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A shame astronomy is rarely appreciated or given real interest in people who own the chequebooks. Receiving photos of Pluto versus conceptual computer art is a real gift. Got to see Saturn with an amateur astronomer neighbour of ours today which made me appreciate space even more.
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On July 16 2015 08:05 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I don't know why, but I didn't expect Pluto to be that color.
Yea can someone explain to me why the damn thing isn't blue. I swear every picture I had seen of it as a kid in a science class showed it as blue. Really exciting to see actual photos this time. Is it something to do with Nitrogen-ice, or more to do with how the sun reflects off of the lack of atmosphere?
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On July 16 2015 12:57 TheFish7 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 08:05 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I don't know why, but I didn't expect Pluto to be that color. Yea can someone explain to me why the damn thing isn't blue. I swear every picture I had seen of it as a kid in a science class showed it as blue. Really exciting to see actual photos this time. Is it something to do with Nitrogen-ice, or more to do with how the sun reflects off of the lack of atmosphere?
The picture is in black and white.
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On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing.
Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space.
To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers.
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Also it's not like we just kick the probe from Earth and hope it doesn't miss, it has navigational capablities and course correctoion have been performed (as planned). I now that the delta-V needed with the current trajectory to enter orbit is probably unrealistic, but solar system spacelight usually offers a lot of routing options that are hard to predict using just a pen and paper.
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On July 16 2015 12:57 TheFish7 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 08:05 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: I don't know why, but I didn't expect Pluto to be that color. Yea can someone explain to me why the damn thing isn't blue. I swear every picture I had seen of it as a kid in a science class showed it as blue. Really exciting to see actual photos this time. Is it something to do with Nitrogen-ice, or more to do with how the sun reflects off of the lack of atmosphere?
Wiki Tholins
Common enough on icy bodies. If enough dirt, surface tends to be black (comets) ; if not enough dirt, ultraviolet radiations interact with surface ices to produce tholins which are reddish-brown. (main hypothesis for Pluto)
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On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave.....
EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate.....
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On July 16 2015 19:41 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave..... EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate.....
For what it's worth, I actually enjoyed your analogy.
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On July 16 2015 19:41 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave..... EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate..... Since Pluto changes distance from the sun, and is on a separate orbital disk, it's as if someone programmed a serving machine to shoot a tennis ball from Newark, NJ, bounce off the windshield of a truck driving in Jersey City, and hit the face of a helicopter pilot giving a tour of Manhattan.
Distance of about 9 km per your previous golf analogy.
Edit: any three cities will do, I just picked these because they're lined up with almost the same ratio as the planets.
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On July 16 2015 19:41 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave..... EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate..... Oh, I didn't expect you to defend your analogy, and I expected you to at least admit that there was a problem with the phrasing. So let me be direct. We all agree that space missions are accurate and precise. The problem with your analogy is that it implicitly implies that it is difficult because we have very little control over it and require some exquisite skills (like golf and dart players). The truth of the matter is we have almost full control of everything about this mission except what we will see in Pluto and the rest of the Kuiper bodies. The problem with your analogy is that it unnecessarily mystifies the process (as if the success relies on some exquisite human skill), wherein if this mission teaches us anything, it is that science rocks, and we have come so far in understanding and manipulating it to our goals.
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Japan11285 Posts
Nice to see I'm not alone in expecting Pluto to be basically white or some other color.
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On July 16 2015 22:49 S:klogW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 19:41 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave..... EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate..... Oh, I didn't expect you to defend your analogy, and I expected you to at least admit that there was a problem with the phrasing. So let me be direct. We all agree that space missions are accurate and precise. The problem with your analogy is that it implicitly implies that it is difficult because we have very little control over it and require some exquisite skills (like golf and dart players). The truth of the matter is we have almost full control of everything about this mission except what we will see in Pluto and the rest of the Kuiper bodies. The problem with your analogy is that it unnecessarily mystifies the process (as if the success relies on some exquisite human skill), wherein if this mission teaches us anything, it is that science rocks, and we have come so far in understanding and manipulating it to our goals. Any analogy is going to be imperfect.
You could conceivably design and build a machine capable of hitting the hole in one at 9km after bouncing off of something. It is dealing with something in a ballistic nature, which is very much like a rocket because even though you can make very minor corrections with maneuvering thrusters, the vast majority of what happens is pretty similar overall to just throwing something and watching the trajectory it takes. A very, very slight miscalculation of direction or speed or time could put you so far off course that the mission would be pretty much a complete failure. Even if you calculate everything properly, a very slight calibration error could give you bad information and cause a failure of some kind. Space travel is incredibly difficult, as history has shown.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars
There's a lot of red on that list..... And that's basically our neighbor.....
To build a machine capable of allowing you to hit a golf ball into a hole 9km away after bouncing off of something would be an insane feat. And yet everything necessary to be able to do it is also known. We can determine the mass of the object we plan on hitting into the hole with very high accuracy, we can determine the effects of the atmosphere on it (with regards to drag, spin, wind, etc) with a very high degree of accuracy, we can determine the effect of gravity, of any potential electro-magnetic forces, etc. Even though we could theoretically build something capable of doing that, that does not mean it is trivial..... It's very similar in a lot of respects to what was needed to sling this piano to Pluto.
If anything, my analogy is making it sound easier than it actually was though..... Just because we have "control" of everything does not mean it was easy. Trying to make it seem easy or trivial is a huge disservice to the mathematics, science, engineering, and computer programming involved in this mission. To the average person, the stuff that was required to pull this off is pretty much magic. Hell, even to the above average person, this stuff is pretty much like magic.
I studied engineering in university for 3 years, and from what I know, I can tell you that this mission is far above my pay grade that I quite literally have no idea where to even start..... It's given me a huge appreciation of it though, because I have a strong understanding of the fundamental principles required to pull this off.
The coolest part of all this though is that the photos are basically going to cause us to completely re-think everything we thought we knew about Pluto.
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How in balls is some guy's chip-on-the-shoulder perfectionism the subject of half the posts in the thread when we just got photos of friggin' pluto.
It's an analogy. By its very definition it simplifies some aspects in order to make other aspects easier to understand. If you want to highlight a different aspect you use another analogy; yours will be imperfect too. That's what analogies do.
Regarding the actual mission, I'm interested to see what they come up with to explain the geographic features. It's fun when your answers create a million more questions, but it's less fun when it takes 25 years to test the next hypothesis.
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On July 17 2015 10:13 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 22:49 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 19:41 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave..... EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate..... Oh, I didn't expect you to defend your analogy, and I expected you to at least admit that there was a problem with the phrasing. So let me be direct. We all agree that space missions are accurate and precise. The problem with your analogy is that it implicitly implies that it is difficult because we have very little control over it and require some exquisite skills (like golf and dart players). The truth of the matter is we have almost full control of everything about this mission except what we will see in Pluto and the rest of the Kuiper bodies. The problem with your analogy is that it unnecessarily mystifies the process (as if the success relies on some exquisite human skill), wherein if this mission teaches us anything, it is that science rocks, and we have come so far in understanding and manipulating it to our goals. [b]If anything, my analogy is making it sound easier than it actually was though..... Just because we have "control" of everything does not mean it was easy. Trying to make it seem easy or trivial is a huge disservice to the mathematics, science, engineering, and computer programming involved in this mission.[b] To the average person, the stuff that was required to pull this off is pretty much magic. Hell, even to the above average person, this stuff is pretty much like magic. I studied engineering in university for 3 years, and from what I know, I can tell you that this mission is far above my pay grade that I quite literally have no idea where to even start..... It's given me a huge appreciation of it though, because I have a strong understanding of the fundamental principles required to pull this off. The coolest part of all this though is that the photos are basically going to cause us to completely re-think everything we thought we knew about Pluto. This is funny because the bolded part is exactly my criticism against your golfer/dart analogy, and now you are strawmanning by claiming I am saying the feat is trivial. That is not true. I will summarize the exchange so far:
You: NH mission is amazing. Like golf/dart player doing insane feat of marksmanship Me: Yes, NH mission is amazing, but using human skill analogy (golf/dart player) is inaccurate because unlike human skill, which is prone to error and inconsistency, a lot of the variables in this mission are accounted for (unlike the golf ball bounce and dart example where we have no control of the driver, wind, and other variables). Unlike your golf/dart example, we have full account of all the variables about the mission. IIt is much better to discuss the actual science and math behind the process rather than making it look like magic.
I want to emphasize also that your claim that I am making it seem trivial is wrong. I claim that the mission is extremely difficult, which was the reason why the testing and calibration took almost a decade before the launch. After that it was all systems go and a matter of finding out how close we are to our calculations, AND most importantly, the joy of exploration and discovery.
I hope this is the last word on my part on this, as I don't think I am making any mistakes here. If you reply, I hope it is to admit that your example is not a good one. I really don't mean to be offensive, but in my profession, when discussing science, it is always better to be as accurate and factual as possible. That's is simply my point.
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Just go away.
As your first post pointed out, Impervious's intention was good, even if his analogy might be incorrect (I'm not here to judge that). At least he go out of his way to, trying be more informative to rest of us about this subject. This is just a gaming forum after all, we aren't here because we are trying to find factual and accurate analogy.
Your attitude is simply not helping to sell this stuff, you're just make others feel unapproachable about this subject.
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On July 16 2015 19:41 Impervious wrote:Show nested quote +On July 16 2015 18:20 S:klogW wrote:On July 16 2015 07:38 Impervious wrote:On July 16 2015 05:40 opisska wrote: So far the system seems more interesting than anyone expected. Both Pluto and Charon show signs of geology, young terrain, mountains, ridges ... which is not what you would have expected from such small icy bodies without many sources of internal heat - icy moons of big planets have at least tidal forces, but Pluto-Charon system is tidelocked already with no external torque to help.
This is the moment when we start to regret that the probe is not an orbiter. This whole thing with NASA sending a spacecraft to Pluto has really shown how people underestimate how difficult space travel is. NASA basically took something the size of a piano, chucked it through space, and managed to get it to go between Pluto and it's moon, after piggybacking on Jupiter to speed it up along the way. Pluto is a fucking tiny target with respect to our solar system, and insanely far away. Imagine setting up a golf ball on a golf course and hit a hole in one at a distance of over 9km, while bouncing it off of something first. Alternatively, it would be like hitting a bulls-eye on a dartboard at a distance of over 1km while bouncing off of something first. That is basically the degree of difficulty involved in the challenge that NASA had to overcome in order to do what they just did. It's absolutely incredible. Getting into orbit is even more challenging, to the point where it simply can't be done right now..... Good effort with the explanation and I am sure the intention is well, but with "science stuff" like this mission is, it is always better to be direct, even when the aim is to explain to a layman. Your explanation provides a good overview of the plot of the mission, but it greatly undermines the science and math behind the whole thing. Your golf ball/dart example puts emphasis on human skills, and no matter how accurate or skillful the golf/dart player is, he/she will never be 100% accurate. In the case of this mission, we have practically all the data we need such as position of the planets, specifically Jupiter, distance and relative position of all these solar system bodies, speed of the voyager, etc. And we can and have always used the accuracy and predictability of these data for all space missions. The only limitation is politics and budget, which determines what kind of technology we can put out there. And of course, there is always that unknown factor when exploring the unexplored, but that is precisely the reason why we go to space. To emphasize, I'm not starting an argument. I'm just explaining that the going there and hitting all the relevant milestones is something our science can do very accurately. Cheers. On the contrary, it shows just how damn accurate and precise the science and math that goes into this kind of mission actually is. The accuracy and precision needed was roughly in line with the analogies I gave..... EDIT - or at least I try to show how accurate and precise it is. It's really hard to simplify something like this mission into an analogy that anyone can appreciate.....
Funny thing is: the math and science are precise enough, but we are not precise enough during launch to manage a mission such as New Horizons. Over such distances, there are even perturbations in the solar system.
This is why the spacecraft has thrusters of his own for trajectory corrections. Of course, the earlier the corrections, the bigger the impact, it's a tuning exercise over 10 years. First 2 corrections early 2006, then again in march 2006, september 2007 and june 2010 for the last one before Pluto.
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Stupid question Wasn't landing on that Asteroid way harder than what was done here (not that its easy or anything )?
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