The ship ran 4,800 million kilometers to reach out to more distant and cold planet in the Solar System. He began sending data. It is the culmination of an effort of 50 years.
More than nine years after its launch, a US spacecraft flew successfully Pluto yesterday, ending a mission of 4,800 million kilometers to the outer solar system, NASA said.
The probe flew past the dwarf planet at 11.49 GMT (8.49 in Argentina) after reaching a posterior Neptune called the Kuiper Belt, which was discovered in 1992. The achievement is the culmination of a 50-year effort to explore the solar system.
“It’s really an imprint in human history, “he said John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for science control center of the mission, located in the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University.
The final confirmation that the New Horizons probe passed within 12,550 kilometers of Pluto was revealed last night.
The ship is so far from Earth that radio signals to speed light, takes about four hours to reach our planet.
New Horizons had been silent 22 hours while conducting a series of maneuvers to perform observations while flying Pluto and its five satellites, traveling at about 14 kilometers per second.
For several hours after his approach, he studied tiny probe Pluto’s atmosphere using radio signals transmitted from Earth as a test .
“It is time to celebrate because we made the most of the way,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern. “We have completed the initial recognition of the Solar System, a venture begun under President (John F.) Kennedy over 50 years ago and continued today under the leadership of President (Barack) Obama,” he said.
There was a risk that the probe, traveling at 49 889 kilometers per hour and weighs 480 kilos, becoming unusable if collided with one of the bodies that form the Kuiper Belt. But the device sent in after 22.05 of Argentina, a sign that still “live” and on the way to his new exploration of such training.
According to Stern, said Kuiper Belt The broad ring of debris surrounding the solar system where Pluto and evolves, is “more or less a shooting gallery, where there are many small primordial comets and other objects smaller than Pluto.”
With 99 percent of the data is still collected on the ship, its survival is key to the mission.
The images and measurements sent so far from New Horizons and changed the knowledge that scientists had Pluto.
He who once was considered an icy planet and killed showed a reddish surface in some places, signs of geological activity, with evidence of past and possibly present tectonic plates, or movements of its surface. Its size is higher than previously thought -has 2,370 kilometers in diameter, the sixth of the Earth, which could replenish your planet category (no dwarf), considering its actual dimensions.
It also emerged that the polar caps he has, and they already knew, are formed ice of methane and nitrogen.
Pluto takes 248 years to orbit the Sun in an orbit so steep that creates radical changes from season to season.
Expectation. Scientists have many questions about Pluto when New Horizons was launched in 2006 it was still considered the ninth planet in the solar system.
A probe will take about 16 months transfer all the images and measurements taken during the flyby yesterday. By then, the ship will be at a greater distance within the Kuiper Belt, addressing a possible visit of one of the bodies similar to Pluto.
Throughout the day New Horizons took photos in high definition and measure geophysical parameters of Pluto and its moon, Charon.
In January 2006, the New Horizons probe was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA) ; in February 2007 the ship took momentum with Jupiter’s gravity, between that year and 2014 the ship remained in hibernation in December 2014 began broadcasting again. Yesterday, the probe made history by flying Pluto and thus approached the planetoid or only known dwarf planet in the solar system that had not been explored.
The records of the probe allow to know not only details of Pluto’s surface but also its composition and its atmosphere. In addition, try to unravel the mystery of whether one of its five moons Charon has an atmosphere or not.
All information obtained will also cast light on the Kuiper Belt and even on Earth itself, such as the origin of its moon.
NASA Administrator Charles Bloden said the team had been astounded when the first images returned revealing a red planet.
“It is an icy planet. It has a reddish tinge, not unlike Mars. Geologists are amazed by the color and thinking how can that happen so far from the sun. That’s an achievement amazing technology, “said Bloden
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