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:

Return Pluto to the Pantheon Of Planets!

The recent discovery (made via the Hubble Space Telescope) that Pluto has not one, not two but five moons to call its own, reminds me of the words of  former Hayden Planetarium Director Kenneth Franklin - when he visited Barbados nearly 40 years ago. He warned (in a guest lecture) that Pluto - based on its relatively small size - might at some time in the future be demoted from full planetary status. However, he warned that if Pluto had any moons, this would amount to a serious error of judgment and perhaps be a result more of subjective preference than scientific determination. 

I have come to believe that as well, despite ridiculous books such as Mike Brown's 'How I Killed Pluto and Why It had It Coming'. The fact is "it" didn't "have it coming" - it 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 Brown 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 for the election to downgrade Pluto to "dwarf planet" status.

By contrast, the modern consensus on evolution was achieved by a body of empirical evidence, including from the fossil record, microbiology and genetics. For example, one of the most powerful lines of evidence has shown that the human chromosome designated '2' was the result of the telomeric fusion of the two ape chromosomes, 2p and 2q. The effect also saw the reduction from 24 chromosome pairs in apes, to 23 pairs in humans. (Source: Yunis and Prakash, 1982, Science, Vol. 215, p. 1525, 'The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy')

Mathematical precision also consolidates scientific discovery in quantitative fields, making them less likely to be overturned. Particle physics is one such example, wherein the original three sub-atomic particles (proton, neutron, electron) have become a veritable “zoo” numbering in the hundreds – including up, down, top and bottom quarks, W and Z bosons, electron, mu and tau neutrinos and many others too numerous to mention. This panoply of particles didn’t just manifest because the respective particle physicists intended to be “mean” to school children or regular mortals. It emerged out of more refined and detailed experiments that exposed each of the particles. (The same set of parameter confirmations and empirical cross-checks will have applied if the Higgs boson is confirmed.)

The same applies to the current consensus on global warming, only arrived at after years of computer analysis of ice cores, changing CO2 concentrations therein, satellite imagery disclosing retreat of polar ice and data from over 1300 temperature sensing bouys in the oceans. Not to mention data we now possess that the glaciers in Greenland are melting 32 times faster than they were 10 years ago. No one took a vote to attain the consensus on anthropogenic warming, it was the culmination of over 1500 papers published over 20 years in peer-reviewed climate journals. Doesn't Pluto's demotion warrant at least half as much effort?

In the end, the error of the  IAU planetary astronomers was to cave in to public pressure to avoid “complexity”, e.g. in adding numerous additional planets like Charon, Xena, Ceres etc. This, despite the fact the original IAU definition was perfectly rational in its criteria for a planet.

Alan Stern, executive director of the Space Science & Engineering Division of the Southwest Research Institute – and Principal Investigator for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto- observed that the new 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, p. 350)

The tragedy of the Pluto vote is that it has not only set back planetary astronomy – showing the preponderance of ego over scientific inquiry – but also eroded public confidence in science, which extrapolates to areas like anthropogenic global warming. (Which polls disclose only 46% of Americans now accept as arising from human-engendered greenhouse gases, as opposed to 59% in 2000.)

Anyway, the newfound fifth moon, designated P5, is estimated to be between 6 and 15 miles across. Pluto's largest Moon, Charon - at 650 miles across, was discovered in 1978 - three years after Prof. Franklin's lecture and warning about a possible Pluto downgrade.

Right now, I imagine Dr. Franklin turning over in his grave about how his forecast was ignored and the demotion of Pluto overall.  And.....I suspect he'd have some words to share with Brown, Neil Degrasse Tyson and others of the 'Anti-Pluto as full Planet' ilk.