New Horizons Finds Flowing Ice On Pluto? - http://clapway.com/2015/08/13/new-horizons-finds-flowing-ice-102/

One month has passed since New Horizons finally made its flyby of Pluto, limning the surface in spectacular definition with its Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). The best part of this having happened a month ago is that these following months may be the greatest treat of the entire ordeal, because only after New Horizons sifts through its data for weeks, only after NASA develops and analyzes received telemetry and data are we to see the secrets of Pluto’s surface for ourselves.

NEW HORIZONS CARRIES ON

Recently, a new batch of close-ups was released by NASA which reveals evidence of eccentric ice flows across Pluto’s surface, which means the Earth is not the only body in this solar system with glacier-geology. New Horizon’s LORRI shows a major ice sheet that has glided over the dwarf planet’s surface in a way very similar to glacier movement on Earth.

Here on the 3rd rock from the sun, glaciers usually progress by surface flows round the bends of obstacles, toward the vertex of deepest depression, usually creating a sort of swirly surface, as viewed from above. Now these photos from New Horizons’ LORRI have shown us that such topological patterns are not unique to Earth.

GLACIER’S LOCATION

Scientists believe that this glacier-like movement could still be in motion, but it is difficult to determine if this is the case from the photographs alone. The ice flow flows from the center of Sputnik Planum, a smooth, craterless plain which lies in “the heart of the heart” of Pluto. This region, estimated to be no more than 100 million years old (roughly 1.4 times as long ago as the extinction event of the dinosaurs), is not only young, but also probably still undergoing geological change.

“We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” pointed out mission co-investigator John Spencer of SwRI. “I’m really smiling.”

ICE COMPOSITE COMPOSES PLAINS

Ice on Pluto’s heart-shaped plain is composed of mostly nitrogen, but there are also rich traces of carbon monoxide and methane. Ralph, New Horizons’ other instrument, showed that carbon monoxide levels in the ice gradually increases as the device is pointed towards the center of Pluto’s heart.

NEW HORIZONS FOR SEMANTICS?

In addition to eliminating Earth’s uniquity when it comes to glaciers, this recent discovery has led many to question the fundamentals of glaciers, such as whether glaciers of varying chemical compositions are still worthy of the designation “glaciers,” and whether the term can even signify extraterrestrial phenomena. But this isn’t an exercise in the philosophy of language, so we turn to the National Snow and Ice Data Center for a definition: Glaciers are an amalgam of fallen snow that’ve compressed into large, thickened ice masses over a good number of years. Since it is difficult to include nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ice into a list of phenomena formed by snow, both the media and scientists are perfectly happy using the term “glacier-like” to refer to the above described phenomena.

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New Horizons Finds Flowing Ice On Pluto?

New Horizons" New Images of Pluto Echoes Mars" Camera Debut - http://clapway.com/2015/07/15/new-horizons-new-images-of-pluto-echoes-mars-camera-debut324/

With all of the excitement in anticipation of the imminent arrival of Hi-Res photos of Pluto and its Moon Charon from New Horizons’ flyby yesterday, this is a golden opportunity to remember how planetary exploration by space probe began. Fifty years ago, on July 14th, 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 captured 23 closeup images of Mars, that dusty next-door neighbor of ours. It was the first time we had seen another planet so close.

NEW HORIZONS ECHOES MARINER 4

Just as we are about to echo with Pluto and New Horizons, the images arrived precisely one day after Mariner 4 successfully engaged its flyby of Mars. Fifty years later, we’re about to repeat the maneuver, in a cosmic dance that’s symphony to Mariner 4’s prelude.

Alan Stern, an academic expert at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, agrees: “You couldn’t have written a script that was better.” Just like Mariner 4, New Horizons is teasing science lovers, prudishly forcing us all to wait for hour after hour until the final unveiling occurs. One should note that today a debutante move faster; millennials aren’t waiting as long as the baby boomers did.

NEW IMAGES WILL COME QUICKER

This afternoon, NASA is receiving a smorgasbord of imagery and scientific data, which will all be transmitted to NASA headquarters in a matter of minutes. In 1965, however, each image Mariner 4’s television camera captured required 10 hours to be uploaded and transmitted.

“If someone had asked ‘What do you expect to see?’ we would have said ‘craters’ …[yet] the fact that craters were there, and a predominant land form, was somehow surprising,” reminisces Robert Leighton, Caltech geology professor, who dressed Marner with its camera, and its vast assemblage of instruments.

BEGINNINGS OF INTERPLANETARY EXPLORATION

Leighton and several more Caltech physicists, engineers and geologists were responsible for lifting the then-infantile NASA and its subordinate Jet Propulsion Laboratory out of the crib, and throwing it out the window hard enough to achieve orbit. woof.

John Grotzinger, chairman of Caltech’s Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences describes the atmosphere of the times: “These early flyby missions showed the enormous potential of Mars to provide insight into the evolution of a close cousin to Earth and stimulated the creation of a program dedicated to iterative exploration involving orbiters, landers and rovers.”

ALIEN AESTHETICS, HUMAN SENTIMENTS

Since Mariner 4 first graced Mars’ atmosphere, 19 probes have followed in kind, orbiting and landing on Mars. However, twenty-five other probes have failed. But the sacrifices were certainly not in vain, because the advent of imaging other planets coincided with our first true scientific enquiry into the planets, and sent the captivated the public at large with contradictory sentiments like the beauty in alienness.

Let’s enjoy Pluto, and celebrate history today.

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New Horizons" New Images of Pluto Echoes Mars" Camera Debut

New Horizons Carries Remains of Pluto"s Discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh - http://clapway.com/2015/07/12/new-horizons-carries-remains-of-plutos-discoverer-clyde-tombaugh567/

While we wait for New Horizons to begin its flyby of Pluto, there are some sentiments of the more Earthly persuasion for us to consider. Firstly, Clyde Tombaugh, the ashes of the man who first discovered that distant, icy world in its lonely dance with Charon 85 years ago, are contained in the spacecraft. His remains will have reached Pluto’s system on the fourteenth of this month.

WORTHY STORAGE

Also stored on New Horizons is the 1991 U.S. postage stamp nearing its end of use date in this country. It’s mantra–”Pluto Not Yet Explored”–is brazenly etched at bottom. There are also two state quarters, one of Florida, where the probe was launched, and also Maryland, HQ of New Horizons’ producers and flight control.

In fact, a total of nine lovely mementos are stored aboard the New Horizons, and this number was chosen intentionally.

A DEMOTED WAND

Upon New Horizons’ launch from Cape Canaveral on January 19th of 2006, Pluto was still officially the ninth planet in our solar system. Its present, demoted status as a dwarf planet was assigned seven months post-launch.

It was Tombaugh’s widow and two children who offered an ounce of the man’s ashes for his final journey to Pluto. The farm-boy-cum-astronomer’s ashes are sealed away in a 2-inch aluminum capsule inscribed with the following words:

“Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system’s ‘third zone.’ Adelle and Muron’s boy, Patricia’s husband, Annette and Alden’s father, astronomer, teacher, punster, and friend: Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997)”

TOMBAUGH’S FAMILY TO UNITE FOR NEW HORIZONS’ FLYBY

Annette Tombaugh-Sitze and her younger brother Alden are in their seventies, but still plan on being present at the flight operation base at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, when Tuesday’s historic flyby occurs. The two’s mother passed away in 2012 at ninety-nine years of age.

Annette spoke of the event in a NASA interview posted online: “I think my dad would be thrilled with the New Horizons. I mean, who wouldn’t be? When he looked at Pluto, it was just a speck of light.”

DETAILS OF CARGO

The Pluto-stamp mentioned above depicts the planet as a gray hue with orange flecks, which was an artist’s best rendering based on what NASA knew of the tiny planet pre-1991, which, to be earnest, didn’t amount to much. Only recently has New Horizons revealed the planet to be a copper-colored, icy and bright world. However, Mark Saunders, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service said in an email last week that “[n]o stamp has ever traveled this far!”

A piece of SpaceShipOne has also been attached to New Horizons. SpaceShipOne was the first manned private space plane to reach suborbital flight back in 2004, winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

New Horizons also contains two U.S. flags and two CDs, the first of which contains photos of the New Horizons’ team members, the second contains the names of 434,738 names of the people who signed up online in advance.

 

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New Horizons Carries Remains of Pluto"s Discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh

3 more days, folks. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/11/new-horizons-journey-through-the-cosmos-124/

Since mankind first looked up and realized that there was so much more than just the earth, scientists and researchers have been eager to explore and study other planets, stars, and solar systems. As of Tuesday, July 14th at precisely 7:49:58 EST, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will reveal pictures like we’ve never seen.

Pluto’s Discovery

Pluto was officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18th, 1930. It resides in the farthest cluster of objects in our solar system known as the Kuiper Belt. In these 85 years that we have known of Pluto, it has yet to make one whole revolution around the sun. Not only is Pluto’s journey around Sol incredibly massive, New Horizons’ trek to the now dwarf planet is just as impressively expansive. Measuring in at around 3 billion miles (~ 4.8 billion km), New Horizons has traveled such an incredibly long distance so that we can learn more about Pluto.

New Horizons’ Beginnings

The idea to send a craft out to take high quality pictures of Pluto is the brainchild of a group of researchers called Pluto Underground who first met in 1989. Inspired by the new pictures that had just come about of Pluto and its moon Charon due to the two being in a direct line of sight of Earth, the crew wanted more, and true to the ways of mankind, they began work on getting more. Their result was the creation of New Horizons.

This mission was launched 15 years ago, and in that time, much has changed, including Pluto’s demotion of planetary status, however one point that hasn’t changed is the excitement and desire for more detailed pictures of Pluto.

Exploring New Grounds

A mission from NASA to explore another planet in this fashion has not been undertaken since the Voyager II program in the 1980s. The pictures that New Horizons will take and send back to us will show us much more detailed images than we’ve ever had before. Now, instead of using speculation and their imaginations, researchers will have exact pictures of the dark spots and other various mysterious qualities of the planet.

On July 14th, New Horizons will be within 8,000 miles (~12,874 km) of the planet, and while this may seem far away, the camera it is equipped with will be able to capture details relative in size to the Manhattan docks.

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New Horizons Journey Through the Cosmos

Space cadets, save the date! July 14 is when New Horizons FINALLY reaches Pluto. - http://clapway.com/2015/06/30/save-the-date-july-14-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-to-fly-by-pluto-234/

On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft will fly by Pluto after nearly a decade of travel. The space mission is expected to bring new findings about the mysterious dwarf planet’s atmosphere and its five moons.

July 14 New Horizons Spacecraft will visit former planet Pluto

Save the date, space enthusiasts as NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft flies by Pluto on July 14, 2015. The spacecraft will be making history after journeying 3.6 billion miles over the past 9 years. In January 2006, the spacecraft became the first launched in hopes of reaching the former planet. In two weeks, the dwarf planet will finally have a visitor as New Horizons hovers over 7,800 miles above Pluto’s icy surface around 7:49 a.m.

Though New Horizons will arrive on July 14, we won’t be privy to the first pictures of Pluto for a few days and it may even take months for all the data gathered to be compiled. However, what’s a couple of extra days when we’ve been waiting for nearly a decade for this moment?

The space mission will also reveal the first glimpses of Charon, one of Pluto’s moons. After flying by Pluto, the spacecraft will travel along to explore the Kuiper belt, the solar system that Pluto and other dwarf planets call home.

Remember When Pluto Was a Planet? New Horizons Does!

When New Horizons blasted off on 19 January 2006, it became the fastest space mission ever launched. The main target was to reach our farthest planet Pluto, which Clyde Tombaugh discovered in February 1930. However, only seven months after the spacecraft launched, its mission would be changed as Pluto was officially demoted from planet to dwarf planet.

The demotion came after heated debate in the astronomical community drew proposals regarding Pluto’s inclusion or exclusion as a planet. The proposals used the International Astronomical Union’s definition of a planet to rule out our beloved Pluto.

Though Pluto meets the first and second criterion of being a planet–it is a celestial body orbiting the Sun with a sufficient enough mass to assume a round shape–because of the third criterion, which specifies that the planet must clear the area around its orbit.

Alan Stern, leader of the New Horizons mission, was quoted as saying he was embarrassed that less than five percent of astronomers cast a vote in the debate. Regardless of the vote, Stern could take comfort in the fact that New Horizons had already launched and would not be called back.

What will the New Horizons Spacecraft Reveal about Pluto?

Scientists and researchers involved in the New Horizons mission aren’t completely positive about what the space probe will find on Pluto. However, plenty of possibilities are in orbit in the astronomical community as to what that spacecraft will reveal besides the icy terrain. Some theories include lakes of liquid neon, an equatorial mountain range, and massive cryogeysers.

With all the speculation, everyone is eagerly awaiting July 14 for whatever images and secrets the New Horizons mission may divulge about Pluto, which is still our favorite (dwarf) planet.

For more information on this exciting event in space exploration history, check out this bit from Exceed Internet:

Via: http://www.exceedinternet.org/pluto-new-horizons-satellite

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Save the Date: July 14 NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft to Fly By Pluto