New Horizons Craft Reaches Dwarf Planet Ultima Thule Later Today

Artist's depiction of Ultima Thule - next target for the New Horizons spacecraft.


At roughly 10:33 p.m.  MST today (05h 33m  GMT, Jan. 1st), the New Horizons craft, the same one that brought us close ups of Pluto, will fly even closer to the outermost dwarf world named Ultima Thule (meaning "beyond the know world").   Assuming one single world, it is estimated to be 30 km (20 mi.) in diameter, close to absolute zero temperature, and with an orbit that takes it once around the Sun every 300 years.

On the other hand, the light curve suggests  planetary "doublet" such as depicted in the accompanying artist's conception, In this case, the distant (4 bn miles)  world looks somewhat like a misshapen dumbbell. How is this depiction justified?   Earlier images of Ultima Thule revealed that it’s actually two objects that are either joined via geo-morphology or very closely orbiting one another. Given such a dual pair of objects reflects sunlight, one would expect light to pulsate as the strangely shaped object rotates and the light varies according to a designated light curve. The trouble is, Ultima Thule’s light curve doesn't show it  getting brighter or dimmer as it rotates.

Alan Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons, writes in a blog post.:

"We expect that Ultima is the most well-preserved sample of a planetary building block ever explored.  What will Ultima reveal? No one knows. To me, that is what’s most exciting — this is pure exploration and fundamental science!” 

The "building block" aspect is easily the most important for planetary astronomers given this distant world was likely formed at the very birth of the solar system. So it will hold key clues to the formation of the other larger planets as well.   To Alan Stern the flyby of this odd -shaped world by the New Horizons, and the images that accompany it, will be akin to the now famous "Earthrise" photo taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts 50 years ago.   This famous photo, for those who need a reference marker, is shown below:


Alas, I was unable to fully partake of the illustrious moment - including astronaut Gordon Lovell reading from Genesis -  because I had been laid low by the Hong Kong flu.  It kept me down for the entire two week period from roughly Dec. 18- Dec. 31st, 1968. 

This time around, to be sure, I plan to be following every minute of the flyby to the best  I can given the limits imposed, e.g. on NASA, by the Trump shutdown.


See also:

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/new_horizons_flight_path.html

And:

https://www.space.com/42860-new-horizons-beyond-pluto-ultima-thule.html

"At Its Heart Science Is Based On Faith?" -- Errr....No!

The issue of whether science is based on faith, like supernaturalist religion, is one that repeatedly occurs in debates - almost like the return of a bad penny. But in fact it is nonsense.

Look at your computer:  laptop, desktop or Ipad,  at which you're sitting and reading this post. Is the computer real?  Can you interact with it, i.e. scroll down, change pages, reduce scale ....etc....or is it merely a figment of your imagination in which you must invest faith that it really exists? I submit you know it is real and you need no "faith" to believe so or that you can interact with it.  In fact, the computer comprises  hard core evidence of the factuality of science - specifically quantum mechanics - because without the phenomenon of quantum tunneling computers could not exist, nor could video games, HDTVs, smart phones or dozens of other devices we take for granted.

My point here is that if  scientific knowledge is based merely  on an internal (subjective) faith in its methods of inquiry, there would be no hardware ever emerging from discovery of first principles. Nor would there be advances in the hardware. The reality of the hardware (such as working telescopes - like the one shown in the image accompanying this blog-  and computers,  scanners, GPS systems etc), implies that science must be based on something radically different from faith. In essence, there must be a substantial and objective dimension to scientific knowledge, i.e. that exists apart from the scientist's mind and personal beliefs.

For example, there is no disputing the reality of high-speed computers and micro-processors, medical imaging and diagnostic devices (e.g. MRIs), more efficient telecommunications systems -including fiber optics relays, and novel advances in gene mapping (such as to arrive at the human genome) and splicing techniques as applied to genetic engineering. Collectively, these show two things: 1) that science as a process cannot be "standing still" - since technology advances and technology is the offspring of applied or basic scientific research, and 2): these researches can generate real, physical counterparts in the objective world. (So they are in no ways the same as "souls", "demons" etc.)

Let's go one further and refer to the monumental achievements of celestial mechanics. The name conveys exactly what the subject embodies: Mechanics applied to the dynamics of celestial objects. A typical diagram from my own Celestial Mechanics notes when I took it at Univ. of South Florida, is shown below:














The diagram shows assorted "orbital elements" for a planet of mass m2 (the Sun is m1) and these could be used as a basis for orbital energy analysis and also to predict future positions.  By inclusion of Newtonian dynamics one could also map the trajectories of spacecraft to distant planets, as well as the Moon.

Is the wonderfully sophisticated mathematics of celestial mechanics and astrodynamics based on "faith"? Hardly! If it were indeed so then we'd never have been able to land men on the Moon- nor would we have trusted "faith" to get Apollo 11 there first, on July 20, 1969. Nor would we have used it to send the Mars Curiosity Rover to the Red Planet, e.g.

or indeed would we have been able to dispatch the NASA New Horizons spacecraft on its recent flyby of the planet Pluto to capture extraordinary images, e.g.
 
The fact we have been able to accomplish these space feats shows clearly celestial mechanics is not based on any "faith" but on precise physical and mathematical laws which remain invariable over appreciable lengths of time. (Hence, enabling me to predict the position of Jupiter 100 years from today's date.)

It was therefore disturbing to read a recent (Mar. 2) WSJ essay by Matt Emerson ('At Its Heart Science Is Faith -Based Too') that attempts to portray science in the same mold as religion - based on faith.  But mixing science and religion up like he does serves the interest of neither.

To attempt to validate his argument he quotes a passage from Paul Davies' book, 'The Mind Of God':

"Just because the Sun has risen every day of your life, there is no guarantee that it will tomorrow. The belief that it will, that there are indeed regularities of nature - is an act of faith, but one which is indispensable to the progress of science."

Emerson seems not to grasp that just as there is artistic license, there is a degree of "scientific license" in popular books written by serious physicists. This is the case here, because if the laws of celestial mechanics are indeed precise - and moreover apply at the macro level of space craft, planets and asteroids (so exist independent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) then indeed the Sun must rise tomorrow, meaning that the Earth will continue rotating on its axis so that the current night side will see the dawn. (The Sun itself does not move, of course.)

What we actually have then isn't faith, but a mathematically -based expectation that is repeatedly confirmed. In order for it not to be confirmed all the laws of physics and celestial mechanics would have to be suspended and as even Davies acknowledges on the same page (81) if this were to transpire science would become merely a "charade"  since all regularities would then be treated as belonging to the realm of the random.

In this case you'd never be able to trust that the Newtonian law of gravitation remains as it is, as opposed to being suspended,  with disastrous consequences. Instead of rain or snow falling to Earth then one fine day it might levitate up toward the sky, and your  cup of coffee would instantly disperse as if suddenly in a weightless environment. Hence, all laws of physics would then become quixotic and chaotic.

Alas, Emerson misreads these fundamentals and hence misreads recent scientific discoveries such as the gravitational waves by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) when he writes:

"When the scientists searching for gravitational waves set up LIGO to detect the waves they did so believing that Einstein's mathematics would be reliable and deep space would respond as their calculations had forecast. And they  kept us this faith even when by 2010 they saw no confirmation.."

In fact, this sustaining of the LIGO project was not predicated on "faith" but on the realization that more time was simply needed to find the source object (in this case, 2 colliding black holes) which could generate the necessary magnitude of gravitational waves to meet the measurement threshold.. Einstein's tensor equations were already known to be more than up to the task once the required source object was found.

Of course, given his earlier missteps it was inevitable Emerson would reach his last bogus conclusion in the form of a plaintive (if pathetic) question:

"If the combination of faith and reason can deliver the sound of two black holes colliding over a billion light years away - confirming a theory first expressed in 1915- what is so unthinkable about the possibility that this same combination could yield the insight that God became Man?"


Well, a number of reasons.  For one thing there is no hard evidence for the localization of a purported infinite entity into the form of a human. Secondly,  real science must always explain the unknown in terms of the known, or the relatively more known. Supernaturalists, by contrast, inevitably invoke the more unknown to explain the unknown. How, for example, does Emerson account for his God at all? He doesn't! Classical logicians refer to this fallacy as:  ignotum per ignotius:  “explaining the unknown by means of the more unknown.”  This is the fallacy Emerson has committed, given any natural object - like a black hole  - will always be more known than a supernatural construction like a god-Man.

More to the point, the claim fails other tests that negate any remote comparison to the gravitational wave find.  Can it be set against original and actual scientific hypotheses? No, it cannot.  Can it admit the basis of numerous empirical tests- and moreover- can it be susceptible to any form of prediction? NO, again, it cannot.

 If the answer is ‘No’, then we cannot place it into any scientific context. It will then have to be admitted that “faith” be enjoined to embrace or accept it, since no scientific rationale will permit true scientific inquiry. Hence, an incarnated deity cannot be a genuine object of scientific inquiry.

We can, however, pursue gravitational waves, black holes, colliding galaxies, pulsars and other astrophysical objects knowing the a priori physical tests can be met.  It is this testing of reality which provides a coherent basis for scientific claims, and which bestows on science a legitimacy founded in reality rather than wish fulfillment fantasies.  This is a basis, moreover, for which theological claims have no counterpart, despite that fact that theologians have often tried to make their claims sound like proven theories. The most often used tactic is to present some sort of "evidence" or other for a theological fiction, thereby exposing themselves to scientific scrutiny and criticism.

The best policy for Emerson, to prevent subjecting religious claims to harsh scientific scrutiny, would be not to mix issues of faith and science in the future. No matter how much he may want it,  neither modern physics  nor any other branch of science  will validate the basis that a god-Man ever existed. And not to put too fine a point on it, but even many theologians (such as based in the Jesus Seminar) deny any credible basis for such a belief. 

 See also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/god-and-astronomy-what-bob-berman-gets.html

Alan Stern On Why Pluto Is Still A Bona Fide Planet

View Of Pluto from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager  Aboard New Horizons spacecraft then half way to its minimum distance of 7700 miles.

Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator,  gave a terrific analogy to the demotion of Pluto to a 'dwarf planet' in the NOVA special  'Chasing Pluto'.  He compared the ridiculous IAU vote to a similar vote by canine specialists to vote all small dogs, i.e. pugs, Chihuahuas etc. to 'dwarf dogs' while all larger dogs are 'real dogs'.

Of course, to make the analogy much better,  one would postulate a scenario in which people go crazy about breeding and owning small dogs which soon outnumber large breeds by 10:1 or more. Worrying about a proliferation of small dogs, the specialist canine community makes the decision to vote on redefining them as 'dwarf dogs' to try to discourage ownership and breeding.

In Stern's Wall Street Journal interview (July 18-19, p. A9) he is even more specific, after referencing what led to the IAU vote, i.e. when scientists began finding worlds even  farther away and one (Eris) nearly the same size as Pluto. This led certain investigators (e.g. Michael Brown) to propose a special class for the proliferating small planets, calling them all 'dwarf planets'.

So rather than have public confusion about hundreds of planets, it made sense to them to separate eight regular planets from the multitude of dwarf planets.

As one IAU voter put it (ibid.):

"We're not so keen to have Pluto and all his friends in the club because it gets crowded. By the end of the decade we would have had 100 planets.."

But Stern objected:

"That's a very 20th century view. Our technology used to be very limited, so we could only see a few planets, and we could memorize the list because we thought we knew them all. Arbitrarily limiting the number of planets to a familiar few is like deciding to name only seven mountains on Earth,"

Of course, the response of the pro-dwarfers would be that gazillions more people are interested in space and the planets rather than all the terrestrial mountains. But in fact that planet prejudice is immaterial to Stern's basic point. In another parallel universe, many more might be interested in mountains... but planets -  not so much.

Stern also dissents on more technical grounds given the IAU insists a bone fide planet must have gravitationally swept its neighborhood clear of other objects which Pluto hasn't done. But as Stern observes, a body big enough to clear a small orbit and qualify as a planet might fail to make the cut for a larger orbit (as Pluto has).

In other words, when is a planet not a planet? Well, when it is somewhere else!

Stern goes on to maintain Pluto is a planet simply because it is massive enough that gravity has forced it into a spherical shape. (A sphere - for technical reasons - is the maximum volume shape arrived at from g-forces) By this definition, Ceres also qualifies as a planet.

In one of the most incisive points, Stern acknowledges that planetary scientists regularly define objects this way. Which is why it was wrong to bring the planetary definitional vote before the entire International Astronomical Union - because you're mixing planetary astronomers, with stellar astrophysicists, solar physicists, cosmologists, space physicists, astro-geologists, astro-biologists, astrometry specialists (astrometrists), celestial mehanicians and so forth.

As Stern aptly puts it:

"I know the public thinks we're all the same because we study things in space. So my analogy is doctors. Would you let a podiatrist do brain surgery on you. Wrong specialty! So don't let an astrometrist classify planets."

A point well taken which is why many of us ignore the  supercilious IAU vote and continue to regard Pluto as a planet.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/ed-tant/63181/new-horizons-provides-up-close-look-at-faraway-pluto

New Pluto Images Show The World Many Of Us Expected

One of recent images of Pluto taken near its equator showing mountains 11,000 ft. high.

The images we'd all been waiting for from New Horizons, those taken during the pass at a distance of 7,700 miles - surprised many  - but not all of us. I always expected to see a rugged terrain complete with mountains, although ice-covered, as opposed to the "giant snowball" or "iceball" model peddled for decades. Another astronomer, Dr. Kenneth Franklin - then Director of the Hayden Planetarium- also agreed with that take when we discussed the planet on his visit to Barbados in 1975. "Icy snowball"? Merely a "first approximation" that will be squelched "if we ever get there",  according to Dr. Franklin..

Dr. Franklin,  after giving a guest lecture at the Harry Bayley Observatory, was also asked a question on the possible future demotion of Pluto. The questioner wanted to know, given we knew so little about Pluto (Viking hadn’t even landed on Mars yet) whether a possible demotion, e.g. to an asteroid, might be in the works if we discovered it was much smaller than then believed. (At that time, it was presumed to be about 3600 miles in diameter or about the size of Mercury).

Franklin’s answer – which I captured on audiotape- was clear and distinct:

“That depends. If someday it’s found that Pluto is only half as large as Mercury or even less, BUT if it’s found around the same time to have satellites of its own, then it is still a planet.”

Thus in one clear concise definition, Franklin disclosed how and why even a planet found to be much smaller than originally thought, can retain its status

Flashing forward, all the incoming photos of Pluto have been collected during the fly-by via two New Horizons'  cameras: LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) , which takes black-and-white images, and "Ralph", which takes both panchromatic and color images. It will take nearly a year to get all the images back on account of the vast distance involved.

Because some of the color data returned from New Horizons is outside the spectrum the human eye can see, a team of Boulder-based Southwest Research Institute planetary scientists had to work overnight Monday to translate the latest image from LORRI into colors within our visible spectrum.

Incredibly, New Horizons' seven science instruments operate on a mere 200 watts, or about one-fifth the wattage of a standard household toaster — energy generated by a device called a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. This low energy source also explains why the craft maintained radio silence (during the fly by) to conserve energy.

In the image shown above, we behold the most clear view of Pluto ever seen, revealing never-before-seen details of Pluto's surface. The image is at a resolution of 4 kilometers per pixel, or about 1,000 times better than what the best telescopes on Earth can see of the planet.

In the words of Southwest Research Institute's Alex Parker said from mission control Tuesday.

  "It's emotionally impactful to see the planet go from a flat planet in the distance to now seeing it. Somehow it just became a real place."

She was referring to the fact that  craters, peaks and ridges have now been revealed and there is evidence of surface impacts from space objects as well as evidence of current or previous tectonic activity. As one specialist put it:

"I think the biggest discovery for me is that Pluto has a complicated geological history. That's really basic information about Pluto that we had no idea about before yesterday ... Is it an ancient surface or a young surface? And now we see maybe it's both."

"Complicated geological history" generally means mountain  formation,  especially via the "folding process" associated with tectonic activity. In other words, Pluto's mountains are not simply two mile high ice packs. (In any case they'd never be able to support an estimated mass of 4 trillion kilograms!)

In addition, the fly by produced a spectacular image of Pluto's moon, Charon:

Charon shows a surface somewhat like our Moon but far less cratered, suggesting a much younger object.

Stay tuned!

New Horizons Arrives At Pluto - Showing Again Why Gov't Is Superior To Commercial Space Enterprises

View Of Pluto from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager  Aboard New Horizons spacecraft then half way to its minimum distance of 7700 miles.

The spectacular views of the most distant planet, Pluto, coming in from the New Horizons spacecraft have been are more than enough to stir wonder and awe.  What used to be visible in our telescopes only as a fuzzy disk or blob is now seen to have distinct features, with different coloration. This successful 9 1/2 year long, 3 billion mile voyage ( to many of us),  has also revealed the enormous advantage that government -enabled missions have over commercial space endeavors.

By "government -enabled" I mean that a government agency, NASA, coordinated and supported all the detailed technical and engineering inputs - while ensuring that the disparate institutional contributors (e.g. Southwest Research Inst.) all delivered this end point, as if from a single "conductor" directing a symphony. I argue that no commercial enterprise such as exists now - including Space-X -  could have done the same, and probably couldn't even in the near future. They simply don't command the resources.

Officially, NASA's New Horizons whizzed past the planet Pluto about 5:49 a.m. Tuesday, traveling at more than 30,000 miles per hour. The reason the close-up, detailed photos weren't available at the time is because of the fact that light only travels at 300,000 km/sec so it would take over 4 hours to transmit each photo (at closest pass) back to Earth. The electronic signals which embody the images then must be deconvolved,  processed - which takes time.

The spacecraft last communicated with mission control at 9:17 p.m. Monday night. The craft, which has now gone radio silent, is using its energy for science — pointing its instruments at Pluto and its moon Charon to collect data on its one-time trip. Mission Control, based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Science Lab, didn't hear from New Horizons again until about 6:50 p.m. Tuesday, when a signal sent from the spacecraft to Earth about four hours earlier reached  mission control.

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said Monday that dynamic  models indicate a low probability that New Horizons will suffer damage on its journey through Pluto's system.

"I don't think that we're going to lose the spacecraft," Stern said. "We've been furiously transmitting data to the ground over the last few days ... but it would be gilding the lily a little bit if I didn't tell you 99 percent of the data is still on the spacecraft."

Although Stern remains hopeful, he said the science team has already downlinked "fail-safe data sets" from each area of the spacecraft's study as a contingency plan. The spacecraft will collect about 100 times more data on close approach to the planet than it can send home before the entire fly-by is over, according to NASA.

About 1 percent of the data collected during the approach and fly-by will be immediately sent back to Earth. This will include some images that the New Horizons team will share with the public as soon as they are processed.

Most of the data will be stored on board and downlinked to Earth beginning in September, providing scientists what Stern calls a "16-month data waterfall," bringing scientists new and exciting discoveries over the next year.

In what is possibly the most fascinating aspect of the 9½ -year-long wait, the data the team receives tomorrow will make Tuesday's data obsolete, said Southwest Research Institute's John Spencer, who heads up the mission's geology and geophysics areas.

"Tomorrow's pictures will be nearly 10 times better than today's," Spencer said. "We also get our first decent views of the small moons, Nix and Hydra, which up to now have been little more than just points of light ... There's stuff coming thick and fast from now on."

So we need to be patient and hold strain as the ever more highly resolved imagery comes in.

In the meantime, it's a good opportunity to revisit Pluto's identity: Is it a dwarf planet or a bona fide proper planet? I take the latter position as does Stern, who three years ago noted that the new "dwarf" planet definition was “sadly flawed, particularly due to the vagueness of the third condition”, e.g. clearing the neighborhood around its orbit – which might also disqualify Earth!)

He added: “A lot of people are going to ignore the (new) definition because it doesn’t make sense.” (Source: Eos, Vol. 87, 29 August, 2012,  p. 350)

Let us recall here that the Pluto re-definition as a "dwarf planet" was entirely the result of a subjective vote taken at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).  So while one might sympathize with author Mike Brown ( 'How I Killed Pluto and Why It had It Coming') over the "hate mail from school children" at his role in Pluto's demise, the fact is it was likely spurred as much by the irrational basis.

Meanwhile, another proper planet antagonist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, has argued in an interview this evening "how can Pluto be a regular  planet when it crosses the orbit of Neptune's for 20 years" - which is one of the most inane excuses for degrading its status I ever heard.

 The tragedy of the 2006 Pluto vote is that it has not only set back planetary astronomy – showing the preponderance of ego and pseudo-science over genuine scientific inquiry – but also eroded public confidence in science, extrapolated to areas like anthropogenic global warming.

But perhaps after this important flyby, and seeing Pluto's moon system up close as well - all that will change.

Stay tuned!


A comparative view of Pluto, Earth and Pluto's moon Charon is shown below: