Posted January 1, 2019 Assuming nothing has gone wrong, right now New Horizons is about 6 hours into an encounter with the asteroid called Ultima Thule. Quote The flyby, taking place 6.5 billion km from Earth, is the most distant ever exploration of a Solar System object. New Horizons should be filling its memory banks right now with a swathe of photos and other scientific data. Once the probe has gone past Ultima, it will turn to radio home a status report that should arrive at 15:28 GMT. This initial contact ought to give controllers a good idea of how New Horizons performed as it swept over the 30km-wide world just 3,500km from its surface. The worry for scientists is that a tiny fragment of rock or ice hitting new horizons would destroy it as the probe is moving at around 14km/s. Unfortunately the probe has had to turn away from Earth to view the asteroid so cannot update us on its progress until the encounter is over, contact is expected at around 15:30GMT. Quote "Go New Horizons!" enthused chief scientist Alan Stern at 05:33 GMT, the moment when the spacecraft would have been at its closest point to Ultima Thule in the flyby sequence. "Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away." Earlier, he said: "I'd be kidding you though if I didn't tell you that we're also on pins and needles to see how this turns out. "We only get one shot at it. Nothing like this has ever been done before, and with any enterprise like this - there comes risk," he told reporters. The risk is that New Horizons runs into fragments of ice or rock in the vicinity of Ultima. With the spacecraft moving at 14km/s, even particles the size of a grain of rice would shred its interior components. Because the probe is going so close we can expect some really nice detailed pictures however the probe is 4.11 billion miles from earth so data takes around 6 hours to reach us at a rate of around 1,000 bits per second. The probe is expected to gather gigabytes of information. Quote Don't blink, you might miss it. As we've already seen, this flyby isn't like the one at Pluto where the images became increasingly - but also gradually - resolved on approach. Ultima will flash by and the best pictures will be obtained in a very narrow window. The much reduced separation between the probe and Ultima (3,500km versus 12,500km at the dwarf planet) means that finer detail in the surface will eventually be observed, but this does all depend on accurate pointing. And, remember, because New Horizons has to swivel to train its instruments on a target, it cannot keep its antenna locked on Earth while also gathering data. Controllers must therefore wait until later on New Year's Day for the probe to "phone home" a status update and to start to downlink some choice pictures. The "hey, I'm healthy and I've got a treasure trove of data" message should be sent about four hours after closest approach. In some ways, this event is more difficult than New Horizons' pass of Pluto. For one thing, the object in the viewfinder is almost a hundred times smaller. New Horizons really must get its pointing right or it could be sending back pictures of empty space. And then there's the issue of doing everything at a separation from Earth of 6.62 billion km (4.11 billion miles). It takes radio signals six hours and eight minutes to traverse that space. What is more, the distance combined with a 15-watt transmitter on the probe means the data rates are glacial - around 1,000 bits a second. It will be late on Tuesday before the first selected images are downlinked, and it will be September 2020 until every last scrap of data from the flyby is pulled off New Horizons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46699737 Incredible stuff, I love stories like this. Right now, 4 billion miles away a man made object is scanning an asteroid for information. I hope everything goes well. Main Rig:- Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS | Server:- Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 I am really looking forward to the pictures and if it is indeed dumbbell shaped as they think. The failsafe 1 and 2 pics should already have been sent by now. I took that opportunity yesterday to read up about a few unmanned interplanetary missions, especially Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini and the MRO and Mars express. you wouldn't expect it but the engineers always have to work in incredibly difficult situations. I especially like the story of Voyager 2 which had it's main communication fail shortly after launch but they managed to reprogram it through the auxiliary receiver and it's still going to this day. It really is incredible. It's just a shame New Horizon will run out of battery before reaching the realms of space Voyager 2 has been to. And what makes me kind of sad is that everything beyond that is soo far away that we really have no chance of reaching anything with current tech. I believe Gliese would be the next star Voyager 2 would encounter in 40000 years... Folding stats Vigilo Confido Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 Author 13 minutes ago, Nicnac said: I am really looking forward to the pictures and if it is indeed dumbbell shaped as they think. The failsafe 1 and 2 pics should already have been sent by now. I took that opportunity yesterday to read up about a few unmanned interplanetary missions, especially Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini and the MRO and Mars express. you wouldn't expect it but the engineers always have to work in incredibly difficult situations. I especially like the story of Voyager 2 which had it's main communication fail shortly after launch but they managed to reprogram it through the auxiliary receiver and it's still going to this day. It really is incredible. It's just a shame New Horizon will run out of battery before reaching the realms of space Voyager 2 has been to. And what makes me kind of sad is that everything beyond that is soo far away that we really have no chance of reaching anything with current tech. I believe Gliese would be the next star Voyager 2 would encounter in 40000 years... The distances in space are truly unfathomable aren't they. Yeah I believe NASA have said the Kuiper Belt is about the furthest thing we can reasonably explore, anything beyond and the distances are to far to send data back from. I really do hope that one day we can get out of our own solar system but honestly, I believe the chances of humans exploring outer space are probably incredibly low. There's simply to many obstacles for us to overcome, the biggest being the astronomical price (pun very much intended). I genuinely believe that we will explore outer space using probes and autonomous vehicles eventually but it's going to take a huge amount of work. Edit Btw I think they said the first images should be available before the end of the week but I'm guessing those will be approach shots. Main Rig:- Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS | Server:- Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 Just now, Master Disaster said: The distances in space are truly unfathomable aren't they. Yeah I believe NASA have said the Kuiper Belt is about the furthest thing we can reasonably explore, anything beyond and the distances are to far to send data back from. I really do hope that one day we can get out of our own solar system but honestly, I believe the chances of humans exploring outer space are probably incredibly low. There's simply to many obstacles for us to overcome, the biggest being the astronomical price (pun very much intended). I genuinely believe that we will explore outer space using probes and autonomous vehicles eventually but it's going to take a huge amount of work. There is something called starshot initiative or something like that.... Run by a russian millionaire but it's hard to find current information about it. They plan to use many high powered lasers to launch a lightsail spacecraft at alpha cenaturi. It seems ridiculous but is probably the most feasible approach with current tech. The planetary society has already proven that the lightsail concept in general could be feasible for space exploration. But I think we would have to get SpaceX on it to see any kind of timely development^^ Folding stats Vigilo Confido Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 1kbps is still faster than the minimum transfer rate I once got via mobile internet at my Grandad's place a few years ago (5 bps). Intel i7 5820K (4.5 GHz) | MSI X99A MPower | 32 GB Kingston HyperX Fury 2666MHz | Asus RoG STRIX GTX 1080ti OC | Samsung 951 m.2 nVME 512GB | Crucial MX200 1000GB | Western Digital Caviar Black 2000GB | Noctua NH-D15 | Fractal Define R5 | Seasonic 860 Platinum | Logitech G910 | Sennheiser 599 | Blue Yeti | Logitech G502 Nikon D500 | Nikon 300mm f/4 PF | Nikon 200-500 f/5.6 | Nikon 50mm f/1.8 | Tamron 70-210 f/4 VCII | Sigma 10-20 f/3.5 | Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 | Tamron 90mm F2.8 SP Di VC USD Macro | Neewer 750II Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 9 minutes ago, VegetableStu said: FIVE BITS O_O someone could probably recite a sheet printed with 1s and 0s faster than that! ikr Rural NW England mobile internet ftl. Intel i7 5820K (4.5 GHz) | MSI X99A MPower | 32 GB Kingston HyperX Fury 2666MHz | Asus RoG STRIX GTX 1080ti OC | Samsung 951 m.2 nVME 512GB | Crucial MX200 1000GB | Western Digital Caviar Black 2000GB | Noctua NH-D15 | Fractal Define R5 | Seasonic 860 Platinum | Logitech G910 | Sennheiser 599 | Blue Yeti | Logitech G502 Nikon D500 | Nikon 300mm f/4 PF | Nikon 200-500 f/5.6 | Nikon 50mm f/1.8 | Tamron 70-210 f/4 VCII | Sigma 10-20 f/3.5 | Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 | Tamron 90mm F2.8 SP Di VC USD Macro | Neewer 750II Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 I wonder how long it would take to hit the dyson sphere. Specs: Motherboard: Asus X470-PLUS TUF gaming (Yes I know it's poor but I wasn't informed) RAM: Corsair VENGEANCE® LPX DDR4 3200Mhz CL16-18-18-36 2x8GB CPU: Ryzen 9 5900X Case: Antec P8 PSU: Corsair RM850x Cooler: Antec K240 with two Noctura Industrial PPC 3000 PWM Drives: Samsung 970 EVO plus 250GB, Micron 1100 2TB, Seagate ST4000DM000/1F2168 GPU: EVGA RTX 2080 ti Black edition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 1 minute ago, williamcll said: I wonder how long it would take to hit the dyson sphere. Voyager will hit the Oorth Cloud first. New Horizon is quite slow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 Author Success!!!!! Main Rig:- Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS | Server:- Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 2 hours ago, Master Disaster said: Success!!!!! Though I suspect few were expecting to clearly make out both beans and frank, there is some comfort in being shown that something is happy to see us. Who knew that just beyond Plutos space heart, there was a raging boner? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 1, 2019 Author 1 minute ago, MoonSpot said: Though I suspect few were expecting to clearly make out both beans and frank, there is some comfort in being shown that something is happy to see us. Who knew that just beyond Plutos space heart, there was a raging boner? I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out, I was thinking peanut in its shell but now you have pointed it out I can't unsee it. Thanks for ruining space for me Main Rig:- Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS | Server:- Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 12 hours ago, GoldenLag said: Voyager will hit the Oorth Cloud first. New Horizon is quite slow New Horizon is expected to run out of fuel long before it reaches the edge of the solar system. It will eventually get there, but the probe will basically be dead. New Horizons is going quite fast though - last speed I noted was ~58,000 KM/h vs ~62,000 KM/h for the Voyager 1 (faster of the two probes). With that in mind, Voyager 1 had multiple massive gravity assists on it's way out, whereas the New Horizons only had one meager one. Everything I've read states that the Horizons will never catch up with either Voyager probe. For Sale: Meraki Bundle iPhone Xr 128 GB Product Red - HP Spectre x360 13" (i5 - 8 GB RAM - 256 GB SSD) - HP ZBook 15v G5 15" (i7-8850H - 16 GB RAM - 512 GB SSD - NVIDIA Quadro P600) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 1 hour ago, dalekphalm said: New Horizon is expected to run out of fuel long before it reaches the edge of the solar system. It will eventually get there, but the probe will basically be dead. New Horizons is going quite fast though - last speed I noted was ~58,000 KM/h vs ~62,000 KM/h for the Voyager 1 (faster of the two probes). With that in mind, Voyager 1 had multiple massive gravity assists on it's way out, whereas the New Horizons only had one meager one. Everything I've read states that the Horizons will never catch up with either Voyager probe. You can't directly compare the current speeds anyway, as NH is still deeper in the Sun's gravity well than either Voyager probe. It will have slowed down some more by the time it gets as far out as the Voyagers are (so it very much won't be catching up). The hyperbolic excess speed for Voyager 1 is 16.6 km/s, for Voyager 2 it is 14.9 km/s, and New Horizons clocks in at 12.5 km/s (though this last encounter may have changed it slightly). The Oort cloud's inner edge is 2,000 AU from the Sun anyway. All these probes will be long dead by the time they reach it, not to mention it's so extremely dispersed none of the probes would likely pass anywhere near a large object. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 8 hours ago, dalekphalm said: New Horizon is expected to run out of fuel long before it reaches the edge of the solar system. It will eventually get there, but the probe will basically be dead. Offcourse. RTGs dont last forever. We are unshure how long the RTG on earth is going to last, but it has proven to be quite resilient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 29 minutes ago, GoldenLag said: Offcourse. RTGs dont last forever. We are unshure how long the RTG on earth is going to last, but it has proven to be quite resilient. We are sure on the upper bound for the RTG's lifespan based on the decay rate and can estimate the lower bound using information on how the thermocouples in the Voyager probes degraded. After that it's just keep shutting down the next least essential piece of equipment to fit the power constraint until the probe no longer can communicate with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 47 minutes ago, ScratchCat said: We are sure on the upper bound for the RTG's lifespan based on the decay rate and can estimate the lower bound using information on how the thermocouples in the Voyager probes degraded. After that it's just keep shutting down the next least essential piece of equipment to fit the power constraint until the probe no longer can communicate with us. The Voyager Probes have been in Hibernation mode for quite some time iirc. Just to conserve power Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 On 1/1/2019 at 4:00 AM, Master Disaster said: Assuming nothing has gone wrong, right now New Horizons is about 6 hours into an encounter with the asteroid called Ultima Thule. Seriously they launched that 13 years ago and it's just NOW getting there... Thats so cool "Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"- @Princess Luna Make sure to Quote posts or tag the person with @[username] so they know you responded to them! RGB Build Post 2019 --- Rainbow 2020 --- Velka 5 V2.0 Build 2021 Purple Build Post --- Blue Build Post --- Blue Build Post 2018 --- Project ITNOS CPU i7-4790k Motherboard Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI RAM G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866mhz GPU EVGA GTX1080Ti FTW3 Case Corsair 380T Storage Samsung EVO 250GB, Samsung EVO 1TB, WD Black 3TB, WD Black 5TB PSU Corsair CX750M Cooling Cryorig H7 with NF-A12x25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46742298 Graphic Design + Gaming Machine: CPU: i7-8700 GPU: ASUS GTX 1060 6GB RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengence STORAGE: 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM CASE: Phantek P400 Tempered Glass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 10 minutes ago, markopolomp said: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46742298 Dangit, that's too detailed. Resident Mozilla Shill. Typed on my Ortholinear JJ40 custom keyboard __ I am the ASCIIDino. / _) _.----._/ / If you can see me you / / must put me in your __/ ( | ( | signature for 24 hours. /__.-'|_|--|_| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 2, 2019 Every time I wanna post the recent photo someone else ist faster! Folding stats Vigilo Confido Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 6, 2019 Folding stats Vigilo Confido Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 6, 2019 Until Nasa make Pluto a planet again, I will not be impressed by anything they try to tell me about the universe. #makeplutogreatagain Grammar and spelling is not indicative of intelligence/knowledge. Not having the same opinion does not always mean lack of understanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 6, 2019 9 minutes ago, mr moose said: Until Nasa make Pluto a planet again, I will not be impressed by anything they try to tell me about the universe. #makeplutogreatagain we shall build a Dyson Sphere between us and Mars, and make the Martians pay for it #MakeEarthGreatAgain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 6, 2019 7 hours ago, mr moose said: Until Nasa make Pluto a planet again, I will not be impressed by anything they try to tell me about the universe. #makeplutogreatagain I hate to break it to you, but NASA had nothing to do with Pluto's removal as "Official Planet" status. It was the IAU (International Astronomical Union) that made the decision. Besides which, it makes sense. Pluto is the only "planet" in the system that hasn't cleared it's orbit. That's why it's now called a Dwarf Planet instead. For Sale: Meraki Bundle iPhone Xr 128 GB Product Red - HP Spectre x360 13" (i5 - 8 GB RAM - 256 GB SSD) - HP ZBook 15v G5 15" (i7-8850H - 16 GB RAM - 512 GB SSD - NVIDIA Quadro P600) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 6, 2019 I hope the aliens send us space doujins Current Build Spoiler CPU Motherboard RAM GPU Case Storage PSU Display(s) Cooling Keyboard Mouse Sound Operating System Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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