The Amazing Mission to Pluto: Three Billion Miles Away and We Made It!

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# 102 The Amazing Mission to Pluto: Three Billion Miles Away and We Made It! Dr. Alan Stern September 16, 2016 Produced by and for Hot Science - Cool Talks by the Environmental Science Institute. We request that the use of these materials include an acknowledgement of the presenter and Hot Science - Cool Talks by the Environmental Science Institute at UT Austin. We hope you find these materials educational and enjoyable. The Amazing Exploration of Pluto By New Horizons Alan Stern 2380 km ONE CAN’T PREDICT THE REAL THING Triton from Voyager HOWNEW DID WEHORIZONS GET TO DO THIS? MISFIT PLUTO? The Old View: 4 Terrestrial Planets 4 Giant Planets 1 Misfit Pluto 16 SO MANY PLANETS! THE BLUR: 2002-2005 IT TAKES A TEAM NEW HORIZONS MOMENTOS Clyde Tombaugh’s Remains Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system’s “third zone.” Adelle and Muron’s boy, Patricia’s husband, Annette and Alden’s father, astronomer, teacher, punster, and friend: Clyde W. Tombaugh (1906-1997). MOMENTOS 224 ft LAUNCHER ON THE PAD ALL ABOARD! LAUNCH 19 JANUARY 2006 WELCOME TO PLUTO! NEW HORIZONS:PLUTO FLYBY PLUTO ENCOUNTEROVERVIEW TIMELINE Feb MarApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Feb MarApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Jan Jan Pluto Closest Approach PRIMARY OPER ATION S HAZARD SEARCH MANEUVERS SIX BODIES TO STUDY AND NEEDLES TO THREAD Hydra Charon-Earth • S/C trajectory time ticks: 10 min Occultation • Occultation: center time 14:20:09 • Position and lighting at Pluto C/A Pluto-Earth • Distance relative to body center Occultation 12:52:30 15:00 14:00 Charon Sun 13:00 Earth Pluto 0.24° Charon-Sun 12:00 Occultation 14:17:50 Pluto-Sun Occultation 11:00 12:51:28 Charon C/A 12:04:00 Nix New Horizons Trajectory 29,432 km Pluto C/A 13.87 km/s 11:50:00 13,695 km 13.78 km/s Orbit Period a Charon 6.4 d 19,571 km Nix 24.9 d 48,675 km Hydra 38.2 d 64,780 km Spin Periods PLUTO’S SMALL SATELLITES ARE ALL RAPIDLY TUMBLING The Exploration of Pluto By New Horizons Alan Stern Backups EXTENDED MISSION: 2016-2021 MOMENTOS Is It Really So Hard? ?????????????????????? Stern/March 2005: TESTING June 2005 – GSFC Spin Balance PLUS A SPECIAL ENCOUNTER GEOMETRY To Sun Alice Solar Occultation 1.0 1000 mi e t 0.8 New a Horizons R Pluto detection t n u 0.6 o 170 mi C previous d e data z i 0.4 l a m r o 0.2 N Lightcurve Reversed 0.0 Sunset Sunrise −1000 −500 0 500 1000 Elapsed Seconds CO N2 CH4 Probing the Kuiper Belt After New Horizons Before New Horizons Merged Bodies? At least two and possibly all four moons are the result of mergers between smaller bodies. Pluto may have had many more moons in the past. NOW ON TO THE KUIPER BELT 2019 JUPITER OBJECTIVES PlutosFloatingHills-Context-la bles_V3-sml-02-04-16.jpg IT TOOK 14 YEARS JUST TO GET FUNDED 11 .

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Pluto's Long, Strange History — in Pictures : Nature News & Comment
Pluto's long, strange history — in pictures Nature marks the 85th anniversary of the dwarf planet's discovery. Alexandra Witze 18 February 2015 Even at a distance of 5 billion kilometres, Pluto has entranced scientists and the public back on Earth. Nature looks at the history of this enigmatic world, which in July will get its first close-up visit by a spacecraft. First glimpse Lowell Observatory 18 February 1930: Farmer-turned-astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (pictured), aged 24, discovers Pluto while comparing photographic plates of the night sky at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The discovery, announced on 13 March 1930, is the culmination of observatory founder Percival Lowell’s obsessive quest to find a ‘Planet X’, the existence of which was suspected based on perturbations in Neptune’s orbit. Name game Galaxy Picture Library 1 May 1930: The Lowell Observatory announces that its favoured name for the discovery is Pluto, suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney (pictured) from Oxford, UK, after the Roman god of the underworld. Venetia later becomes the namesake of a student-built dust counter on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently on its way to Pluto. Pair bond US Naval Observatory 22 June 1978: James Christy and Robert Harrington, of the US Naval Observatory's Flagstaff Station, discover Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. It is visible as a bulge (at top in left image) that regularly appears and disappears in observational images as the two bodies orbit their mutual centre of gravity1. The moon is so large relative to Pluto that the two are sometimes referred to as a binary planet.
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration 0 300,000,000 900,000,000 1,500,000,000 2,100,000,000 2,700,000,000 3,300,000,000 3,900,000,000 4,500,000,000 5,100,000,000 5,700,000,000 kilometers Pluto and Charon www.nasa.gov Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet and is also a member of a Charon’s orbit around Pluto takes 6.4 Earth days, and one Pluto SIGNIFICANT DATES group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of rotation (a Pluto day) takes 6.4 Earth days. Charon neither rises 1930 — Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto. Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. This distant realm is populated nor sets but “hovers” over the same spot on Pluto’s surface, 1977–1999 — Pluto’s lopsided orbit brings it slightly closer to with thousands of miniature icy worlds, which formed early in the and the same side of Charon always faces Pluto — this is called the Sun than Neptune. It will be at least 230 years before Pluto history of the solar system. These icy, rocky bodies are called tidal locking. Compared with most of the planets and moons, the moves inward of Neptune’s orbit for 20 years. Kuiper Belt objects or transneptunian objects. Pluto–Charon system is tipped on its side, like Uranus. Pluto’s 1978 — American astronomers James Christy and Robert Har- rotation is retrograde: it rotates “backwards,” from east to west Pluto’s 248-year-long elliptical orbit can take it as far as 49.3 as- rington discover Pluto’s unusually large moon, Charon.
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More than a one-hit wonder. Falk, Dan Astronomy. Feb2006, Vol. 34 Issue 2, p40-45 Famous for discovering Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh reached far beyond the planets Clyde Tombaugh's life instantly changed when he discovered Pluto in 1930. Just 24 years old, and with only a high-school diploma, Tombaugh spotted the missing "Planet X." Shortly thereafter, he was awarded a scholarship for his scientific work and returned to school to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in astronomy. Now, 100 years after his birth, both amateur and professional astronomers celebrate this astronomy great. The day he discovered Pluto began like any other during the previous few months. Tombaugh had not been able to observe the night before because of the Moon's glare. So on February 18, 1930, he "blinked" two photographic plates from January 23 and 29. He would work for a half hour, then rest his eyes and brain for the same time, and return to blinking. The task required intense concentration. And at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on a cold, wintry day in Flagstaff, Arizona, he found it. For 45 minutes, he checked his plates and examined another from January 21. Once Tombaugh was 100-percent positive he had found it, he reported the news to his boss. Twenty- five years of astronomers' searching was over. Finding a path Clyde William Tombaugh (1906-1997) was born in Streator, Illinois, and moved to Kansas at the age of 16 when his parents began farming in the small town of Burdett. Tombaugh would have been the quintessential American farm boy were it not for his fascination -- one might say, obsession -- with astronomy.
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Clyde Tombaugh – Burdett - 2 This is Kansas Profile. I'm Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University. Along Kansas Highway 156 about fifty miles west of Great Bend is the rural community of Burdett. Next to the water tower is a roadside park with a historical marker devoted to a local boy who became the discoverer of the planet Pluto. It’s today’s Kansas Profile. Last week we learned about Clyde Tombaugh, the local farmboy whose interest in astronomy would lead to his discovery of another planet. Don Cloutman is one of the citizens of Burdett who is seeking to continue to honor Tombaugh’s legacy. Don grew up southwest of Burdett in another rural community, the town of Minneola, population 717 people. Now, that’s rural. He studied zoology at Fort Hays State where he met his wife who is from Burdett. After serving in the Army, he went to graduate school at Arkansas, became a fisheries biologist at Duke Power Company in North Carolina, and earned a Ph.D. at Mississippi State. Dr. Cloutman became a professor of biology at Bemidji State University before he and his wife retired to Burdett. They are helping Burdett continue to honor the legacy of noted astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. The Kansas Historical Society website, Kansapedia, provides some background. Prior to 1781, scientists believed that there were six planets in our solar system. In March of that year, an English astronomer named Sir William Herschel became the first person in recorded history to discover a planet when he located the planet Uranus.
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