yeah i know..but...all of those dots are in different places from the original capture. how you know that one dot is the wonder child planet of our solar system fam? and then to follow up on it with science to be proven correct...that's the stuff that melts my head
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New Horizons will flyby Pluto on July 14th
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yeah i know..but...all of those dots are in different places from the original capture. how you know that one dot is the wonder child planet of our solar system fam? and then to follow up on it with science to be proven correct...that's the stuff that melts my head
You can kinda see why in the image, that dot moved. There's a bit more to it with Pluto but that's how planets were discovered in ancient times. The name itself is derived from the greek word for wanderer because they were the dots that moved relative to the stationary stars.
edit:
The quality of the captures are low but the stars in those images don't really move and certainly not so drastically a mere week apart.
Huh? The exposure changes, but most of the dots in those images are effectively fixed relative to one another.
(Also, they predicted the existence of the planet based on perturbations in Neptune's orbit; the guy was specifically looking for moving dots in an informed-guess region of space.)
Escape Goat
Member
Can we zoom in and enhance yet
Not yet, patience. This is not some huge object like Uranus.
Escape Goat
Member
Everyones done a fly by and splashdown on Uranus. Its old news.
Pluto is too small and its going too fast for it to orbit. Itll just fly out into the kuiper belt like Voyager.
It is heading towards the Kuiper Belt. They have three targets in mind.
Edit- No orbit, it will just be flying past Pluto and it's moons (mostly Charon).
It flies off into space.
Going way too fast to fall into orbit.
We'll get some pretty pictures of the moons during the flyby, especially Charon.
The motion of planets in our solar system is pure jank when observed from Earth.
In retrospect it's silly but it's a feat in of itself how people tried to reconcile this with the geocentric model. It turns the relatively simple solar system into a monstrosity of epicycles upon epicycles to have it remain consistent.
Thanks.
Flying into the Kuiper Belt sounds even better orbiting.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Holy shit
Rock Hardy
Banned
This happens in any solar system. Star wobble is how astronomers predict the number of planets in systems too far to be resolved visually.Basically yeah.
Apparently this happens between Jupiter and the Sun as well.
Rock Hardy
Banned
Overlay transparencies and then use a magnifying glass.
Times like this I'm glad I was born before computers. LOL.
Well the difference is that the center of rotation is outside either body
Maybe a dumb question but how much "wobble" room for error either on earth's end or the suns end do we have before wed get all fucked up?
Space Monster
Neo Member
My name's on this CDTen years seemed so far away when I submitted it, now there's just a few days to go!
Yeah, my name's on there too.
But who ever picks up that probe in a bazillion years from now is gonna be seriously disappointed: "Wow! A message from an alien civilization! I wonder what wisdom they have to share? lets see...Aaron A. Aardvark, Abel A. Aachen, Abner A.....aw, crap."
Escape Goat
Member
Its probably going to drift in interstellar space forever. No one will ever know that Space Monster ever existed as even your bones back on Earth will have long turned to dust.
The probe is carrying some other fun items, including the ashes of the person who discovered Pluto!
http://www.universetoday.com/20155/stowaways-revealed-on-new-horizons-spacecraft/
Space Monster
Neo Member
But it's good to know that Seymour Butz and Amanda Huggenkiss will live forever among the stars
The Auxiliary
Member
Y'know, I didn't give a flying fuck about whether Pluto was considered a planet or not, but this image really "humanizes" it, and I kinda wish it was still considered to be one of our solar system's mainline satellites now...
Great day to be alive. This is the money shot right here.
Chiaroscuro
Member
"Ne orizo ts" will come back. And will demand to meet the creator who have many names.
Powdered Toastman
Member
The Devil!
It's like something out of a painting, but real.
They are sending CD with names, US flag and 1 ounce of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh [astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930]. One of the science instruments carries the name of Venetia Burney, girl who suggested that planets name should be Pluto.
Rock Hardy
Banned
I believe systems fall into relative equilibrium before the planets solidify. I'm going on past memory though. I only made my post because I remember reading about how astronomers discovered the first extra-solar systems out there. Since not even Hubble could resolve individual planets around Alpha Centauri, then they had to determine if by measuring tiny variances in the star's motion. Essentially wobbling. Even then, scientists would only guess at the presence of large bodies like gas giants. Rocky planets might not have enough mass to create a discernable change in the star's trajectory. No doubt the science has gotten lots better. I'm referencing like the first such discoveries, which I believe happened in the 80s or 90s. Thanks Popular Science.
Whenever you overlay color over gray-scale you get a painterly effect.
Insane Metal
Member
So basically Pluto is Mars 2.0
I can't wait for higher res photos!
I can't wait for higher res photos!
Dreams-Visions
Member
No no. That comes later.
BrokenFiction
Member
Watching the fly-by in preview mode on the NASA Eyes app is so cool. I wish there was some way for video to be taken of the event, but alas.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
So basically Pluto is Mars 2.0
I can't wait for higher res photos!
More like "baby Mars."
ShadowKingpin
Member
Wow. This is simply incredible.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
I wonder how blurry this would look blown up and put on a wall in a 4'x3' frame.
Escape Goat
Member
Space is huge. The asteroid field has several million kilometers between them for example. Outside of comets most of the little debris was swallowed up by Jupiter or flung out into the Kuiper belt.
Pluto was essentially discovered by someone using a tool called a blink comparator to rapidly shift between multiple images of the same part of the sky, looking for objects that moved while the others stood still. Very, very tedious work indeed.
There's very little debris anywhere in the solar system. It's a big place.
Angelus Errare
Banned
I'm not sure you grasp just how vast space is, it's pretty incomprehensible how vast it is. It's like having two gnats in the middle of like 100 Atlantic oceans.
Mohonky
Member
Last laughs on us, aliens will use the names on the CD's on their 'too probe' list.
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