomorrow.
Amazing detail in your photo.
Is that a Bigfoot foot print bottom center ?
Yes they did and where was the necessary public funding to attempt this in the private sector???
So you have a problem with the Apollo moon landing missions, the Skylab space station and later the Space Shuttle? And lets add to that the International Space Station, the Earth Observing System, heliophysics, robotic spacecraft, the current Mars explorer, the Hubbell telescope….and the list goes on and on and on……
So how many of those projects were privately funded?
When the time comes when there is a profit to be made, such projects will be taken over by the private sector……….
Nice try.....
It's moving fast, and there ain't much light out there.
Maybe I’m expecting too much and trying to compare this one to the Hubbell
Hubble can spend weeks doing one shot. This probe doesn't have that luxury. There's no real way to brake it.
Actually quite a bit of actual science that have gone into licensed technologies to other industries such as an implantable heart pump based on a shuttle fuel pump design and here’s a paper with over 120 others to peruse:
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/pdf/AIAA-2010-8885-305.pdf
Here’s another list of NASA tech spinoff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
"...looks like sumtin I chased under the sofa last week"
Much more coming starting tomorrow. They oriented the probe to gather as much data as possible during the close approach rather than have it spend that time pointing back towards earth. It’ll phone home briefly at 9pm tonight, then starting tomorrow morning it will stream back all of the data for the next 16 months. Press conference I watched said the bit rate was between 1kb/sec to 4kb/sec depending on if they have it do some sort of spin while it transmits.
Should have the closeups soon!
And all this science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job five days a week...
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