Pluto and beyond, Space Science, Space Systems

New images of Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft

July 6, 2015 TopSpacer 1 Comment

New images of Pluto taken by the New Horizons probe have just been released:

Latest Images of Pluto from New Horizons

These are the most recent high-resolution views of Pluto sent by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, including one showing the four mysterious dark spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the world. The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) obtained these three images between July 1 and 3 of 2015, prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode.

Click for larger image.

The left image shows, on the right side of the disk, a large bright area on the hemisphere of Pluto that will be seen in close-up by New Horizons on July 14. The three images together show the full extent of a continuous swath of dark terrain that wraps around much of Pluto’s equatorial region. The western end of the swath (right image) breaks up into a series of striking dark regularly-spaced spots, each hundreds of miles in size, which were first detected in New Horizons images taken in late June. Intriguing details are beginning to emerge in the bright material north of the dark region, in particular a series of bright and dark patches that are conspicuous just below the center of the disk in the right image. In all three black-and-white views, the apparent jagged bottom edge of Pluto is the result of image processing. The inset shows Pluto’s orientation, illustrating its north pole, equator, and central meridian running from pole to pole.

The color version of the July 3 LORRI image was created by adding color data from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission.

Click for larger image.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Activism, General, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – July.6.15

July 6, 2015 TopSpacer

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

SPECIAL TIME: 1. Monday, July 6, 2015: 7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EDT; 9-10:30 PM CDT): We welcome back JIM MUNCY for important space policy news updates. .

2. Tuesday, July 7, 2015:,7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EST, 9-10:30 PM CDT): We welcome DR. CHARLES LIMOLI TO THE PROGRAM. We will be discussing Dr. Limoli’s radiation paper, “What happens to your brain on the way to Mars. Please be familiar with this paper prior to the show. You can read the paper at http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/4/e1400256.full.

3. Friday, July 10, 2015; 9:30 -11 AM PDT (12:30-2 PM EDT; 11:30-1 PM CDT):We welcome DR. ROBERT KOOIMA to the show to discuss the visualization of the Moon‘s and planet’s surfaces from massive data (as LRO data).

4. Sunday, July 12, 2015: 12-1:30 PM PDT (3-4:30 PM EDT, 2-3:30 PM CDT): We welcome back to the show AL GLOBUS who will be discussing space settlement, radiation shielding, artificial gravity and more. [See my recent post here about Globus’s space settlement ideas.]

See also:
/– The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
/– The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
/– The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

Activism, General, SpaceCasts

Video: TMRO 8.20 – SpaceVR

July 6, 2015 TopSpacer

The latest episode of TMRO.tv is now available on line: SpaceVR – TMRO

This week we bring on Ryan Holmes, Co-founder, CEO, Chief Designer and Issac Desouza, Co founder, CTO of SpaceVR to talk about their ambitions to put a VR camera on the International Space Station.

Pluto and beyond, Space Science, Space Systems

New Horizons spacecraft to resume normal operations on July 7th

July 6, 2015 TopSpacer

The latest from the New Horizons team about the anomaly that put the spacecraft into Safe Mode on Saturday:

New Horizons Plans July 7 Return to Normal Science Operations

NASA’s New Horizons mission is returning to normal science operations after a July 4 anomaly and remains on track for its July 14 flyby of Pluto.

The investigation into the anomaly that caused New Horizons to enter “safe mode” on July 4 has concluded that no hardware or software fault occurred on the spacecraft. The underlying cause of the incident was a hard-to-detect timing flaw in the spacecraft command sequence that occurred during an operation to prepare for the close flyby. No similar operations are planned for the remainder of the Pluto encounter.

“I’m pleased that our mission team quickly identified the problem and assured the health of the spacecraft,” said Jim Green, NASA’s Director of Planetary Science. “Now – with Pluto in our sights – we’re on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold.”

Preparations are ongoing to resume the originally planned science operations on July 7 and to conduct the entire close flyby sequence as planned. The mission science team and principal investigator have concluded that the science observations lost during the anomaly recovery do not affect any primary objectives of the mission, with a minimal effect on lesser objectives. “In terms of science, it won’t change an A-plus even into an A,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder.

Adding to the challenge of recovery is the spacecraft’s extreme distance from Earth. New Horizons is almost 3 billion miles away, where radio signals, even traveling at light speed, need 4.5 hours to reach home. Two-way communication between the spacecraft and its operators requires a nine-hour round trip.

Status updates will be issued as new information is available.