А теперь к Плутону (АМС New Horizons / Новые горизонты)

[Dude]

NASA News Briefing on New Horizon Mission

Запись брифинга с НАСА ТВ.

Bowman: We were 72 seconds early.
Stern: Our nav predicts came out to 70 km closer to Pluto than aimpoint. Well within spec.

пролетели на ~70 км ближе от Плутона, чем целились.

[Global Ural]

мой фильм 2006 года про плутон (кое что было открыто)

https://vk.com/video188152560_171293453

[sas]

Прямо фантастика!
Остается поздравить американцев и всю мировую науку.
Жаль в 69-м не было интернета...

[Тангаж]

Выложенное здесь ранее фото на сайте НАСА:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?Category=Planets&IM_ID=20233
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gallery/CJ4CQIkVEAEaAnw.png-large.jpg

[pkl]

sas пишет:
Когда Рогозин заявит о строительстве базы на Плутоне?

Вам лишь бы пёрнуть

[Vlad_hm]

Красивая миссия к самым границам Системы.
Побольше бы таких... так редко балуют!

Искренне надеюсь, с получением результатов проблем не будет.

[pkl]

Да, молодцы. Хотел бы поздравить, но подожду сигнала. Пока лишь пожелаю удачи /чтоб не сглазить/.

[che wi]

Пресс-релиз НАСА

NASA's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-three-billion-mile-journey-to-pluto-reaches-historic-encounter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto.

After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface -- roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India – making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

"I'm delighted at this latest accomplishment by NASA, another first that demonstrates once again how the United States leads the world in space," said John Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments at NASA, including multiple missions orbiting and exploring the surface of Mars in advance of human visits still to come; the remarkable Kepler mission to identify Earth-like planets around stars other than our own; and the DSCOVR satellite that soon will be beaming back images of the whole Earth in near real-time from a vantage point a million miles away. As New Horizons completes its flyby of Pluto and continues deeper into the Kuiper Belt, NASA's multifaceted journey of discovery continues."

"The exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match."

Спойлер

Per the plan, the spacecraft currently is in data-gathering mode and not in contact with flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physical Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Scientists are waiting to find out whether New Horizons "phones home," transmitting to Earth a series of status updates that indicate the spacecraft survived the flyby and is in good health. The "call" is expected shortly after 9 p.m. tonight.

The Pluto story began only a generation ago when young Clyde Tombaugh was tasked to look for Planet X, theorized to exist beyond the orbit of Neptune. He discovered a faint point of light that we now see as a complex and fascinating world.

"Pluto was discovered just 85 years ago by a farmer's son from Kansas, inspired by a visionary from Boston, using a telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Today, science takes a great leap observing the Pluto system up close and flying into a new frontier that will help us better understand the origins of the solar system."

New Horizons' flyby of the dwarf planet and its five known moons is providing an up-close introduction to the solar system's Kuiper Belt, an outer region populated by icy objects ranging in size from boulders to dwarf planets. Kuiper Belt objects, such as Pluto, preserve evidence about the early formation of the solar system.

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, says the mission now is writing the textbook on Pluto.

"The New Horizons team is proud to have accomplished the first exploration of the Pluto system," Stern said. "This mission has inspired people across the world with the excitement of exploration and what humankind can achieve."

New Horizons' almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile (60 by 90 kilometers) window in space -- the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball.

Because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched – hurtling through the Pluto system at more than 30,000 mph, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft. Once it reestablishes contact Tuesday night, it will take 16 months for New Horizons to send its cache of data – 10 years' worth -- back to Earth.

New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments at NASA, including multiple rovers exploring the surface of Mars, the Cassini spacecraft that has revolutionized our understanding of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. All of this scientific research and discovery is helping to inform the agency's plan to send American astronauts to Mars in the 2030's.

"After nearly 15 years of planning, building, and flying the New Horizons spacecraft across the solar system, we've reached our goal," said project manager Glen Fountain at APL "The bounty of what we've collected is about to unfold."

APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

[свернуть]

[azeast]

"Лишь 15 июля в 00:53 UTC (03:53 ДМВ) этот сигнал достигнет Земли" - с ленты новостей.
А вот здесь http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
показывают 8час35мин до "звонка домой", на 20:17 мск, т.е. примерно в 04:52 ДМВ...

[andr59]

Сегодня Джон Грунсфельд -  Grunsfeld, бывший астронавт ( 5 экспедиций на шаттлах) , ныне один из руководителей НАСА -  Lead for Science at NASA (Associate Administrator) оторвался.

Из твиттера Нади Дрейк ( научный репортер) , которая задавала ему вопросы.

https://twitter.com/nadiamdrake

Q: Is the extended mission going to happen? 
Grunsfeld: We still don't know if @NewHorizons2015 survived the encounter! #plutoflyby

Вопрос: Произойдет ли расширение миссии?
Грунсфельд: Мы пока не знаем  пережили ли  Новые Горизонты сближение!

[Lunatik-k]

Молодцы НАСА.

Так держать.

[Dude]

Интересная перспектива на "официальный снимок для прессы". Оказалось достаточно его перевернуть чтобы задуматься...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=36876

"Сердце" выглядит удивительно похожим на  импактное образование, которое заполняется азотом и прочим, что "стекает" в эту низменность с "поляной шапки" в сторону экватора.

Макс. разрешение ~76 м/пк :
July 14 07:58:30 EDT
New Horizons is taking 60 images of Pluto with LORRI from 15386.759 km away at est. resolution 0.076 km/pix.

[Григорий Разгон]

Dude пишет:
Сердце" выглядит удивительно похожим наимпактное образование, которое заполняется азотом и прочим, что "стекает" в эту низменность с "поляной шапки" в сторону экватора.

Возможно ли определить разницу высот поверхностей между чёрным "плато" и белым "океаном" ?

[Александр Ч.]

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pluto-and-charon-shine-in-false-color

[Dude]

Попытка подкрасить LORRI снимком с низким разрешением  с Ralph. Цвет усиленный, композиция нескольких фильтров 
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-071315_falsecolorcomposite.jpg

Вышло как-то неочень неожидано, Плутон ушел сильно в "синюю" область, разочаровывая тех, кто ожидал его "марсоподобным".
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=36893

Пресс-релиз

New Horizons has obtained impressive new images of Pluto and its large moon Charon that highlight their compositional diversity. These are not actual color images of Pluto and Charon—they are shown here in exaggerated colors that make it easy to note the differences in surface material and features on each planetary body. 
The images were obtained using three of the color filters of the "Ralph" instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT. New Horizons has seven science instruments on board the spacecraft—including "Ralph" and "Alice", whose names are a throwback to the "Honeymooners," a popular 1950s sitcom.  
"These images show that Pluto and Charon are truly complex worlds.  There's a whole lot going on here," said New Horizons co-investigator Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona.  "Our surface composition team is working as fast as we can to identify the substances in different regions on Pluto and unravel the processes that put them where they are."
The color data helps scientists understand the molecular make-up of ices on the surfaces of Pluto and Charon, as well as the age of geologic features such as craters. They can also tell us about surface changes caused by space "weather," such as radiation.
The new color images reveal that the "heart" of Pluto actually consists of two remarkably different-colored regions.  In the false-color image, the heart consists of a western lobe shaped like an ice cream cone that appears peach color in this image.  A mottled area on the right (east) side looks bluish.  A mid-latitude band appears in shades ranging from pale blue through red.  Even within the northern polar cap, in the upper part of the image, various shades of yellow-orange indicate subtle compositional differences. This image was obtained using three of the color filters of the Ralph instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT and received on the ground on at 12:25 pm.
Charon is Just as Colorful
The surface of Charon is viewed using the same exaggerated color. The red on the dark northern polar cap of Charon is attributed to hydrocarbon and other molecules, a class of chemical compounds called tholins. The mottled colors at lower latitudes point to the diversity of terrains on Charon.  This image was obtained using three of the color filters of the Ralph instrument on July 13 at 3:38 am EDT and received on the ground on at 12:25 pm.
"We make these color images to highlight the variety of surface environments present in the Pluto system," said Dennis Reuter, co-investigator with the New Horizons Composition Team. "They show us in an intuitive way that there is much still to learn from the data coming down."
Due to the three-billion-mile distance to Pluto, data takes 4 ½ hours to come to Earth, even at the speed of light. It will take 16 months for all of New Horizons' science data to be received, and the treasure trove from this mission will be studied for decades to come.

Image Caption: Pluto and Charon in False Color Show Compositional Diversity
This July 13, 2015, image of Pluto and Charon is presented in false colors to make differences in surface material and features easy to see. It was obtained by the Ralph instrument on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, using three filters to obtain color information, which is exaggerated in the image.  These are not the actual colors of Pluto and Charon, and the apparent distance between the two bodies has been reduced for this side-by-side view.
The image reveals that the bright heart-shaped region of Pluto includes areas that differ in color characteristics. The western lobe, shaped like an ice-cream cone, appears peach color in this image. A mottled area on the right (east) appears bluish.  Even within Pluto's northern polar cap, in the upper part of the image, various shades of yellow-orange indicate subtle compositional differences.   
The surface of Charon is viewed using the same exaggerated color. The red on the dark northern polar cap of Charon is attributed to hydrocarbon materials including a class of chemical compounds called tholins. The mottled colors at lower latitudes point to the diversity of terrains on Charon.
This image was taken at 3:38 a.m. EDT on July 13, one day before New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto. 

Image Credit: NASA/APL/SwRI

в СМИ его вряд ли правильно поймут, особенно фразу типа: exaggerated false colors that highlight compositional diversity, obtained using three of the color filters.    )

[snek]

Судя по раскрашеным снимкам на Плутон кто-то наступил)))

[Dude]

Полярное пятно на Хароне похоже тоже списали на толины.

Возможно ли определить разницу высот поверхностей между чёрным "плато" и белым "океаном" ?

да, будет возможно с некоторой точностью, когда скачают стереосъемку, она как раз накрывает "сердце". Пока что глаз угадывает низменность по теням, форма низменности в виде "капли", плюс видимая ровность такой большой площади поверхности,  на в остальном вполне "хаотической" планете(чур меня, чур Хлынин придёт). Выводы как бы сами напрашиваются...

"Увеличение радиуса" по сути отменило тропосферу, о чем Алан Стерн явно намекал на брифингах Так что, все "атмосферные течения" будут сильно рельефозависимые, т.е. приповерхностное "затекание" азота в кратер-ловушку вполне в рамках общей картины.

 

[Nixer]

На Ральфе нет зеленого фильтра - только синий, красный и два инфракрасных. Поэтому фоток в натуральном цвете не будет вообще.

[Dude]

Шутка, что у Плутона не атмоСфера, но "атмоПолусфера", может оказаться недостаточно острой, и может оказаться, что она вообще ограничена стенками ущелий и кратеров.

[SashaBad]

Dude пишет:
Шутка, что у Плутона не атмоСфера, но "атмоПолусфера", может оказаться недостаточно острой, и может оказаться, что она вообще ограничена стенками ущелий и кратеров.

Думаю атмосфера всё же присутствует и её влияние на формирование рельефа значительное.
Информации конечно мало но даже на самых подробных, доступных на данный момент,изображениях кратеров маловато и они в значительной степени смазаны. 
Перетекание газов с летней на зимнюю сторону способно видимо сильно сглаживать поверхность.