Cool science stuff

We have 11,000-foot high mountains of ice on Pluto's surface:

 

The transmitting antenna from New Horizons radiates at 12 Watts. That's like three nightlights.

The signals are picked up by NASA's Deep Space Network.

 

What amazes me even more is that we were able to transmit stuff like that from the Voyagers and earlier probes that were using 1960s and 70s technology. Consider how slow the transmission from New Horizons is with its 21st century instruments, and then compare it to what's essentially analog computers on the older probes.

 

How long it takes for a transmission to get to earth has nothing to do with the technology or the power of the signal. It all travels at the same speed -- the speed of light -- no matter how much or little power it uses.

 

Yeah, but aren't they having to transmit it in tiny, tiny increments?
That's what I meant by "slow," was the volume of data they can send at once and not the speed it takes to get there.

 

Slow in comparison to streaming hi-res video, yeah.
But still way faster than other probes in the past. When Mariner IV sent back the first BW still pics of Mars in 1965, I think they could send back one pixel per second. It took them weeks to send back a couple dozen pics.

 

New Horizons is sending back at 2000 bits per second.

And the sensors today acquire much more data at a much higher data rate. That's why it will take 16 months to get all the data from the fly by back. There's just a huge volume of data from yesterday to send back.

 

They gotta make it count, because this is very likely the only probe which is going to be sent to Pluto in the next several decades, if not ever.

Pluto doesn't line up with the other planets to make gravity-assist flights possible often enough that another Pluto mission would be feasible for another 40 years or so.

In 40 years, Pluto is likely to be one of probably dozens of Kuiper Belt Objects as big or bigger.

Plus, whenever anybody starts arguing for money for another Pluto trip, somebody will respond accurately enough that the money could probably be better spent on probes to closer planets.

 

In addition, at one of the pressers this week the mission director noted that it's going to take them several years to process all of this data and even figure out what to look for on a follow-up mission. So even if it were physically possible to get back to Pluto right away and start planning for it now, by the time the mission analysis from New Horizons is done, they figure out what instruments to put on the next probe, build it, launch it and get it there, it'd likely be 15-20 years before we're able to get another look at the place.

 

True. One Pluto orbit takes 248 Earth years, and it will be getting a LOT farther away for a long time. They caught it this time when it was closer in, lined up with the Jupiter gravity assist.

 

Sputnik 1 was less than 60 years ago, and now we're getting pictures from Pluto.
In less than one average human life span.

Just amazing

 

Sounds like NASA is set to announce the discovery of Earth 2.0, an Earth-like exoplanet inside the habitable zone of another star.

News | NASA Hosts Media Telecon About Latest Kepler Discoveries

Crazy that the first exoplanet was discovered just 21 years ago.