Fwd: New Horizons returns fresh view of Pluto

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From: "Robert Hooi" <rwlh21@sbcglobal.net>
Date: July 11, 2015 at 9:28:24 PM CDT
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: Fw: New Horizons returns fresh view of Pluto
Reply-To: "Robert Hooi" <rwlh21@sbcglobal.net>

 

Our interesting distant relative in the solar system -

 

 

Back in action, New Horizons returns fresh view of Pluto

July 8, 2015 by Stephen Clark

This image of Pluto from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) was received on July 8, and has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

The New Horizons spacecraft speeding toward Pluto has returned a new image of the icy world lurking at the solar system's outer frontier — the first photo beamed back to Earth since the probe suspended science operations Saturday.

The image from New Horizons' long-range telescopic camera shows Pluto's surface features sharpening into focus. A dark band stretching around Pluto's equator, nicknamed "the whale," and a large 1,200-mile (2,000-kilometer) diameter bright marking shaped like a heart are visible in the latest image.

The probe's black-and-white Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI, instrument captured the view just before 2300 GMT (7 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday. The images arrived on the ground on Wednesday after a four-and-a-half hour travel time from Pluto — 3 billion miles from Earth.

New Horizons was less than 5 million miles, or 8 million kilometers, from Pluto when it took the image, which shows Pluto's equator near the bottom of the disk and north pole in the upper part of the view.

The spacecraft will see parts of the region observed in Tuesday's image when it flies closest to Pluto on July 14. Pluto's 6.4-day rotation period will bring the same part features back into view of New Horizons when it skims just 7,750 miles above the icy dwarf planet after a nine-year trip from Earth.

"The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today," said Jeff Moore, New Horizons' geology, geophysics and imaging team leader from NASA's Ames Research Center. "It will be incredible!"

This raw image from New Horizons' LORRI camera taken July 7 shows Pluto and its moon Charon from a distance of nearly 5 million miles (8 million kilometers). Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

New Horizons resumed taking science data Tuesday, when it kicked off a pre-programmed command sequence governing the craft's operations until July 16. The Pluto encounter command load allowed New Horizons to pick up with its mission after the probe went into safe mode Saturday, halting observations for three days.

The images will keep getting better until New Horizons goes silent July 13 to focus on science observations when its path nears Pluto, its largest moon Charon and four other small moons, according to Hal Weaver, New Horizons' project scientist from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

"It gets juicier and juicier," Weaver said in a status briefing Wednesday. "The science team is just drooling over these pictures.

"Coming in from six days (out) to three days (out), you're doubling the resolution with four times as many pixels across the objects," Weaver said. "We're going to start to get more compositional information on Pluto and Charon."

Pluto's closest approach to Pluto occurs at 1149:57 GMT (7:49:57 a.m. EDT) on July 14.

"We didn't have any idea what to expect — hardly at all — and this is it," Weaver said. "This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see it."

Engineers expect to receive signals from New Horizons more than 13 hours later confirming the spacecraft — about the size of a baby grand piano — made it through the flyby. Then science data and imagery will begin to trickle to Earth, but scientists say Pluto's faraway distance means it will take until late 2016 for all of the observations make it back.

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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Pluto's 'Heart' Revealed as New Horizons Probe Starts Flyby Campaign: 5 Days Out

by Ken Kremer on July 8, 2015

 

The Huge Heart of Pluto
Pluto's "Heart" is seen in this new image from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) received on July 8, 2015 after normal science operations resumed following the scary July 4 safe mode anomaly that briefing shut down all science operations. The LORRI image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI

Emotions are rising exponentially with the rousing revelation that Pluto has a huge 'Heart' as revealed in stunning new imagery received just today (July 8) from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft – which has also officially started its intensive flyby campaign merely 5 days out from humanity's history making first encounter with the last unexplored planet in our Solar System on Tuesday, July 14.

Notably, today's image showing Pluto's 'heart-shaped' surface feature proves that New Horizons is now fully back in business following the nail-biting July 4 weekend anomaly that unexpectedly sent the probe into a protective status known as 'safe mode' and simultaneously sent mission engineers and scientists scurrying to their computer screens to resolve the scary issues and recover the probe back to full operation – just in the nick of time.

The intriguing 'heart' is the brightest area on Pluto and "may be a region where relatively fresh deposits of frost—perhaps including frozen methane, nitrogen and/or carbon monoxide—form a bright coating," say mission scientists.

While in 'safe mode' all science operations were temporarily halted for nearly three days as the spacecraft inexorably zooms towards mysterious Pluto and its quintet of moons for our first up close reconnaissance of the frigid world and the Kuiper Belt.

Read my earlier story from July 6 here detailing how the science team and NASA resolved the July 4 anomaly and restored New Horizons to normal operations with little time to spare for its one time only flyby of the other 'Red Planet'.

The view of Pluto's 'Heart' was taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) when the spacecraft was just under 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from Pluto, and is the first to be received back on Earth since the anxiety rush caused by the July 4 anomaly.

The heart covers nearly half of Pluto's now well resolved disk.

Right beside the large heart-shaped bright area, which measures some 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) across, is another enigmatic and elongated equatorial surface on the left side informally dubbed 'the whale.'

Mission scientists say 'the whale' is one of the darkest regions visible to New Horizons and it measures some 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) in diameter, making it about 50% wider that the 'heart.'
Above 'the whale and the heart' lies Pluto's polar region that images show is intermediate in brightness.

NASA also released another perspective view of 'the whale and the heart' as seen below.

'The whale and the heart of Pluto.'
This map of Pluto, made from images taken by the LORRI instrument aboard New Horizons, shows a wide array of bright and dark markings of varying sizes and shapes. Perhaps most intriguing is the fact that all of the darkest material on the surface lies along Pluto's equator. The color version was created from lower-resolution color data from the spacecraft's Ralph instrument. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI

Be sure to keep this entire area in mind – as if your appetites haven't been whetted enough already – because "this view is centered roughly on the area that will be seen close-up during New Horizons' July 14 closest approach," says NASA.

"The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today," said Jeff Moore, Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team Leader of NASA's Ames Research Center, in a statement. "It will be incredible!"

With barely 5 days to go until the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fast flyby encounter of the ever intriguing binary planet traveling at the far flung reaches of the solar system, last minute glitches are the last thing anyone needs.

Why? Because there are no second chances as New Horizons barrels towards the Pluto system at approximately 30,000 miles per hour (over 48,000 kilometers per hour), which forms a binary planet with its largest known moon – Charon.

"The New Horizons spacecraft and science payload are now operating flawlessly," Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, announced at the July 6 post anomaly media briefing.

The nature of Pluto's features that may appear to resemble craters or volcanoes is not yet known.

"We should be very cautious in interpreting these features," Stern told Universe Today.

Latest color image of Pluto taken on July 3, 2015. Best yet image of Pluto was taken by the LORRI imager on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on July 3, 2015 at a distance of 7.8 million mi (12.5 million km), just prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Color data taken from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

New Horizons will swoop to within about 12,500 kilometers (nearly 7,750 miles) of Pluto's surface and about 17,900 miles (28,800 kilometers) from Charon during closest approach at approximately 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) on July 14.

TThe probe was launched back on Jan. 19, 2006 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on a 9 year voyage of over 3.6 billion miles (5.7 billion km).

"We are on our way to Pluto!" exclaimed Jim Green, director of Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, at the July 6 news media briefing. "It's really a historic time, fraught with many decisions and challenges on the way to the July 14 Pluto system encounter."

"With Pluto in our sights, we're going for the gold."

Facts about Pluto. Credit: NASA

The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission.

Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

This trio of images are the most recent high-resolution views of Pluto sent by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, including one showing the four mysterious dark spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the world. The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) obtained these three images between July 1 and 3 of 2015, prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

 

 

 

 

 

Pluto's 'Heart' Spied by New Horizons Spacecraft (Photo)

by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer   |   July 08, 2015 02:24pm ET

 

New Horizons captured this image of Pluto on July 7, 2015, when the probe was just less than 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from the dwarf planet. Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI View full size image

Pluto looks especially welcoming in a new photo by NASA's approaching New Horizons probe.

The image, which New Horizons took yesterday (July 7) when it was less than 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from Pluto, shows a large, heart-shaped feature on the dwarf planet's surface.

The bright "heart" is about 1,200 miles (2,000 km) wide, NASA officials said. To its left lies an 1,860-mile-long (3,000 km) dark patch along Pluto's equator that mission scientists are calling "the whale."

New Horizons should get much better looks at both of these intriguing features in the coming days — especially during its July 14 flyby, when the probe will zoom within 7,800 miles (12,500 km) of Pluto's surface.

"The next time we see this part of Pluto at closest approach, a portion of this region will be imaged at about 500 times better resolution than we see today," Jeff Moore, New Horizons' geology, geophysics and imaging team leader, said in a statement. "It will be incredible!" added Moore, who's based at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

The New Horizons team received the new photo early this morning (July 8). (It takes about 4.5 hours for data and communications to travel from the spacecraft to Earth, since the two are separated by about 3 billion miles, or 4.8 billion km.)

The image is the first one to come back down to Earth since Saturday (July 4), when New Horizons suffered a glitch that briefly sent it into safe mode, NASA officials said. The spacecraft is now back up to speed, and has in fact begun its close-approach science operations — a choreographed sequence of observations that lasts nine days.

This map of Pluto, made from images taken by New Horizons from June 27 through July 3, shows a diverse array of bright and dark markings, including "the whale," the large, elongated dark patch at bottom left.
Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI

View full size image

"The whale" also features in New Horizons' latest color map of Pluto, which is based on photos New Horizons took from June 27 to July 3. The map reveals a bright, 200-mile-wide (320 km) ring-shaped feature lying just above the whale's tail.

The doughnutlike feature resembles impact craters and volcanoes seen on other solar system bodies, but mission scientists will wait for more detailed images before they begin a serious attempt at interpretation, NASA officials said.

 

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