Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 309 posts

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#151

Post by Retric »

david-given wrote: post #149
Retric wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pep_rally

It's really just a time filler to cover the gap between when classes end and a school game begins. Growing up in the US I think we had ~1 or 2 per year from ~8th-12th grade. They were also generally fairly short as in 10-15 minutes with I think one lasting 45 when the other team was late.

PS: Most games did not take place during the school day, but I think they scheduled a few that with a small overlap if a team would otherwise get home really late during a week night. I think there much more common in low density areas for this reason.

Edit: Though like all such traditions it's been morphing for a while. With some schools holding them before big events and or in the middle of the day.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#152

Post by tlb »

el_duderino wrote: post #141
lfmunoz4 wrote: post #117

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.

Since you can see stars near the moon, you should be able to see stars near Pluto, which is less bright. More likely, there are no stars in the (very narrow) angle of the camera.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#153

Post by Splendor »

Mahn wrote: post #106

Apparently it snows on Pluto: Pluto has an atmosphere. It snows on Pluto and the snow sublimates back into the atmosphere. https://twitter.com/OSIRISREx/status/620932748824285184

With a 248-year orbit around the sun those must be some long winters.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#154

Post by Sven7 »

kartikkumar wrote: post #147
japhyr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All you have to do is convince Kim Kardashian its important...

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#155

Post by thwest »

tlb wrote: post #152
el_duderino wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since you can see stars near the moon, you should be able to see stars near Pluto, which is less bright. More likely, there are no stars in the (very narrow) angle of the camera.

Perhaps no significantly bright stars. I find it unlikely that there are zero stars in that field of view, especially since the probe and planet are most likely roughly in the plane of the galaxy.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#156

Post by bdamm »

kartikkumar wrote: post #147
japhyr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What, Kepler is fighting to keep the lights on? The greatest mission that NASA has ever undertaken? I'm saddened to hear that.

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#157

Post by tammer »

kartikkumar wrote: post #89

Quote 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…

Why Uranus?

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#158

Post by markbnine »

What we need now is a real-time play-by-play by Carl Sagan. . e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8eqYVFgzIU

Or Larry Soderblom on Triton. Try to dig up the full "Encounter with Neptune". . . classic. . . first ten minutes - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8zzlq_encounter-with-neptu...

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#159

Post by gus_massa »

buyx wrote: post #143

Plutos "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.

The Dawn mission went to Vesta and Ceres, so I guess you could get funds for a dwarf planet mission to Pluto and Charon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_(spacecraft)

(They are closer, so probably the New Horizons mission is more expensive.)

Re: New Horizons: Nasa spacecraft speeds past Pluto

#160

Post by chasing »

kartikkumar wrote: post #89

Quote 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…

Any actual engineer will probably find this comment painfully naive, but here we go:

If it's infeasible to slow down to get into orbit or land on Pluto, what about the feasibility of designing a probe to impact Pluto at XX km/sec and survive well enough to send back data.

Like, fire a (metaphorical) bullet full of scientific instruments directly into the surface of the planet.

Is it simply that we have no way to build something that could both survive such an impact and be complex enough to do anything useful afterwards? Or might it create too much destruction on Pluto's surface? Or some combination of those?

Edit:

I mean, it worked when we went to the Moon: http://gallerytpw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Georges-M%C3...

Edit 2:

Not literally a bullet. I'm aware of the speed difference between NH and a bullet. ;-)

Post reply on HN