New Horizons, Pluto and the Kuiper belt Options

[GeezerButler]

There will be tens of Pluto orbiters by then.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I expect two points of light at this point. Images will overtake Hubble at t- 10 weeks from close approach, though observation will start 5 months earlier (see http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php

ADMIN: Link corrected.

The LORRI resolution should be roughly 6000 km/pixel at NH's current distance from Pluto so the images wouldn't exactly be spectacular - but if NH imaged the Pluto system now, Pluto and Charon should show up as two points of light when Charon is near its maximum elongation from Pluto.

[ups]

I expect two points of light at this point. Images will overtake Hubble at t- 10 weeks from close approach, though observation will start 5 months earlier (see http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php) .

Your link is 404'ing.

ADMIN NOTE: Rather than make that unhelpful post, wouldn't it have been better to look at the URL and check to see what the error is?
It is obvious that the 'close bracket' ')' is the error in the posted link, you could have easily remedied it yourself and posted the correct one.
Remember that UMSF is about contributing information.

Corrected link:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php

[GeezerButler]

By the way, what will be Uranus' and Nepune's positions when NH flies by them? Any chance of high-resolution images?

[nprev]

None at all. NH is past Uranus--which was distant anyhow--and Neptune will be tens of degrees away plus out out of the plane of the spacecraft's trajectory.

This is an extremely cool link to monitor NH's progress.

[Explorer1]

Here's the link to the planets' positions when when NH crossed their orbit (hopefully my link works this time!)

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingpla...ets_current.php

With distances measured in the billions of kilometres, it makes the scale of the outer solar system more comprehensible. The Jupiter system and that asteroid in the main belt were the last exceptions until the main show starts...

[jasedm]

Votes are in from the public for official names for newly-discovered P4 and P5.
Most popular are 'Vulcan' (I wonder why ) and 'Cerberus'

I personally think Vulcan should be saved in case of the remote chance of finding something orbiting the sun within Mercury's orbit.

[Paolo]

I am sorry for the trekkies, but Vulcan makes no sense from either a mythological POV (no direct relation with Pluto) or an historical POV. and we already have an asteroid called Cerberus (I know there are lots of names that are duplicated between asteroids and moons, but so much better if we can avoid this)
I voted for Acheron and Styx, with the idea that if more moons are found, we can go on naming them after rivers of the underworld (Tartarus would be good as well)

[centsworth_II]

Doubly sorry for the trekies, but I would go for R2D2 and C3P0.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I noticed that tomorrow New Horizons' distance from Pluto drops to less than 1 billion km. That must be a milestone. And now there are only a little more than two years until NH flies by Pluto.

[Explorer1]

Yep; just checked it on Yaohua's page:
http://www.yaohua2000.org/cgi-bin/New%20Horizons.pl

Look at that map! Unbelievable how fast the time has flown.

[yaohua2000]

Today is a BIG day. Today is the day when New Horizons will be exactly ONE BILLION KILOMETERS away from 134340 Pluto. The historic moment will be occurred on March 28 at 15:58:18 UTC (SCET w/o LT correction), when New Horizons's range rate relative to 134340 at -13.889 km/s, and relative to the Earth at -14.717 km/s. Yes, the probe is running toward both 134340 and the Earth right now.

[Alan Stern]

That's awesome! I'll tweet it for NH.

[TheAnt]

Thank you yaohua2000 for the milestone heads-up.

Sorry for a bit of nitpicking, but as for the "probe is running toward Earth" - isn't it rather that Earth are moving in its orbit so that the distance happen to decrease right now?

[brellis]

Right, the earth is approaching NH and Pluto.