Countdown to Pluto
 
Jan. 14, 2014:  Are we there yet?
 
One of the fastest spacecraft ever built -- NASA's New Horizons -- is hurtling
through the void at nearly one million miles per day.  Launched in 2006, it
has been in flight longer than some missions last, and it is nearing its
destination: Pluto.
 
"The encounter begins next January," says Alan Stern, of the Southwest
Research Institute and the mission's principal investigator. "We're less than
a year away."
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUB7dRgClSQ
 
A new ScienceCast anticipates what New Horizons might find when it reaches
Pluto in 2015.   Play it
 
Closest approach is scheduled for July 2015 when New Horizons flies only
10,000 km from Pluto, but the spacecraft will be busy long before that date. 
The first step, in January 2015, is an intensive campaign of photography by
the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager or "LORRI."  This will help mission
controllers pinpoint Pluto's location, which is uncertain by a few thousand
kilometers.
 
Auroras Underfoot (signup)"LORRI will photograph the planet against known
background star fields," explains Stern. "We'll use the images to refine
Pluto's distance from the spacecraft, and then fire the engines to make any
necessary corrections."
 
At first, Pluto and its large moon Charon will be little more than distant
pinpricks-"a couple of fat pixels," says Stern--but soon they will swell into
full-fledged worlds.
 
By late April 2015, the approaching spacecraft will be taking pictures of
Pluto that surpass the best images from Hubble.  By closest approach in July
2015, a whole new world will open up to the spacecraft's cameras. If New
Horizons flew over Earth at the same altitude, it could see individual
buildings and their shapes.
 
Stern is looking forward to one of the most exciting moments of the Space Age.
 
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
 
An artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto.  More"Humankind
hasn't had an experience like this--an encounter with a new planet--in a long
time," he says.  "Everything we see on Pluto will be a revelation."
 
He likens New Horizons to Mariner 4, which flew past Mars in July 1965.  At
the time, many people on Earth, even some scientists, thought the Red Planet
was a relatively gentle world, with water and vegetation friendly to life.
Instead, Mariner 4 revealed a desiccated wasteland of haunting beauty.  New
Horizons' flyby of Pluto will occur almost exactly 50 years after Mariner 4's
flyby of Mars-and it could shock observers just as much.
 
Other than a few indistinct markings seen from afar by Hubble, Pluto's
landscape is totally unexplored. Although some astronomers call Pluto a
"dwarf" planet, Stern says there's nothing small about it.  "If you drove a
car around the equator of Pluto, the odometer would rack up almost 5,000
miles-as far as from Manhattan to Moscow." Such a traveler might encounter icy
geysers, craters, clouds, mountain ranges, rilles and valleys, alongside alien
landforms no one has ever imagined.
 
"There is a real possibility that New Horizons will discover new moons and
rings as well," says Stern.
 
Yes, Pluto could have rings.  Already, Pluto has five known moons: Charon,
Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Numerical simulations show that meteoroids
striking those satellites could send debris into orbit, forming a ring system
that waxes and wanes over time in response to changes in bombardment.
 
"We're flying into the unknown," says Stern, "and there is no telling what we
might find."
 
Credits:
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit:
Science@NASA
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

--- D'Bridge 3.98
 * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LoUiSiAna (1:3828/7)