Where is New Horizons now |
Where is New Horizons now |
Mar 29 2006, 02:58 PM
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#1
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 22 Joined: 2-March 06 Member No.: 691 |
i found this web site
http://www.heavens-above.com/solar-escape.asp it show where NH is compared to voy1, 2/pioneer any one else have a fav web page that shows NH loc? I think this one is updated onece a day |
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Mar 30 2008, 08:28 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1018 Joined: 29-November 05 From: Seattle, WA, USA Member No.: 590 |
According to the NH website, "New Horizons' next checkpoint comes on June 8, 2008, when it passes the orbit of Saturn" so it's still a couple of months away.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingpla...ets_current.php Here are the other interesting dates from the same page Uranus: March 18, 2011 Neptune: August 24, 2014 Pluto: July 14, 2015 So Uranus' orbit is almost exactly 3 years away. --Greg |
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Mar 30 2008, 08:47 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 532 Joined: 19-February 05 Member No.: 173 |
These planet orbit crossings are based on whatever day we pass the distance of the planet, so although we are currently beyond Saturn's semi-major axis, Saturn is near its aphelion and we don't count the orbit crossing until we are further out than Saturn itself is. Some interesting coincidences are going to occur:
Uranus passage occurs just as MESSENGER (another APL mission) settles into Mercury orbit--same day. Neptune passage is the 25th anniversary of Voyager 2's Neptune flyby-- essentially to the day. Pluto encounter is the 50th anniversary of Mariner 4--the first mission to Mars--to the day. -Alan According to the NH website, "New Horizons' next checkpoint comes on June 8, 2008, when it passes the orbit of Saturn" so it's still a couple of months away.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingpla...ets_current.php Here are the other interesting dates from the same page Uranus: March 18, 2011 Neptune: August 24, 2014 Pluto: July 14, 2015 So Uranus' orbit is almost exactly 3 years away. --Greg |
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Jun 5 2008, 11:47 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
I have received a question about the definition of the Saturn orbit crossing:
QUOTE (edited for formatting) Concerning the upcoming Saturn orbit crossing, how exactly are you defining this? According to the thread on UMSF, Alan Stern says this is when the heliocentric distance of NH first exceeds that of Saturn and will occur on 2008 June 08, as your simulator also indicates. However, according to my own calculation this has already occured, on 2008 March 21 (to be precise at 10:55:52 UTC/SCET). At this time the distance of both objects is 9.287447 AU. On June 08 NH's distance already exceeds Saturn's by about 0.75 AU, but this is still within the distance variation of Saturn's orbit, so you may be using a different criterion for determining when NH crosses it. The " thread on UMSF, Alan Stern" refers to this: These planet orbit crossings are based on whatever day we pass the distance of the planet, so although we are currently beyond Saturn's semi-major axis, Saturn is near its aphelion and we don't count the orbit crossing until we are further out than Saturn itself is. I used the following: The Saturn orbit crossing is the point in space where the trajectory line of New Horizons intersects with the orbit line of Saturn as seen from above. So the intersection is in the xy plane. Of course, this works only in 2 dimensions as NH and Saturn have different elevations above the ecliptic at that point. On 08 June 2008 at 08:16am SCET UTC, New Horizons will be at the same x,y coordinates as Saturn will be on 02 September 2017 15:49 Saturn UTC (well ... within a 2 dimensional error distance of 378km since the analysis was done in minute intervals and not seconds) This is also what is shown on the New Horizons website as it shows "crossing the line" rather than being as far from the Sun as Saturn. Whilst this does not tally with the definition Alan Stern gave, his definition is possibly more meaningful, since by being further away from the Sun than Saturn (i.e. Cassini) now makes New Horizons the 5th farthest man-made object from the Sun (not counting rocket stages etc) EDIT: corrected mission name ... thanks mps -------------------- |
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