Archive
07/14/2015 – Ephemeris – New Horizons is beginning its encounter with Pluto right now
Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 16 minutes, setting at 9:26. The Moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 6:01 tomorrow morning, and tomorrow the Sun will rise at 6:11.
Right now as I speak the New Horizons spacecraft is beginning its pass through the Pluto system of the dwarf planet itself, its huge moon Charon and four smaller moons. It’s nail-biting time, because the spacecraft will be too busy to send anything back immediately. Everything will be stored for playback over the next 16 months. We will expect to hear from it at 9:02 tonight when a brief phone home signal will be sent to confirm the probe’s survival. Already this morning 7 of NASA’s deep space network antennas will have blasted a radio signal to Pluto* in time for the spacecraft to receive the signal as it passes behind first Pluto and Charon to probe their atmospheres. Tomorrow we will expect to receive the first closeup images.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
*I’ve since found out that the signal will be broadcast from those antennas from 4:30 to 6:30 a.m. EDT, Check with DSN Now: http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html. DSN Now shows all the antennas of all the DSN sites. Those antennas transmitting or receive data from New Horizons will have the label NHPC.
Addendum
Last image of Pluto posted before the encounter. Note that the “Heart” is rotating into view on the left. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute. Click on image to enlarge.
07/13/2015 – Ephemeris – New Horizons’ encounter with Pluto just 1 day to go!
Ephemeris for Monday, July 13th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 17 minutes, setting at 9:27. The Moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 5:05 tomorrow morning, and tomorrow the Sun will rise at 6:10.
The New Horizons spacecraft is hopefully Go for its encounter with Pluto and its moons tomorrow morning (July 14, 2015), and tomorrow New Horizons will be working in radio silence because it will be too busy to turn and relay anything to the Earth. Tomorrow evening we should get a signal from the spacecraft with engineering data on its survival of the encounter. Any photographs will be sent starting Wednesday. Pretty pictures are not the only data to be sent back. It will take 16 months to get all the data sent back. A series of highly compressed images will be sent for the next 6 days. Then other data will be taking priority until September 14th when photographs will again be sent. We’ll be feasting on the information for quite some time.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The following images are shown in chronological order as New Horizons approaches Pluto and Charon. Click on any of these images to enlarge.
Pluto on three consecutive days: July 2-3 as the Pluto rotates not quite half a rotation. It’s rotation period is 6.4 Earth-days. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
On July 4, the spacecraft went into safe mode. Imaging resumed on July 8th.
Pluto on July 8th showing its love for us, or it’s just a heart-shaped feature on Pluto’s lower right edge. This is a back & white image colorized by information captured by “Ralph”, a visible and infrared imager. The detail in all these pictures is provided by LORRI the long-range imager. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
An annotated image from July 10. The rest of the “whale” can be seen impinging on the “heart” in the July 8 image. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
Pluto on July 11. Note the four mysterious dark spots along the bottom right of the disk. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
Pluto image annotated for July 12 (2 days before encounter). The features on the right are intriguing, but we’ll have to wait for the next mission to resolve. New Horizons can’t stop. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
The moon Charon on July 12 with some of its features noted. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
07/07/2015 – Ephemeris – New Horizons will resume science gathering after glitch July 4th.
Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 7th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 9:30. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:56 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the Sun will rise at 6:05.
On July 4th, the New Horizons spacecraft, now one week from is flyby of Pluto, suffered a glitch and went into safe mode. It, however switched to its backup computer, and is now in contact with the Earth. Sunday night it was determined that the problem was a timing flaw in a command sequence preparing for Pluto encounter. Normal spacecraft operations will resume today. Two way communication time is now nearly 9 hours, almost half a day. Earth day that is. New Horizons is approaching Pluto at 31,000 miles an hour. The spacecraft will have only a few hours to observe Pluto and its moons at their closest next Tuesday. It’s getting down to crunch time for the little spacecraft.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
I wrote Tuesday’s program Sunday night before the announcement that the problem with New Horizons was found and the spacecraft would back to normal on Tuesday. I found that out just before recording the programs, and had to do a quick fix. With New Horizons problems found, I could write the July 13th program I had planned. I write and record 5 programs at a time – Tuesday through Monday.
Artist’s rendition credit NASA.
06/18/2015 – Ephemeris – 26 days to Pluto!
Ephemeris for Thursday, June 18th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:31. The Moon, 2 days past new, will set at 10:57 this evening. Tomorrow the Sun will rise at 5:56.
I hope everyone’s been following the progress of the New Horizons spacecraft as it nears the Pluto system. It will reach and pass through the Pluto system on July 14th, only 26 days from now after a journey of 9 years. Now, Pluto is more than a dot in the probe’s cameras, which are used to look for possible hazardous rings of debris, more moons and for navigational purposes. New Horizons is aimed for a window less than a hundred miles on a side, and a few minutes in time. All its moves to study Pluto and its moons have been pre-programmed in and actually tested two years ago to make sure everything works. We will not hear from the spacecraft on encounter day, it will be too busy.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Artist conception of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
New Horizon’s trajectory through the solar system. Credit: NASA/APL.
New Horizons Encounter Timeline. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.
New Horizons at closest approach to Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.
06/09/2015 – Ephemeris – What’s Pluto Time?
Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 9th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 9:27. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 2:19 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow the Sun will rise at 5:57.
This weekend I received several messages from the New Horizons team and others about Pluto Time. New Horizons is the spacecraft that will pass through the Pluto system in a bit more than 5 weeks from now. Pluto Time is the time of day when the landscape around you is lit up as much as the Sun lights up Pluto’s surface from nearly 33 times the Earth’s distance from the sun. The Sun’s intensity is a bit less than a thousandths that which it appears from the Earth, but still reasonably bright. For around the northern lower peninsula it’s about 6 minutes after sunset or before sunrise. To check out the time for yourself go to solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime, or use the link from my blog.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Header for Pluto Time Page. Credit NASA.
Phil Plait yesterday had a post about Pluto Time and a free iPhone and Android app called Pluto Safari.
Also check out the New Horizons Twitter feed @NewHorizons2015.
11/06/2014 – Ephemeris – New Horizons headed toward the 9th planet will pass a dwarf planet instead
Ephemeris for Thursday, November 6th. The sun will rise at 7:26. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 57 minutes, setting at 5:24. The moon, at full today, will rise at 5:32 this evening.
The New Horizons spacecraft is 9 months from reaching the dwarf planet Pluto. After a 9 and a half years journey it will zip past Pluto and its moons in a day. At launch Pluto was designated as planet number 9. In less than a year later Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet. The authority was the International Astronomical Union. It was a vote taken at the end of the last day of the meeting that year after most members have left. The definitions only pertain to the solar system, and not exoplanets orbiting other stars. Besides we cannot detect anything as small as Pluto orbiting another star…yet. The asteroid Ceres was once a planet too, it was demoted to asteroid 75 years after discovery. It was promoted to a dwarf planet with Pluto.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
New Horizon’s trajectory through the solar system. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.
Where is New Horizons on November 6, 2014? Credit NASA/JHAPL.
New Horizons Encounter Timeline. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.
New Horizons at closest approach to Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHAPL.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 