Posted on 07/18/2015 11:45:22 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Whenever mankind achieves something extraordinary that pushes the boundaries of what is possible, there are some naysayers who refuse to believe it has happened.
It turns out there are some out there who think that Nasa has faked the stunning images of Pluto and its moons sent back by the New Horizons space craft this week.
Rather than marvelling at the extraordinary detail they have revealed of mountains of ice, craters and canyons on Plutos surface, they instead insist it is all an elaborate lie.
One individual, who calls himself Crrow ...used images from his own telescope in his back garden to take images of Jupiter, which is 400 million miles from Earth, and compared them to New Horizons images it took of the much smaller Pluto from nine million miles way, early in its mission.
He said that as his images of Jupiter are clearer than those of Pluto, it proves the Pluto images are fabricated.
He said: It is all fraud. You are just looking at pixels. Nasa and John Hopkins own these fabricated and false images.
...
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, said conspiracy theories were an inevitable part of space exploration.
He said: 'I was surprised to see how quickly people started saying the mission to Pluto, and the pictures being sent back to Earth are all fake. I think these ideas are just plain Goofy.
'Conspiracy theorists believe every strange blob of light near the International Space Station are alien spacecraft, and every feature on Mars photographed by Nasa is interpreted as evidence of aliens living there.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
LOL! Flat Earthers. Probably the same jugheads who are out there pimpin’ Algore’s “global warming”.
Space is pretty empty, and it doesn't take much power to send a signal really, really far. Satellites receive the signal and use higher power transmitters to send it on to Earth. It's Earth's atmosphere which it harder to get 'through'.
“Pluto lies 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. At their closest, the two are only 2.66 billion miles (4.28 billion km) apart.”
the speed of light = 670 616 629 miles per hour
It takes about 4 hours at the speed of light to go from Earth to Pluto.
How fast does light travel from the Sun to each of the planets?
Light travels at a speed of 299,792 kilometers per second; 186,287 miles per second. It takes 499.0 seconds for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth, a distance called 1 Astronomical Unit. below I list the light travel times from the Sun to each planet:
Planet Distance in AU Travel time .................................................................... Mercury 0.387 193.0 seconds or 3.2 minutes Venus 0.723 360.0 seconds or 6.0 minutes Earth 1.000 499.0 seconds or 8.3 minutes Mars 1.523 759.9 seconds or 12.6 minutes Jupiter 5.203 2595.0 seconds or 43.2 minutes Saturn 9.538 4759.0 seconds or 79.3 minutes Uranus 19.819 9575.0 seconds or 159.6 minutes Neptune 30.058 14998.0 seconds or 4.1 hours Pluto 39.44 19680.0 seconds or 5.5 hours ....................................................................
It’s generally advisable to do a bit of research before you post something.
The probe has a power supply of around 200 watts. Its radio transmitter puts out about 10 watts. Finally the signal is received on Earth by a network of radio telescopes called the NASA Deep Space Network.
What would be the point? Some people are just nuts.
So I read on FRepublic the other day it was broadcasting at 8 watts. You’re telling me it’s broadcasting at 10 watts. I missed it two watts. Sorry about that.
Buzz Aldrin knows how to deal with these kooks.
You know much more than me about this stuff. So how far off (how many parts of a degree) would the direction the signal is being sent.... how far off would it have to be before the signal missed the receivers? Considering the signal is traveling 3 to 4 billion miles?
> Im glad to see Pluto. Would this be a Goofy Pluto Napl? Time to call in Giorgio?
This seems like Nully’s mandate. NJCT ping?
Even Rosie Odonnel proved the towers were blowed up by Dick Cheney. There has never been a case of fire melting metal. Never. Rosie said so. And that expert in building demolition, Willy Nelson, showed us how it was a controlled detonation.
I think the pictures of Pluto are all fake. I don’t see how any of this mission make Muslims feel good about themselves... AND THAT is NASA’s number one mission in the Obama era.
BUT then again....It did start under Bush, and we all know about that Bush guy...
Morons to the right of us, morons to the left of us ...
Had you said that i wouldn’t have quibbled. 8, 10... pretty close. You said the probe operates at 8 watts.
Now to your other question. If you see pictures of New Horizons you see that it has a parabolic dish. That is so that most of the transmitted power is aimed in a narrow cone towards the Earth.
To answer your question we would need to know how wide the beam is. But it’s safe to say that they make the cone big enough to account for the accuracy with which they can aim the antenna at Earth.
Look, I agree. It is hard to understand how a 10 watt signal can travel billions of miles and still be picked up on Earth when an AM station sends 50000 watts and barely makes it 100 miles. It turns out we are that good. Using large antennae, serious physics, a quiet part of the spectrum, and a whole bunch of math, we can do it quite easily.
One other intersting tidbit. The probe acquired data for about 16 hours during the encounter. It will take 12-16 months to transmit it all back to Earth. That tells us something about the bit rate... :-)
Insanity abounds.....
why? You apparently don’t understand the nature of signal to noise ratios, background effects, or the ability of modern science
“There aint no man on no moon!”
Is this from the interview with the old guy during our first lunar mission. I seam to remember something like that.
I think he was an old black man in Florida, you might search the internet.
Groucho: Oh, that ... that clause is standard in every contract. That's what's called a "sanity clause".
Chico: (laughing) You can't fool me ... there ain't no Sanity Clause.
The New Horizons Pluto Mission is real.
It’s NASA that’s fake.
“One individual, who calls himself Crrow...”
Did Tom Servo weigh in?
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