Why can't we see any stars or light in the background?
The reason that the stars do not show up on the image is that the stars are so dim that the camera cannot gather enough of their light in a short exposure.
New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
141–150 of 309 posts
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#142Quote from a friend of mine on the team: "After 9.5 years and 6 billion km, we made it to Pluto 72 seconds ahead of schedule." Amazing! The views of Pluto and Charon already reveal how incredibly fascinating this system is. The dichotomy of their surface colours will most definitely lead to further insight into formation processes in the Kuiper Belt. Just such a shame that we can't land this time around. With the vol…
I love HN for things like this - personal accounts of people associated with groundbreaking projects. Thanks for sharing. Most of your post is about visiting planets and exploring the solar system, but you close witha comment about disrupting science communication. What aspects of science communication are you referring to?
Not sure but I think he was talking about the fact that NASA had to close the communication with the satellite so that it can get busy with clicking and doing science with Pluto during the flyby
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#143Plutos "demotion" from being a fully-fledged planet makes me wonder if it would have been politically feasible to start the New Horizons project if the redefinition had happened a few years earlier.
Still, I am pleasantly surprised by the excitement this mission is garnering.
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#144Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#145Traveling at 16km/s for 9.5 years would dilate time by almost 300 minutes! Not only is there a 4.5 hr delay because of the speed of light, there's an extra 300 min of relativity correction.
Ok lets see if we can get this to match. I get the gamma factor to be
gam = 0.9999999985758079
with this, earth sees any time interval on new horizons t' to be
\detla t' = \delta t / gam
longer than the time t on earth. Integrating both sides above over time, keeping velocity constant, we get
t' = t/ gam = 9.5 yr / 0.9999999985758079 = 9.500000013529824 yr
this gives an difference between our observed "new horizons time" and out local time of
t' - t = t/gam - t = (1/gam - 1) t = 0.4 s
we disagree by about a factor of 45000.
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#146This gives me a tremendous amount of Pride in humanity, even though I had nothing to do with it. (Other than perhaps pay a little bit of taxes)
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#147Quote from a friend of mine on the team: "After 9.5 years and 6 billion km, we made it to Pluto 72 seconds ahead of schedule." Amazing! The views of Pluto and Charon already reveal how incredibly fascinating this system is. The dichotomy of their surface colours will most definitely lead to further insight into formation processes in the Kuiper Belt. Just such a shame that we can't land this time around. With the vol…
I love HN for things like this - personal accounts of people associated with groundbreaking projects. Thanks for sharing. Most of your post is about visiting planets and exploring the solar system, but you close witha comment about disrupting science communication. What aspects of science communication are you referring to?
I realise that I made an unexplained logical leap to get to the last comment. Basically, based on my professional experience as a planetary scientist, it's my belief that the reason we don't have more satellites cruising through the Solar System is that we (and I mean scientists, engineers, administrators etc.) continue to fail in communicating their true value to the average person on the street. I think that media like Twitter, Instagram, blogs etc. have definitely helped raise the profile of interplanetary exploration, but I'm still waiting for the genius that comes up with the trump card that will enable science communication to become at least 10x more effective.
The fact that missions like Cassini, Kepler etc. have to fight to keep the lights on is IMHO testament to the fact that we've failed in communicating their value to society. I try to post stuff on my blog [1] to engage people in the wonders of space science and exploration: it doesn't feel effective though. Someone that figures out how to fully convey the value of missions like New Horizons to the public deserves a serious pat on the back.
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#148Does anyone know of a KSP mod or similar that reproduces the current status of interplanetary probes in the solar system?
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not what I'm hearing, and you probably missed my point. It's alienating and very shallow. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with being proud of one's country's, or a country's achievements. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your government, of your people, of your land. But turn that into mindless yelling and that's just a pissing contest. It's ignorant of what other countries have to bring. To give you…
If you have ever been to a high school pep rally; most people don’t actually care about the school. But, it’s fun to stand up and yell really loudly. Nationalism is IMO deeper than that. To use a EU example, many people in Greece complain about countries that are giving them money. “How dare they attach strings when handing us money!!!” That’s nationalist in ways I have trouble understanding.
Speaking as a UK citizen living in Switzerland, I have to ask: what is a high school pep rally?
Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rosetta/Philae was a European achievement paid by the EU public, yet that barely gets mentioned. It's really a shame that the endless churn of downbeat economic news has overshadowed everything good that European countries are able to do together... Maybe Europe would benefit from having a bit more American-style "rah-rah" patriotism around the good old "12 stars on deep blue" EU flag. Nowadays it seems that we Europ…
oh please, no american-style patriotism here in europe. I respect our american friends, but please, just... no. to give reasons would mean insulting probably more than few, so I refrain from that. let's say we're not all the same, we've grown up in different environments, and there are quite a few things I personally don't like in current US, and would not see many reasons to be proud. that we have our own issues is…
> and there are quite a few things I personally don't like in current US, and would not see many reasons to be proud.
As an American, I agree that we don't have much to be proud of lately, but I think that's why it's especially important to rally around achievements like the success of our space program as citizens. Despite how it may appear from abroad, the US is more divided than ever at home, and our government pursues policies that many of our citizens don't agree with. It's very, very rare that we can all get together as citizens and be truly proud of something our nation has done, and it serves as a way to build good will between people who normally would never come together. Please don't try to take this away from us.