rediscovering pluto

Reminiscent of the famous Raja Ravi Wilma painting in which shakentara pretends to remove a thorn from her foot but secretly looks at her lover, doshjanNASA)
The New Horizons spacecraft took a final look at Pluto at a distance of 5 kilometers.
7 million in the early morning of July 19, the week of anticipation and excitement is over.
Launched about nine and a half years ago, New Horizons was closest to Pluto in July 14, cruising at a record 58,500 km/h after traveling about 5 billion kilometers.
At the nearest time, 17: 1911:49 UTC [
Unified time)
When the spacecraft passes 12,500 km metres from the surface of Pluto, seven scientific instruments on the spacecraft form a group that greedily collects data from Pluto and its five known satellites.
This is the first time any space mission has entered the koibel belt, so-
Known as the \"third region\" outside the planet\'s star and gas exoplanets, it is full of tiny
Cold objects.
New Horizons has indeed taken a step in the universe, and with the data coming from it, the tempting images and surprising effects of Pluto and its five satellites have begun to emerge slowly, our understanding of this strange world will change fundamentally.
As one blogger thinks, it\'s time to tear off Pluto\'s chapters from every book published.
The world depicted by the New Horizons mission has not yet reached our point of view.
We always knew Pluto was strange, but it was strange than we thought.
This is a strange balloon since it was discovered by chance in 1930. year-
Old farm boy-turn around-
Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto\'s astronomers, has kept himself secret: it\'s a strange ball.
In the solar system, including our own moon, more than seven satellites orbit the sun at an amazing distance, with a distance of 5.
At a distance of 9 billion, it takes five and a half hours for the light to get there, and Pluto is just a hazy gray spot even through the best telescope, hardly revealing any surface features.
As Pluto\'s atmosphere becomes thinner, it is a challenge to determine its size.
In 1978, the discovery of Charon, the largest moon, forced astronomers to revise their estimates of the size of Pluto.
Previously, Charon was still unknown, and its quality was also considered to be caused by Pluto.
Two smaller satellites, the Knicks and the Hydra, were found.
Eye Hubble Space Telescope
In 2011, Hubble searched the rings around Pluto and discovered Kerberos.
The last known satellite, Styx, was discovered in 2012 after searching for potential dangers for the New Horizons mission.
Pluto is neither a compact, rocky, terrestrial planet (
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars)
Or a superstar (
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).
Although the orbits of these eight planets are all in one plane, Pluto\'s orbit is tilted about 17 degrees, more oval than any other planet\'s orbit.
A highly elongated orbit can sometimes enter the orbit of Neptune.
Pluto is considered a planet when it is discovered.
But with more and more information about it and its surroundings, astronomers are uncomfortable sorting it out with eight other planets.
In addition to the orbit of Neptune in the Kuiper Belt, astronomers have discovered more than 1,300 Pluto --
Like a celestial body.
2006, International Astronomical Federation of New Horizons (IAU)
It is not a complete decision of Pluto.
The blown planet and downgraded it to a dwarf planet, one of the estimated 7, 00, 000 objects in the Kuiper belt.
What does it take to be a planet?
The IAU has rotated the object around the sun, and its mass is large enough to assume \"fluid static equilibrium\", that is, its shape should be spherical.
Also, it is crucial that it \"clear the nearby\" tracks.
The first two criteria are simple and common sense, and the third is related to our understanding of planetary evolution, not only around the sun, but also around other stars.
With the evolution of the planets, initially in the accumulation disk around the original planet
Star, which collects most of the material in orbit and grows in size, or pushes the remaining material out of orbit.
Although Pluto turns around the Sun and is almost spherical, it is not the subject of the orbit.
It only has 0.
07 times the mass of other objects in its orbit.
Of course, other objects are scattered along the Earth\'s orbit, but the mass of the Earth is 1.
It is 7 million times the remaining mass on its own orbit.
This means that Pluto is not fully \"cleaning up its neighbors \".
IAU classifies these intermediate objects as \"dwarf planets\" and Pluto is by far the largest known.
Since the formation of the Earth and its brothers and sisters billions of years ago, the koibel belt has been thought to contain cold objects of primitive state.
It is hoped that a peek into this \"third area\" that has not yet been explored will provide more clues to the evolution of the solar system. We did it!
When the spacecraft approached Pluto in April 2015, it woke up from its dormant state.
Test the instruments one by one and prepare for the encounter with Pluto and its satellites.
On a crucial day, when the spacecraft flew past Pluto and Charon, the spacecraft turned to Pluto.
On it-Plate plutonium. oxide-
Thermoelectric generators based on radioisotopes (RTG)
And the limited computing power of the spacecraft is conservative in the direct task of collecting data.
Three optical instruments, two plasma instruments, a dust sensor and a radio science receiver/radiator on the spacecraft are its eyes and ears.
These instruments allow astronomers to study the global geology, surface composition and temperature of Pluto and its satellites, as well as atmospheric pressure, temperature and escape rate.
They are so small in size that they require only less than 28 watts of power in total, even in extreme cold conditions near Pluto and beyond deep space.
Student Dust Counter (SDC)
Properly named Venetia Burney, the implementation of one item --year-
The old girl who named Pluto is a unique instrument. The first-
Whether built and flown by a team of students, it will not only check the dust around Pluto, but it will also check the dust throughout the journey.
The eagle eye of New Horizons is LORRI (
Remote Reconnaissance Camera)
High in full color-
An enlarged imaging digital camera with a large telephoto telescope.
Scientific research on Pluto high energy particle spectrometer (PEPSSI)is a lowest-
A power-directed high-energy particle spectrometer capable of sniffing out ions escaping from Pluto\'s atmosphere.
Alice is a sensitive Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer for detecting the composition and structure of Pluto\'s dynamic atmosphere.
Ralph, composed of three full-color and four color images, provides a stereo photo that enables astronomers to infer the undulating terrain.
Solar wind around Pluto (SWAP)
Measure the interaction between Pluto and the solar wind.
Radio science experiment using the technology of star mask (REX)
It will probe Pluto\'s atmosphere and look for it around Charon.
As these instruments are busy with hundreds
By taking resolution photos, collecting spectral data, sampling and measuring various parameters of the external environment, the spacecraft is in radio silence, in autonomous driving mode and does not come into contact with the Earth.
The data collected during this critical period of the task is recorded on the memory chip and backed up for subsequent transmission.
About 21 hours in close contact
Radio mute phase-
Mission controllers can only hope that everything will go smoothly;
There is no way to determine.
As expected, a few hours of suspense ended at 6:22:03 in the morning. m.
IST on July 15, 2015, the first signal from the spacecraft touched the bottom of the Deep Space Network antenna (DSN)
In Spain, the task control center of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.
Alan Stern, the chief investigator for this mission, successfully announced in front of the media: \"I just want to say three words to you. We did it.
He explained the famous playful words of Neil anstron and added: \"I would like to describe that the DSN pass you just saw is a small step for new horizons and a human
\"In the face of a name, the clarity of the image taken using LORRI is impressive, providing the first
Image of surface features.
Pluto is very clear in these pictures: ice cap;
A mysterious, elongated dark area on the equator, known as the \"whale \";
An area that looks like a bull\'s eye, on the surface of Pluto permanently facing Charon; a large heart-
A bright area of about 2,000 km wide shape, which is then called \"Tombaugh Regio \".
Charon is also not disappointing, with large craters and canyons, deeper than the Grand Canyon on Earth.
In a sense, we can describe the names we have known for so long. Close-
Tombaugh Regio\'s up image suggests that this could be an erosion relic of a large crater caused by an impact at some point in the past;
The researchers believe that one side is smoother than the other and is full of frozen gases from the atmosphere, including nitrogen, methane and carbon dioxide.
The enlarged image shows a huge crater.
Free plains, Sputnik Planum, is estimated to be less than 100 million years old in Tombaugh Regio.
The cold plain is criss-crossed.
Cross with irregular polygons
Shallow slot shape.
These are similar to mud cracks on Earth, either cracks caused by surface shrinkage or signs of convection caused by heat inside the Earth.
The era of these models and the factors driving this process have yet to be determined.
The area also has dark hills and pitted ground.
Pluto has a young mountain range on the equator, up to 3,500 m in the rough cold plain of Shanghai, named after Tenzing Norgay.
It is estimated that the southern mountain range is younger than the Himalayas and may still be fully formed.
While one might guess that the ice is made up of frozen methane and nitrogen ice rich on the surface of Pluto, simple calculations suggest that at these altitudes, frozen methane and nitrogen will break under their own weight.
So they are probably made up of water.
Ice, more rock-like in the cold temperatures of Pluto.
Charon\'s image returned a few days before the recent method, showing a dark, smooth area.
The updated image shows a series of slots and cliffs running nearly 1,000 km kilometers on the moon, as well as 10-kilometre-
Deep Canyon on the limb.
With more and more razors
Clear images will be received when appropriate, and maps of the terrain of Pluto and Charon will become clear.
Strange Planet Pluto seems to have red
Brown shades at close range
Color image.
Scientists have speculated that the color is due to the presence of Thomas in the atmosphere, a complex molecule formed by the interaction between solar ultraviolet rays and methane.
To everyone\'s surprise, PEPSSI instruments detected nitrogen ions escaping from the upper reaches of Pluto when the spacecraft flew to Pluto, far more than expected. This means Pluto may be faster than earlier models predict.
The attractive appearance of the Pluto plasma environment revealed by SWAP shows a cold area, and the dense ionization gas tens of thousands of kilometers outside Pluto clearly shows that slowly, the atmosphere of the planet is blown away by solar wind, lost in Space.
Dominated by nitrogen
Pluto\'s rich atmosphere is ionised by the sun\'s ultraviolet rays, and ions are \"absorbed\" by the solar wind and form a plasma tail through Pluto.
How quickly Pluto loses its atmosphere, the evolution of Pluto\'s atmosphere, and the effects of solar wind and other issues, await key data collected by Alice and Rex instruments, expected by August.
An hour after the most recent approach, when the spacecraft retreated behind Pluto, it positioned itself on a specific route, just behind Pluto, keeping the sun in the distance.
It can be said that in this arrangement, Pluto \"covers\" the sun.
When the sun shines into Pluto\'s atmosphere, the spacecraft passes through the shadow of Pluto, and the Alice imaging spectrometer carefully measures the range of Pluto\'s atmosphere.
Even before the flight.
Due to the weak gravity of Pluto, its thin atmosphere is expected to be larger than that of Earth.
However, the initial result of Alice is the nitrogen of Pluto.
The rich atmosphere is well beyond expectations, more than 1,600 kilometers.
There may be more surprises when the full Alice ocking data set is sent to Earth for analysis.
Why don\'t dogs call?
When the first few images are reconstructed, one is expected to see dead or meek Pluto, with craters everywhere, and fossils of remains left over from the formation of the solar system
6 billion years ago.
Of course, some guess it has spectacular geysers, ice and cold nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide and water.
However, what planetary scientists have witnessed
The pictures appeared on their display, which was confusing.
Photos show almost no craters on Pluto.
There are plenty of methane creams, water ice, polar crowns and young mountains up to 3,000 m.
The canyons, mountains, and huge rifts on the Chalong are obvious.
About 4 billion years ago, a period of intense comet and asteroid bombing was thought to have filled all the planets, including Earth, with craters.
Many craters dotted with the moon and other celestial bodies of the solar system are enduring witness to this catastrophic event.
Therefore, it is believed that Pluto is asleep and is expected to carry the hemp from this period.
However, to the surprise of planetary geologists, Pluto seems to be a mosaic of relatively old areas and very young places that are currently undergoing geological evolution.
Volcanic activity and tectonic movement require the Earth to be of sufficient size to maintain the heat inside it.
Erosion requires an atmosphere with enough wind to work effectively.
Only when a planet has an atmosphere and is still geologically active will the impact of the crater be eliminated.
On Earth, weathering and structural changes have eroded and erased the craters, except for a few of them, such as the famous craters of Arizona in the United States and Maharashtra in India.
The Earth\'s atmosphere is dense enough for the weather system.
Geophysical scientists believe that in addition to the original heat remaining in the Earth\'s formation process, the radioactive decay of naturally occurring radioactive substances (NORM)
About 20 TW in a row (terawatt)of energy.
Recently, an international team of scientists in Japan used the KamLAND detector to measure the-electron-
Neutrinos from within the Earth confirm that the combination of the original heat with the heat generated by radioactive decay drives the Earth\'s tectonic movement, which leads to the laying of a new surface, geological erasing of the early bombing of the hemp.
On the contrary, Pluto is just one-
Sixth, the size of the Earth, the surface pressure from 0. 000006 to 0.
000024 bar, meaning, almost vacuum.
Such a small planet is almost impossible to be geographically active.
However, the evidence provided by New Horizons is clear.
Pluto and Charon are still alive and kicking.
What is the fuel for geological activity?
Where does it get energy from?
Is the radioactive element inside it richer than estimated?
Or the ocean below it will release energy in winter.
This is a mystery.
It\'s been a few weeks since the close flight. by.
However, so far, only about 1 gigabit of information has been received in about 50 gigabytes of data and images taken by New Horizon.
In order to create a new situation, the bandwidth is limited even if the bandwidth is 70-
So even a moderate LORRI photo of 2.
It takes 42 minutes to download 5 megabits.
It takes several months to receive and analyze all the data.
However, in the past few weeks, we have learned much more about the flying spots on the planet than we have known since we discovered them 85 years ago, back in 1930.
In the coming months, as New Horizons sends new data, planetary scientists will learn more about Pluto\'s composition and develop clues to the origins of Pluto and its five satellites.
Although short, it is not the last time to stop the New Horizon\'s visit to the Pluton system, but the first step to explore this new frontier of the solar system.
Pluto is not the final destination, but the stopover for the new horizon.
It is expected that the spacecraft will be redirected to a further, smaller koiber Belt object (KBOs)in 2019.
The current telemetry data of the spacecraft shows that the joint ammonia propellant is in good health and has sufficient reserves to carry out heading correction operation and start moving towards the next target.
NASA has identified two potential KBOs so far, 2014 MU69, 40-
70 km objects in the next stage and 2014 smaller 25 km objects PN70.
However, the last call will only take place on August-
September 2016 following the evaluation of all parameters.
If all goes well, sometime at the end of next year, the order will be sent from Earth to new horizons, launching rockets to adjust the orbit to achieve possible flight --
Second target in early 2019T. V.
Venkateswaran is a scientist at Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi\'s science and technology department.