Pluto and Charon via New Horizons
On Tuesday, NASA is set to launch its New Horizons spacecraft on board a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket. The ultimate goal of the mission is to study Pluto and its moon Charon, the first such mission to Pluto. The spacecraft is expected to reach Pluto in 2015, upon which it will carry out five months of studies of the planet, its largest moon Charon, as well as two recently discovered smaller moons. Since the spacecraft will be required to operate at great distance from the Sun, it will not be able to use solar power. Instead, New Horizons will be powered by a plutonium-fueled thermoelectric generator, producing 200 watts of electricity. This decision has caused some opposition from antinuclear activists, however, NASA has argued a launching explosion is highly unlikely. The spacecraft is carrying ultraviolet, visible, and infrared cameras, as well as three spectrometers, in order to study the composition and temperature of Pluto's atmosphere and its surface features. The above image of Pluto (lower left) and Charon (upper right) was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
posted by Zosia A. C. Krusberg at
3:14 PM
8 Comments:
Zosia these are awesome pics, can an astronomer actually see these nebulae as they are shown. Is there anywhere to go and see such wondrous sights?
HAve you seen these things in person. I geuss I mean through a telescope lens not on a monitor simply the sky a lens your eye your soul?
Charon. Sharon. New horizons..... Kiiiinda like a tracheotomy... sorta kinda right?
nebulae can definitely be spotted using even a small 4" telescope, especially the orion nebula. however, in that sized telescope, you can only really see a faint, blue little cloud (not as disappointing as i'm making it sound, though the contrast with the hubble images is sharp). the images released by hubble are composites of images taken in a number of filters (usually blue, green, and red), so even an astronomer wouldn't see images like this until all the data is reduced and corrected for bad pixels, and compiled with images from different filters.
I just wanted to make this comments list bigger 'cuz it seems to be the cool thing to do nowadays...
Zosia thanks for the clear explanation of the Hubble pics. I own a small 90mm telescope myself amd have attempted to view nebulae, getting the results you described. Wondered if it was technique equiptment or eyesight which prevented resolution of said same. I try to follow devlopments in astro-physics as I feel that is where,if not answers,the new questions are to revealed. The trouble is once past the press release type of science your field devolves into a snarl of math and theory explained by math which is impossible to follow. A tip of the hat to you and your colleagues that can comprehend the myriad formulae. Since Hubbles' debut however the local universe is now there to be enjoyed, for I enjoy these photos as much as Ansel Adams' Yosemite, and I hoped somehow one could directly attend these vistas much as one could travel to the west and see El Capitan etc.
I suppose the answer lies in pondering these undiscovered places ala Einstein via thought experiment. To place your mind in the galaxy and to set the wheels in motion and observe the beauty and endless wonder of it all. After all this is our destiny.
i am glad to hear that you follow the developments in astrophysics, since, as you point out, the theory and mathematics behind these developments often appear daunting to non-scientists. however, there are a number of physicists who are aware of this issue, and (like myself), believe very strongly in the ability for non-scientists to be exposed to the beautiful theories and images exposed by physics and astronomy, and these individuals go on to write wonderful books about physics in a language that is comprehensible. i strongly recommend books by stephen hawking, martin rees, steven weinberg (the first three minutes is somewhat old now, but remains a classic), and brian greene ... these individuals have been able to expose many of the recent developments in the field of physics, and i highly recommend reading their works.
also, i recommend visiting "astronomy picture of the day," where new images from the cosmos are published daily.
A little bit of New Horizon's trivial... Nick was in FL for the launch because some D space physics folk were involved in a particle detector for the flight out.
And 200 watts from a thermoelectric pile is pretty impressive. That's the equivalent to three powerbooks being powered just by heat from the plutonium... and the power keeps coming for years. (Although how many years is a bit of a question since Pu-241 has a half-life of 14 years and Pu-239 is closer to 24,000.)
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