A Journey Into the Solar System's Outer Reaches, Seeking New Worlds To Explore (nytimes.com) 88
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will visit a tiny and mysterious object in the Kuiper belt on Tuesday, seeking clues to the formation of our cosmic neighborhood. From a report: In June 1983, newspaper headlines declared that NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft had left the solar system, crossing beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the common view of the time: All of the solar system's big, interesting things -- the sun and the nine planets -- were behind Pioneer 10. Thirty-five years later, the Kuiper belt -- the region Pioneer 10 was just entering -- and the spaces beyond are perhaps the most fascinating parts of the solar system. In their vast, icy reaches are clues about how the sun and planets, including ours, coalesced out of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago. Even farther out might be bodies the size of Mars or Earth, or even a larger one some astronomers call Planet Nine, and technological advances could usher in a new age of planetary discovery.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 -- its designation in the International Astronomical Union's catalog of worlds -- or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 -- its designation in the International Astronomical Union's catalog of worlds -- or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
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New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.6 m/s and pass within about 3,660 km of the surface.
Re:umm (Score:4, Informative)
New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.1 km/s and pass within about 3,540 km of the surface.
FTFY. Note in particular that it's km/s not m/s. You drive your car around your neighbourhood at about 14 m/s.
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New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.6 m/s...
No, you're off by 3 orders of magnitude. 31,500 miles per hour is 14 km/s
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Re:umm (Score:4, Informative)
Those units do make sense - it just isn’t in your preferred system of measurement.
It’s not as if the article said New Horizons made the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.
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This chart shows you how they 'make sense'
https://static.boredpanda.com/... [boredpanda.com]
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Even worse are variants depending on what you measure: nautical inch vs avoirdupois inch, dry vs wet vs slightly moist gallon.
Q: There's a straight road surveyed as 100 miles long. At one end, there's a car going 100mph, and a plane also going 100mph. After one hour, where will they be?
A: The plane will be past the road's end (somehow aircraft speed is measured in sea miles even above land), the car won't make it yet as car speeds are in land miles which are shorter than survey miles.
Re: umm (Score:2)
Nautical miles are actually more logical than kilometers, since the French messed up the calculation to get the meter.
What does make sense is that 1 liter of water has mass of 1 kg, and a thousand of these makes up 1 cubic meter. It's too bad a calorie and a joule didn't come out to the same value. That would make life even better.
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It's too bad a calorie and a joule didn't come out to the same value. That would make life even better.
Calories actually come from that value. Increase the temperature of 1 liter of water from 14.5 degrees C to 15.5 Cis equivalent to one kilo Calorie.
And what exactly have the french to do with it? Oh, they keep the "meter" and the "kg" in a "museum" ... why are you blaming them for that?
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I believe that what he meant was that the meter was originally supposed to be defined relative to the size of the earth: on ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. It was later re-defined.
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originally supposed to be defined relative to the size of the earth: on ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole
Oh, thanx. I never heard about that.
The redefinition however did not change its length, only the base on which it is defined.
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The airplane has to "navigate". ... so the measurement of the distance can be arbitrary.
A nautical mile is the "natural size" (or part of it) of the planet. Anything else than nautical miles make no sense for navigating either planes or ships.
But a car has a road
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A nautical mile is the "natural size" (or part of it) of the planet. Anything else than nautical miles make no sense for navigating either planes or ships.
And why exactly would one kind of mile be better for navigation than, let's say, nanolightyear (which fits among the range of historical miles)? A nautical mile has no upsides above any other arbitrary unit, but has the downside of making calculations hard when dealing with any other unit. The value of metrication is not in the metre being somehow better, but in ease of dealing with bigger and smaller metric units.
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Why don't you simply google what a nautical mile is?
Sigh ...
The value of metrication is not in the metre being somehow better, but in ease of dealing with bigger and smaller metric units.
Or in angles? Perhaps? Being able to make simple calculations in your mind? This is the position of Greenwich: 51.48ÂN 0.00ÂE. What is the coordinates 100 nautical miles north? What is it south? What is the _approximated_ position 100 nautical miles west or east?
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What is the coordinates 100 nautical miles north? What is it south? What is the _approximated_ position 100 nautical miles west or east?
Depends on where you are. Newsflash: no matter how Mercator would wish, Earth is not a cylinder. Nor even a ball. At least no one seriously considers calculating west-east position in miles, but for north-south, there's indeed that temptation. And errors are big enough to make any navigation that'd use miles dangerous. You want your plane to land on the airport rather than somewhere the next city.
Miles were useful for 16th century navigation when the winds drifted you so much that you had to see where
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So we are all lucky that you are not sailing a ship or commanding an airplane ...
And errors are big enough to make any navigation that'd use miles dangerous.
Err... no?
At least no one seriously considers calculating west-east position in miles
Between 70degrees north and 70degrees south: everyone does that. Actually we do it all over the planet, but if you get closer to the poles you can not do simple math in your mind anymore.
Will my wondering ever cease why people talk about stuff they have no clue about?
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"the car won't make it yet as car speeds are in land miles which are shorter than survey miles": Huh? Are you saying the survey miles are measured through the earth, as opposed to over its surface?
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"statute" ("land", "international" (heh)) mile: 1.609344 km; "survey" mile: 1.609347 km. Sea miles had different sizes until late 20th century before coalescing into 1.852 km. You get an error of over 15% if you say just "mile" without specifying what kind of mile you mean.
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Hm, AFAIK distances and speeds in UK are still miles and mp/h ....
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The tired old metric flame again? Seriously? *YAWN*
There are two types of countries in the world: those who use the metric system, and those whose flag is on the moon.
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Three and a half. The UK seems to be hedging its bets. Beer is in pints but diesel is in litres, and don't get me started about plumbing.
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Liberia and Myanmar also still officially use the imperial system and neither have even launched a space probe, let alone put a flag on the moon, so the statement is actually demonstrably false as a logical construct.
Notes from multiple European engineers on th
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I thought that the engineers used metric? I know that the U.S. military does. It's just the general population.
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pass within 2,200 miles of the surface ...
what's that in units that make sense?
... sounds like a solid hit to me.
Does not really matter
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>It was the common view of the time: All of the solar system's big, interesting things -- the sun and the nine planets -- were behind Pioneer 10.
At the time, i.e. in June 1983, there were nine astral bodies considered planets. I'm fairly sure whoever wrote the article put that sentence in there as a bait.
Re: Nine planets? (Score:3)
Most planetary scientists and many astronomers regard Pluto as a planet.
Even those that don't expect to find an Earth-sized planet in the Kuipier belt.
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when it was such for most of a century.
So was Ceres, wasn't it?
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Something not mentioned (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the con artist shut down the government, or at least part of it, only essential personnel at NASA will be on duty [nasawatch.com] when the flyby happens.
This also affects another NASA flyby [buzzfeednews.com] the same day:
Someone I know from another site has a niece whose husband works at NASA and is a big supporter of the con artist. He's taking a little bit of pleasure knowing the guy won't be around for the momentous occasion and won't get to see it until afterwards. Nor is he getting paid and won't get a pay raise next year.
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Congratulations on the coinage.
Shadenfreude, n. Being happy that you're not in direct sunlight.
Re: Something not mentioned (Score:1)
Nothing for them to do but sit around in politically correct tee shirts anyway.
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You're confused about the meaning of the word "need."
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Why doesn't your Pedophile In Chief make Mexico pay for it ? Isn't that what he campained on ?
I'll tell you why: Because Trump is full of shit, like everyone who ever lived even just one second on planet Earth anytime within the past 50 years already knows, or should know.
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Border walls lost support when the problems of stealing peoples lands to build it pushed the cost into the stratosphere.
There are still 85 active cases from that time in the courts.
https://nordic.businessinsider.com/trump-border-wall-mexico-texas-private-land-use-2017-9?r=US&IR=T
Pioneer 10 has “left the Solar System” (Score:2)
In 1983 we did know about the Oort Cloud - We just hadn’t directly observed objects out there yet. I don’t recall anyone with any scientific knowledge making this “left the solar system” claim back then.
Actually, just found a NY Times archive article. The headline made that statement, but the article itself just says Pioneer 10 is past “the known planets”. Even then, headline writers went for the “clickbait”.
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This. The boundary of the solar system is open to definition, but the generally accepted one is the heliopause -- the boundary at which the sun's effect on space mingles with and is weaker than that of interstellar space.
Re:Pioneer 10 has “left the Solar System& (Score:2)
No, it isn't the generally accepted definition. The heliopause is merely the edge of the heliosphere and nothing more. The "sun's effect on space" includes its gravitational influence, which extends well beyond the heliopause.
Re:Pioneer 10 has “left the Solar System& (Score:2)
Fair enough. Using gravity to define the solar system would include the Oort Cloud, which is further out than the heliopause.
Perhaps the "end" of the solar system depends on your field. My background is in space science (plasmas and EM fields) so I suppose my bias is showing.
Thanks for the improvement.
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Next target? (Score:1)
Any news on what objects New Horizons can explore after "Thule"? The Hubble telescope spent a good many hours searching out targets explicitly for New Horizons, which is what found Thule. I wonder if any Earth scopes can help in the hunt for new targets.
Re: Next target? (Score:1)
Re:Next target? (Score:4, Informative)
Found this:
The flyby of 2014 MU69 is just part of New Horizons’ extended mission that runs through 2021. The spacecraft will perform more distant observations of dozens of other Kuiper Belt objects and also heliophysical studies.
Stern is optimistic that this extended mission will not be the last for New Horizons. The lack of features in the lightcurve of MU69, he said, means that the spacecraft won’t need to maneuver as much to optimize the flyby trajectory. “It doesn’t matter where in the rotation phase we show up,” he said. “We’re going to see about the same amount of terrain.
That frees up fuel reserves on the spacecraft, he said, that could be used to target another Kuiper Belt object flyby in a second extended mission that would run out to 2024 or beyond. “We are currently searching for new close flyby targets, and we have some very promising techniques” for doing so, he said. With the fuel reserves not needed for the MU69 flyby, “we have a fighting chance of having a second KBO flyby.”
There are also opportunities, he said, for additional remote observations of Kuiper Belt and other objects, distant observations of the giant planets, and heliospheric and even astrophysics studies using the spacecraft. “I think New Horizons has a bright future, continuing to do planetary science and other applications,” he said. “There’s fuel and power onboard the spacecraft to operate it for another 20 years. That’s not going to be a concern even for a third or fourth extended mission.” [1]
https://www.quora.com/Could-Ne... [quora.com]
The upshot seems to be there is no next target right now but they are looking for one and the vehicle is in good shape.
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NH actually had 2 choices after Pluto. One was probably slightly bigger, but would had taken more fuel to reach. I'm pretty sure #2 is out of range by now. Let's hope they find another object within reach.
Already found Ultima Thule back in 1974 :-) (Score:1)
Fascinating? (Score:1)
Re: "...the spaces beyond are perhaps the most fascinating parts of the solar system."
This may be true from the perspective of, 'where we haven't visited yet'. However I'd challenge the notion that the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud are intrinsically more interesting than the 9 planets (yes, I said 9 planets). The 9 planets are extremely diverse.
The outer bodies are likely to have a certain amount of sameness to them, if the theories of solar system formation and dynamics hold up. Of course we won't know for
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If you think Pluto is interesting, then you think the Kuiper Belt is more interesting -- because it contains thousands of Plutoids. And if you think Pluto is a planet, then out of the thousands of planets in the solar system it's odd that you'd say that a measly 8 of them are more interesting than all the thousands of others. It's almost like you want to identify the interesting 8 in a different way and maybe demote the rest to dwarf planets, but I know you'd never do such a thing.
Planet 9, and possibly 10 (Score:2)
FTFTFS
Pluto is a planet, has been for a very long time and will remain so, despite an unfortunate mutual bewilderment that afflicted attendees at an IAU meeting.
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Pluto is a planet, has been for a very long time and will remain so
Not long enough.
Pluto was never predicted to exist. Ever. Pluto was discovered by observation, and was discovered in 1930.
When it was observed in 1930 it was the 8th furthest planet from the Sun, where Neptune was the 9th furthest away.
Pluto did not reach the far side of its orbit until 1979 when Neptune became the 8th planet by distance and Pluto became the 9th.
"Planet Nine" (proper noun) was predicted based on orbital effects before that time, in 1906.
"Planet Nine" (again, a proper noun) has never been o
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You mean "comet"? Freudian Slip there, Bub.
I like the topic (Score:1)