Pluto

[AFTT47]

There has been contact with the spacecraft post-encounter and it is healthy. Now it will take 16 months to download all the data! And I thought dial-up was slow!

[vorlon13]

All the images come down JPEG (m/l) first, and then they are sent down as full, non-compressed image data. That last part takes a while, but there won't be any surprises, just less compression artifacts.

Only drawback is, there will be the woo-woo fringe that is going to see buildings, roads, artifacts, fossils and aliens in the compression artifacts, and we are going to have to put up with that fucking bullshit.

Also, there will be the inevitable occasional data drop outs due to weather over the receiving equipment in Spain, Australia and California. Might be some scheduling issues too, and the craft is going to have to send down some of the high res non-compressed stuff twice.

The on-board memory will be dumped in plenty of time for the next flyby.

BTW, the next rock is WAY smaller, there won't be much of a long range view until New Horizons is all but there, so that encounter period won't have much build up. Original hopes were to encounter at least 2 subsequent objects, turned out we are damn lucky to even have one. (I was part of the team searching image data for potential targets, it was not much fun, but I was a co-discoverer of one rock. It wasn't a feasible candidate though)

[Silver]

My orgasms are induced by hot naked men, not by cold planets. No matter how much of a nerd I am.

[vorlon13]

I've actually tried adverts in the gay singles rags back in the day to find other gay science gnurds to fuck with. Found precisely zero of them. Got many responses to what I thought was a pretty clearly worded ad too, and that sciencey part seems not to have registered with anyone.

Even had a reply from overseas. LOL, he didn't read/comprehend the ad either.

[vorlon13]

Pluto is really a blast to have in the collection. I've kept a scrapbook since the Voyager Jupiter missions, and it's always fun to add to it. Easier now than ever, in the early days, I had to send away for slides, and then pic ones I liked and take them to photoshops to have them printed. Lotta work, now I can download, crop and process to my hearts content.

[zebo-the-fat]

New Horizons: Nasa releases historic Pluto close-up images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33543383

First pictures of Pluto are amazing, but what really blew me away was the picture of Charon, I can't believe the detail from something so small and distant, a big "Well done" to everyone involved!

[Minimalist]

Stephen Colbert and NdGT discuss Pluto.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/watch-st...ver-pluto/

[Minimalist]

Just finished the PBS Nova episode "Chasing Pluto."  Amazing shit.  Mind-boggling how they can do that kind of math.

[ReptilianPeon]

I'll surely get in trouble for this: Pluto is planet, and I won't listen to a word otherwise! (I guess I behave like a typical religionist when it comes to Pluto)

[vorlon13]

I'm annoyed with the planet brouhaha and am old enough that to me it's always going to be a planet.

However, (shit, here it comes) WTF we gonna call all the other big stuff out there? Some of the other large objects have moons too. I'm thinking atmospheres won't be too big a surprise, and the farther out we look, the harder they are to detect. Could be several objects bigger than Pluto, and maybe one honking big object too.

The paucity of craters on Pluto and Charon is a stunner, not sure what to make of that.