To Boldly Go Where No Man Can --Yet!!

[LordRaven]

New Horizons is closing on its target Pluto (and Charon) and we should be seeing detailed photos and and receiving data as to its make up in early 2015.

"
Currently in a hibernation state, New Horizons will awake and begin preparing for its encounter with Pluto on Dec. 6. The actual flyby will begin in January with the spacecraft’s closest encounter occurring on July 15, 2015. A scheduled trajectory adjustment burn was not deemed necessary and has left the craft with additional fuel.

The additional fuel has NASA officials searching for additional Kuiper Belt objects for New Horizons to explore. To identify potential targets, officials used the Hubble telescope to locate objects of interest. These targets had to be in line with Pluto so that additional use of fuel would not be required. The Hubble data identified three additional objects that will be tracked to ascertain their orbital path.

New Horizons crossed Neptune’s orbital path on Aug. 25. On Sept. 12 NASA, using the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, began its initial preparatory testing of the approaching Pluto system. Hydra, a small moon of Pluto, was detected. It was not anticipated to view the moon until early in 2015. Locating Hydra this early in the process bodes well for the team’s ability to locate potential unknown moons or planetary rings.

http://guardianlv.com/2014/10/new-horiz ... ore-pluto/

This is going to be fascinating and not just for what is discovered about Pluto as the Hubble space telescope has been spotting further targets in the Kuiper belt for the craft to move onto once Pluto is surveyed.

The Huygens probe landing on Titan in 2005 was a remarkable achievement and New Horizons, though it will not land, is bound to make some fascinating discoveries too.

[LordRaven]

In early 2015 we should get our first live images of Pluto and Charon. Awesome!!!

Scientists using the powerful Hubble Space Telescopes have identified three tiny objects at the frontier of the solar system that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft could visit after making an historic flyby of Pluto next summer.

The icy worlds — each about 10 times larger than a typical comet but a fraction of Pluto’s size — reside in the Kuiper Belt, a zone of thousands of little-studied objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.

They orbit about 4 billion miles from the sun and are leftover remnants from the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago.

The primary target is known as PT1, short for Potential Target 1. Two other objects have the preliminary names of PT2 and PT3.

Pluto is one of the largest Kuiper Belt Objects, or KBOs, and New Horizons will make the first close-up visit to the unexplored dwarf planet when it flies by on July 14, 2015.

With the size and shape of a grand piano, the space probe has enough propellant to fly toward another object after Pluto, but mission managers had to find a target in a narrow corridor within the New Horizons spacecraft’s fuel reach.

http://astronomynow.com/2014/10/19/last ... -horizons/

[LordRaven]

First-ever landing try on comet under way

BERLIN -- A historic attempt to land a spacecraft on a comet was set in motion Wednesday by scientists at the European Space Agency, despite a last-minute problem with the landing system.

It was the climax of a decade-long mission to study a 2.5 mile wide lump of dust and ice known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It marked the end of the decade-long, 4 billion-mile journey that Rosetta and its sidekick craft Philae traveled together to reach the comet.

ESA announced late Tuesday that the active descent system, which uses thrust to prevent the craft from bouncing off the surface, could not be activated. Instead, the agency is relying on ice screws and a harpoon system to secure the lander.

"The cold gas thruster on top of the lander does not appear to be working so we will have to rely fully on the harpoons at touchdown," said Stephan Ulamec, Philae Lander Manager at the DLR German Aerospace Center.

"We'll need some luck not to land on a boulder or a steep slope."

The washing machine-sized lander separated from Rosetta at 3:35 a.m EST to drift down to the comet, where it was to latch on using harpoons and screws. Confirmation of the separation came about a half-hour later.

During the descent, scientists were powerless to do anything but watch, because the vast distance to Earth - 311 million miles - makes it impossible to send instructions in real time.

Confirmation of a landing, if successful, should reach Earth by about 11:03 a.m. EST.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/first-ever- ... under-way/

Fingers crossed!

[LordRaven]

One ring to RULER them all: Scientist creates precise measurements of space using Eye of Sauron galaxy as a guide
Scientist devised a new method to measure distances in the universe
He worked out the distance to NGC 4151 - dubbed the 'Eye of Sauron'
This spiral galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its centre
By comparing its actual size to its 'observed size' the galaxy was found to be 62 million light-years away
NGC 4151 can now be used as a so-called cosmic distance marker
And more than a dozen galaxies will be measured with the new method
This could provide more information on the history of the universe
Measuring distances in the universe is difficult and usually relies on 'standard candles' - stars whose distances are already known

http://zeenews.india.com/news/sci-tech/ ... 05790.html