Keep it Coming

PRESSING: So, there was a flyby of Pluto this week, in case you hadn't heard. :)

See that photo up there ^^^?! It's mountains. On Pluto. Mountains the size of the Rockies. On Pluto. 

What a week!!!!!

This morning, at 10 Pacific time, there was a press conference from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physical Laboratory complex in Laurel, Maryland, with the latest Pluto news. 

Just a couple minutes into the broadcast on NASA TV, there was a crowd shot and my jaw hit my desk.

"That's Brian May!" I screamed, loud enough to scare the dogs.

Dr. Brian May, an astrophysicist, is probably better known as being a founding and forever member of the rock band Queen.

To be sure, Dr. May wasn't just there for publicity. Though this clip kind of cuts it off, Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, referred to Dr. May as a collaborator from Europe "here to help us work with the data a little bit."  Unfortunately, C-SPAN's embed code doesn't work here for some reason, but just follow this link.

The NASA team working on the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto is still clearly riding the high of the success so far. Pluto and its moons have already produced so many moments of amazement and wonderment! As Stern said during today's event, "The solar system saved the best for last!"

For instance, check out this fly over video, showing the frozen plains in Pluto's "heart" region, now officially named “Tombaugh Regio,” after Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto.

https://youtu.be/B6wK_RHwwY0

“This terrain is not easy to explain,” said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California via a NASA press release. “The discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all pre-flyby expectations.”

Within the 'heart' lies a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old, per NASA. In fact, it looks so relatively new, it is possible that it's still being shaped by geologic processes. This frozen plains region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, and it has been informally named Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), after Earth’s man-made satellite.
The graphic below explains how Pluto has a plasma tail. The dwarf planet is losing its atmosphere. 

Beyond Pluto, there's a region of cold, dense ionized gas tens stretching for thousands of miles. Turns out solar wind is stripping away Pluto's atmosphere, resulting in nitrogen ions forming a “plasma tail” heading out into the far reaches of our solar system. And we know all of this because of New Horizons. Remarkable!

More details are here: http://go.nasa.gov/1LrhgWS

TWO SCORE: Forty years ago today, Cold War relations between the United States and the Soviet Union warmed in a remarkable and meaningful way. 

On July 17, 1975, Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov and American astronaut Tom Stafford reached across the hatches of their docked Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft and shook hands, symbolically ending the space race between our nations that began in 1957.

Awesome artwork: NASA.gov

More than 200 miles above our common home, the astronauts and cosmonauts worked cooperatively, side by side, for the betterment of all mankind.

The partnership forged on Skylab gave root to the future International Space Station.

Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan has written an article about the historic handshake. You can check it out here: http://unreasonable.is/handshakes-in-space-and-on-earth/

Buzz Aldrin wrote an opinion piece for TIME about the handshake, as well:
http://time.com/3962777/buzz-aldrin-apollo-soyuz-space/?xid=tcoshare

TO THE MAX: Thanks to a Facebook post by the Seattle P-I, yesterday I learned that an art show featuring the work of pop art icon Peter Max is coming to Seattle.

I have loved Max's work forever (well, for my forever). I remember the stamp he designed back in 1974, for the World Expo in Spokane, WA. So groovy!

                                                  Public domain - US Postal Service stamp

I have no doubt CJ and Annabelle will appreciate Max's colorful style, and so we'll certainly attend the exhibit. But as a super big added bonus, the artist himself will be here for a couple of receptions, RSVP required. I immediately emailed the show producer and was happy to hear back from them quickly, saying we'll be on the list for his Saturday reception. Can't wait! 

Of Produce and Pluto

SEEING RED:  Today, I plucked the first tomatoes off plants in our garden. I was trying to wait until the kids got home from camping, but a few were so red, I dared wait no longer for fear of wasting homegrown produce.

I'm also happy to report that we're starting to see some pepper action, MUCH earlier than we did last year (it wasn't until October we harvested our two and only Trinidad moruga scorpions in 2014).

MEANWHILE, IN OREGON: The happy campers continue to enjoy activities they don't get to do here in Seattle, like get dragged behind a boat while bouncing on an inflated "biscuit."

Looks like Annabelle was going for some style points, while CJ was hanging on for his life. :)

PLUTO UPDATE: I received a great email today from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pointing me toward a great blog post about how to make the Pluto flyby a 'teachable moment.'

In the article, education specialist Lyle Tavernier shares some Pluto math problems (and answers) as well as activities and resources.

Regarding the math problems, the blog post suggests using new data supplied by the New Horizons mission to compute Pluto's radius, circumference, surface area, volume and density.

FYI, NASA will be releasing more new Pluto photos and science findings tomorrow (Friday, July 17), during a briefing broadcast on NASA TV. To view it, point your browser to http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv at 10 a.m.

In the meantime, here's a fun photo - it's a picture of Pluto taken by the Cassini space probe circling Saturn on the day of the New Horizons Pluto flyby. 

     PHOTO: NASSA, Cassini mission

In other space-y news, the European Space Agency is happy to report comet-landing probe Philae has phoned home again! The 'call' came via Rosetta, Philae's mothership. Philae successfully sent data from its COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission (CONSERT) instrument. Right now, Philae and the comet it hitched a ride on are about 300 million kilometers (186 million miles) from Earth. The comet will make its   closest approach to the sun this month, and everyone's hoping Philae will soak up some solar energy and send more signals, including data about how the comet changes caused  by the sun's warmth. 

Ready for Its Close-Up

INCOMING: At noon today, I was one of many (enough to make the NASA server laggy!) tuned into NASA TV online to hear the press conference where the first Pluto flyby photos were shared with the world.

What you see above IS THE SURFACE OF FREAKING PLUTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mountains, canyons, valleys ... the detail - it's incredible!

The scientists on the panel were downright giddy (professional, but giddy!) over the new data in had.

I think Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons  at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said it best: “Home run! New Horizons is returning amazing results already. The data look absolutely gorgeous, and Pluto and Charon are just mind blowing."

We've already learned so much from New Horizons' in one short day. For instance, we now know that that Pluto's equator is studded with icy mountains, and that Pluto has one of the youngest surfaces in the Solar System. There's not a single impact crater visible on its surface (a bit of a shocker), leading scientist to believe the planet's surface is young, and quite possibly, if not likely, active here and now. Per a NASA press release today, "The mountains on Pluto likely formed no more than 100 million years ago -- mere youngsters in a 4.56-billion-year-old solar system. This suggests the close-up region, which covers about one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today."

Another thing that's been deduced: "Water is there in great abundance," said one of the scientists on this afternoon's panel.  The water is in frozen form, supporting the weight of mountains made of volatiles, the "frosting" on the planet's surface.

Amazingly, though it just passed Pluto yesterday, New Horizons has already zipped significantly more than a million miles past the dwarf planet.
And don't even get me started about Pluto's moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos! We'll save that for another day.

I love, Love, LOVE the attention Pluto has been getting attention in all corners, including from the PR team at the White House. Clearly, there are some nerds hanging out there days, as the White House has been all over social media showing Pluto love. Perhaps my favorite example was their Facebook post today:

The White House

Page Liked · 18 mins · 

 

One does not simply fly 3 billion miles to take a photo of Mordor, the dark spot on top of Pluto's moon Charon. www.nasa.gov/newhorizons #PlutoFlyBy

For those not quite as nerdy, the shadowy spot atop Pluto has been informally named Modor by NASA scientists, after the home of Sauron and Mount Doom in "The Lord of the Rings."  The White House quote comes from a scene in the 2001 film adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien’s "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," when the Council of Elrond reveals that an evil ring has to be destroyed by being thrown into the fires of Mount Doom, a volcano in the dangerous territory of Mordor. A character points out the difficultly of the task by noting, "One does not simply walk into Mordor”. The scene has developed into an Internet meme.

If you like what you've seen the past couple of days from Team Pluto at NASA, why not drop them a little (online) thank you. The White House has a portal for you to do that.

MEANWHILE, IN FLORIDA: A rocket launched today. Specifically, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V, lifting a GPS satellite to orbit for the U.S. military. I watched it live, and really appreciated the lovely onboard shots - so pretty, and they really drive home just how fast that thing was climbing!

You can check it out here: 

http://www.floridatoday.com/media/cinematic/video/30187929/video-launch-of-atlas-v-rocket-carrying-gps-satellite/

Hello, Pluto!

I had to smile upon seeing the NASA.gov front page this morning. It's a Plutopalooza!

FLY BY: First thing this morning, I dashed to the computer and pointed my browser to NASA.gov, eager to see the latest Pluto news.

Launched over 9 years ago, NASA space probe New Horizons was scheduled to have its closest fly by of our solar system's dwarf planet Pluto at 4:49 a.m. Pacific time. 

By all accounts, the fly by went exactly as planned. Pluto photos weren't sent back instantaneously, but videos of scientists celebrating were immediate!
https://youtu.be/YOfb90vB1jY


During the flyby, the spacecraft was in data-gathering mode, and not in contact with flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physical Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. People waiting for news that all systems were still go would have to wait hours more, specifically until just before 6 p.m. Pacific time tonight. 

One of the articles I read today pointed out that because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched (traveling at more than 30,000 mph as it passed Pluto), if it collided with a particle as small as a grain of rice, the spacecraft could be incapacitated. Yikes. 

As it passed Pluto, New Horizons was about 7,750 miles above the surface, roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India, as a NASA press release pointed out, making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

This whole Pluto flyby thing is such a Big Deal, the White House even sent me, and a whole lot of other people, no doubt, an email about it today. It read ... 

"This morning, the United States became the first country to reach Pluto -- and the first country to explore the entire classical solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

NASA's New Horizons interplanetary probe has been making its way to Pluto since January 19, 2006, and has been providing the world with the sharpest photos ever seen of our Solar System's most prominent "dwarf planet." Today, it made its closest approach to Pluto yet -- about 8,000 miles -- at around 07:49:57 EDT.

Here's the photo they took -- which, despite traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), took four and a half hours to reach us here on Earth as it crossed the 3 billion miles between here and Pluto:

             

That we were able to get so close to Pluto today is a feat whose probability scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson likened to "a hole-in-one on a two-mile golf shot."

He's right.

Every once in a while, a photo comes along that has the ability to shift not just how we see our place in the universe, but how we see ourselves -- not just as Americans, but as citizens of Earth.

This is one of those photos, and I hope you'll share it with someone today.
More soon --
John
Dr. John P. Holdren
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
The White House
@whitehouseostp

So exciting! What a wonderful day for the United States Space program!

A bit more, from NASA, about the photo above. It was taken by New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 13, when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. "This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The color image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument that was acquired earlier on July 13. This view is dominated by the large, bright feature informally named the “heart,” which measures approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across. The heart borders darker equatorial terrains, and the mottled terrain to its east (right) are complex. However, even at this resolution, much of the heart’s interior appears remarkably featureless—possibly a sign of ongoing geologic processes," per NASA. (Photo credit: NASA/APL/SwRI)
A mission to Pluto was decades in the making. When Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on Feburary 18, 1930, the stock market had crashed just 4 months before, Mickey Mouse had been on the scene for less than a month, and Herbet Hoover succeeded as president, following Calvin Coolidge. 

Below is a photo of the "blink comparator," the machine Clyde Tombaugh used to discover.

I tuned in to NASA TV at 5:30 Seattle time this evening for the "phone home" coverage, when mission control was waiting to receive signals from the spacecraft that it was alive and well, with data on board. Tombaugh's (now elderly) son and daughter were in on hand at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Maryland, for the historic moment. Very cool.

The signals started rolling in right before 6 p.m. Hardware was healthy. Telemetry was good. Data was nominal ... everything checked out and mission control erupted in celebration.

Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Post fly-by, it is estimated it will take around 16 months for New Horizons to beam its backlog of data – 10 years’ worth! - back to Earth. Talk about a long, long distance call!

In a post-phone-home press release, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, "I know today we’ve inspired a whole new generation of explorers with this great success, and we look forward to the discoveries yet to come,” “This is a historic win for science and for exploration. We’ve truly, once again raised the bar of human potential.”

But I have to admit, below is favorite quote of the night. It came from New Horizons' "MOM."  



Incidentally, on this day 50 years ago, Mariner 4 flew by Mars, giving us our first close up photos of the Red Planet. We've gone a long way, baby!

Pluto a Go-Go

OH SO CLOSE: After nine years and over 3 billion miles, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to make its closest flyby of Pluto in just a few hours (from time of this publication).

       Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
New Horizons is already 'phoning home' with data that has let us get to know Pluto better. For example, we have learned Pluto (at 2,370 kilometers (1,473 miles) in diameter or so) is the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, it has gas (nitrogen) escaping its atmosphere, and that it has polar ice caps (nitrogen and methane ice, that is). 

At 4:43 a.m. Pacific time, the probe will reach closest-approach (7,800 miles [12,500 kilometers] above the dwarf planet's surface). According to a photographer I know who's at mission control right now, the images "will be so clear that if New Horizons passed Earth at the same altitude it would reveal the ponds of New York's Central Park!" 

If you're awake, you can watch coverage of the flyby on NASA TV (www.nasa.gov/ntv) or on the NASA app for Smartphones. NASA coverage starts at 4:30 a.m. Pacific time.
While the probe is making its closest pass, it will take about 150 photographs as it travels on out into deeper space. These images will be (by two orders of magnitude) better than any of the 'best' images we have seen of Pluto ever before. (Below, Pluto is pictured with its moon Charon.) 

Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI



I love that the Google Doodle is of New Horizons' flyby.
http://www.google.com/doodles/new-horizons-pluto-flyby

One super cool thing I learned today: Some of the ashes of the man who discovered Pluto 85 years ago, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, are on board New Horizons. How 'bout that for a remarkable journey in the afterlife? 

From Kansas, Tombaugh was just 24 years old when he was working at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona and made the discovery. How awesome that he's along for this historic ride. Follow this link for a look at the log book from the night Tombaugh found Pluto: https://www.flickr.com/photos/astro_jjj_unprocessed_data/19486086900/

ON THE ROAD AGAIN:  This weekend the MPA student body pulled up stakes and hit the road for an annual camping outing.

This is what the car looked like before it pulled out of the driveway ...

Oh. My.

Their first stop was overnight in Vancouver, USA, where they visited a good family friend. They all went to Dairy Queen on Main Street for desert. It was the spot where CJ, as a pre-toddler, got his first taste of chocolate when we gave him a bite of a Peanut Buster Parfait. He screamed bloody murder, as if we had tried to kill him. 

He liked it better this go-round.

Sunday, the campers reached their destination, Dorena Reservoir in central Oregon.

It looks like they rather quickly got to playing cards with their cousins.

They enjoyed a pretty sunset, but Christian tells me unexpected rain dumped on their tent the first night. Fortunately, they were able to round up enough tarps to keep from getting soaked.