New Horizons at Pluto

Ziggurat said:
The windowless towers of Yuggoth are mostly subterranean.
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Not completely, though, or else Lovecraft wouldn't have anything to describe as being too horrible to describe. Just look for the rivers of pitch flowing under mysterious cyclopean bridges, or the yawning pit in which dwells the fearsome Cxaxukluth. Assuming he's not out on a beer run, it's safe to poke around the area until you find some Mi-go.
 
Assuming all is well, New Horizons will have signaled it has crossed through the Pluto system at 1627 PM EDT (~10 minutes ago). The signal is expected to reach Earth around 2053 EDT.

NH will continue to image Pluto and Charon at 2 km resolution and then begin the flyby sequence for Hydra and Nix.
 
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Gawdzilla Sama said:
I was suggesting that it would be captured by Pluto's gravity. It would have to slow considerably for that to happen, and that would have meant a longer trip with a "turn-over" somewhere near half way. Just curious as to how much time that would add to the trip.
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As others have noted carrying the rocket and the fuel to slow the space craft would have required a much larger space craft.

However, I don't think batman would use a rocket to slow the space craft. He would blast a self digging anchor into Pluto attached to a carbon fiber rope to cause the space craft to curve into an orbit around the planet. It's amazing that NASA didn't use this approach. If they had we could be getting pictures beamed back from Pluto for years to come.
 
For those interested, the NASA TV Update program will be starting in the coming minutes:

New Horizons Phones Home - Mission Update
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM EDT CDT

ETA: The start time is actually 8:30PM EDT... my channel listing was misleading.
 
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They mentioned:

1) It will take more than a year to get all the data downloaded to earth.
2) The phone-home should happen at 18:53 EST. So 10 minutes from now!
 
I was kind of hoping they would sneak an image down for the presser tonight. but the PR guy (at least) states the first batch of images will be tomorrow's press update.
 
Mike! said:
Wow, I was half kidding, but I see it's a serious problem. I'm glad they have a robust recycling program too. Working under a tight budget will do that to you though.
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The generator on PNH started life as F-5, a flight spare for Cassini. It was dismantled, refurbished, loaded with a new fuel mix in enhanced heat sources, and was rechristened as F-8 for this mission.

I was just looking at a 2004 briefing by Allen Stern talking about Pluto closest approach at 1220 (GMT) on July 14, 2015... today. The spacecraft's actual closest approach was at 1249, so the mission planners were within half an hour of this prediction, eleven years later.
 
sts60 said:
The generator on PNH started life as F-5, a flight spare for Cassini. It was dismantled, refurbished, loaded with a new fuel mix in enhanced heat sources, and was rechristened as F-8 for this mission.

I was just looking at a 2004 briefing by Allen Stern talking about Pluto closest approach at 1220 (GMT) on July 14, 2015... today. The spacecraft's actual closest approach was at 1249, so the mission planners were within half an hour of this prediction, eleven years later.
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Yeah. Think about it: if the sun was 12" in diameter, the Earth would be a dot .11" in diameter 107 feet away, and Pluto would be a speck .02" in diameter 4240 feet away. That's 8/10 of a mile away.
 
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