Nasa New Horizons probe

[Jimbuna]

A Nasa probe has made history after it completed the furthest ever exploration of the solar system.

Signals from Nasa’s New Horizons probe on New Year’s Day indicated it had completed a flyby of Ultima Thule, which at four billion miles from earth is now the most distant object ever explored in space.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techa...id=mailsignout

[Jeff-Groves]

[eddie]

Takes 6 hours to get a radio signal from the spacecraft, have to say that is really out there,lol

[Kapitan]

I wonder how the two Voyagers are getting along they have been on the go since the 1970's

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

I wonder how the two Voyagers are getting along they have been on the go since the 1970's

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

Markus

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

I wonder how the two Voyagers are getting along they have been on the go since the 1970's

I was thinking the same thing and I remembered the picture of the pale blue dot and Carl Sagen


“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space





Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 at a distance of 40.5 AU

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by mapuc

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

Markus

Thanks for the great link Markus

[Gargamel]

What's cool is this is practically a pristine contact binary, two objects that are orbiting each other so closely, they are actually touching each other.






Very similar to the Rosetta comet that was visited earlier, Comet 67P, but this one has been "weathered" by impacts and out gassing as it nears the sun:



Ultima Thule (pronounced TooLee) is in near perfect condition. Initial analysis is showing very few impact craters.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

I wonder how the two Voyagers are getting along they have been on the go since the 1970's

Voyager returns later as viger and threatens Earth and Capt. Kirk and company and the Enterprise have to stop it.


Seriously, both Voyagers are still somewhat functional and still sending data back to Earth for continued analysis.


Quote: The Voyagers are still using an 8-track tape recorder for data storage, believe it or not) and they have stood the test of time. *



I wonder if they took any great music for their 8 track players ?


The Voyagers longevity remains a credit to their builders and New Horizons is continuing in their footsteps and traditions of excellence.



http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cr...es-functional/



https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/science/jupiter/