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Transcript
NEW HORIZONS A Journey To The Pluto System, And Beyond Adriana Ocampo [email protected] Pluto’s Discovery Pluto was discovered in JanuaryFebruary 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory, Arizona. Pluto is a Small, Distant World <1% Mars’s Max Apparent Diameter (0.1 arcsec) And 50,000 times fainter than Mars (V~14) How Did WeHORIZONS Get To Do This? NEW The New Horizons Team Persistence Does Pay NEW HORIZONS 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) = meter stick for Astronomers 1AU = 92 955 807.3 miles 30-40 AU to Pluto Scientific Payload Instruments: REX radio science & radiometry RALPH VIS/IR imaging & spectroscopy ALICE UV imaging spectroscopy LORRI High-resolution imager SWAP plasma spectrometer PEPSSI energetic particle spectrometer SDC EPO Student Dust Counter At Kennedy Space Center: November 2005 New Horizons Firsts First mission to Pluto First since launch Voyager in 1977 to an unexplored planet First mission to explore a iced dwarf double planet First mission to study Kuiper Belt Objects Fastest space mission ever launched First planetary mission to carry a student built instrument Planets Turn Out To Come In Many Sizes A Lone Misfit? The Old View: 4 Terrestrial Planets 4 Giant Planets 1 Misfit Pluto Hardly! Misfit Not, Pluto’s Abound The New View: 4 Terrestrial Planets 4 Giant Planets Perhaps 1000 Dwarf Planets LOTS OF PLANETS! Best HST Images HST Observations (1994): Strong Surface Variegation Polar Features Stern, Buie, & Trafton (1997) True Color Map (Young et al.) Pluto’s Composition First detected in 1985 and 1988 by a clear refractive signature, seen in stellar occultations; the surface pressure is ~10 μbar. N2, CO, & CH4, plus trace photochemical species. Evidence for haze and/or temperature T(z) struture. Strong seasonal effects are expected. The atmosphere is likely hydrodynamically escaping, several km of ices lost in 4 Gyr. CH4 discovered 1976. N2 and CO ices were discovered in the 1990s. The CH4 and CO distribution is patchy. N2 dominates ~10:1. Pluto’s surface contains at least three volatiles, each with different physiochemical properties. And At Least Five Moons + P4=Kerberos P5=Styx PLUTO’s MOONS TO SCALE Satellite Origin Like Earth A giant impact origin for PlutoCharon was first suggested in the 1980s (McKinnon 1984, 1989). Numerical models seem incapable of plausibly producing Charon otherwise (Stern, McKinnon, & Lunine 1997; Canup 2005). The giant impact was further strengthened by the discoveries of Nix and Hydra in co-planar orbits to Charon. Flight Plan 2007: Jupiter Flyby C/A Date Range 28 Feb 2007 32 RJupiter Jupiter science included studies of Jovian meteorology, satellite geology and composition, Auroral phenomena, and magnetospheric physics. Jupiter Objectives Volcanoes and Rings Then, Farewell Jupiter Pluto -63 days and counting! Jan-Mar: Observatory Phase April: Begin Encounter 14 July: Closest Approach Aug-Mid-2016: Downlink At Closest Approach Hydra • • • • Charon-Earth Occultation 14:20:09 15:00 Pluto-Earth Occultation 12:52:30 Charon 14:00 13:00 Pluto Charon-Sun Occultation 14:17:50 S/C trajectory time ticks: 10 min Occultation: center time Position and lighting at Pluto C/A Distance relative to body center Sun Earth 0.24° 12:00 Pluto-Sun Occultation 12:51:28 Charon C/A 12:04:00 29,432 km Pluto C/A 13.87 km/s 11:50:00 13,695 km CLOSEST APPROACH 13.78 km/s 7:50 AM EDT 8509 miles 31,317MPH 11:00 Nix Charon Nix Hydra New Horizons Trajectory Orbit Period a 6.4 d 19,571 km 24.9 d 48,675 km 38.2 d 64,780 km Revolutionary Datasets Are In Store Six months of encounter science. Exceed Hubble resolution for months. Map Pluto and all its satellites. Make composition maps of Pluto & Charon. Map surface temperature fields. Measure Pluto’s escape rate. Assay Pluto’s atmospheric structure and composition. Determine if either Pluto or Charon differentiated. But the most exciting discoveries will likely be the ones we don’t anticipate. So Anticipate Dramatic Results! Triton from Voyager Triton & Pluto At Best HST Resolution Then On To KBOs 2017-2021 Explore Pluto with New Horizons: July 14. 2015 http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ BACKUP SLIDES Beyond Pluto: KBO 2017-2019 The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped region • of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune -- billions of kilometers from our sun. • Pluto and Eris are the best known of these icy worlds. • There may be hundreds more of these ice dwarfs planets out there • Oort cloud region of long term comets 32 DON’T JUDGE THIS BOOK BY ITS COVER From the Densities of Pluto & Charon, One Can Derive Crude Interior Models Pluto is a primarily rocky, not icy body! PLUTO’S LARGE MOON: CHARON Charon was discovered, by accident, in July 1978 by Jim Christy of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Charon is in synchronous orbit ~19,400 km from Pluto, and spinspin-orbit locked with a 6.4 day period. Charon’s surface is covered in H2O-ice; there is as yet no detected atmosphere. 0.9 arc-sec INSTRUMENT PAYLOAD PAYLOAD REDUNDANCY