Chasing New Horizons

Chasing New Horizons PDF

Author: Alan Stern

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 125009898X

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Called "spellbinding" (Scientific American) and "thrilling...a future classic of popular science" (PW), the up close, inside story of the greatest space exploration project of our time, New Horizons’ mission to Pluto, as shared with David Grinspoon by mission leader Alan Stern and other key players. On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation—a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA’s Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune—and nothing quite like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA’s website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think that our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded in 2015 but made history and captured the world’s imagination. How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind this amazing mission: of their decades-long commitment and persistence; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons’ next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto in 2019. Told from the insider’s perspective of mission leader Dr. Alan Stern and others on New Horizons, and including two stunning 16-page full-color inserts of images, Chasing New Horizons is a riveting account of scientific discovery, and of how much we humans can achieve when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.

The Pluto System After New Horizons

The Pluto System After New Horizons PDF

Author: S. Alan Stern

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 684

ISBN-13: 0816540942

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Once perceived as distant, cold, dark, and seemingly unknowable, Pluto had long been marked as the farthest and most unreachable frontier for solar system exploration. The Pluto System After New Horizons is the benchmark research compendium for synthesizing our understanding of the Pluto system. This volume reviews the work of researchers who have spent the last five years assimilating the data returned from New Horizons and the first full scientific synthesis of this fascinating system.

New Horizons

New Horizons PDF

Author: C.T. Russell

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-02-28

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 0387895183

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New Horizons: Reconnaissance of the Pluto–Charon System and the Kuiper Belt C. T. Russell Originally published in the journal Space Science Reviews, Volume 140, Nos 1–4, 1–2. DOI: 10. 1007/s11214-008-9450-0 © Springer Science+Business Media B. V. 2008 Exploration is mankind’s imperative. Since the beginnings of civilization, men and women have not been content to build a wall around their settlements and stay within its con nes. They explored the land around them, climbed the mountains, and scanned the horizons. The boldest among them pushed exploration to the most distant frontiers of the planet. As a result, much of the Earth was inhabited well before the days of the renowned European - th th plorers of the 15 and 16 centuries. Exploration did not cease, after the circumnavigation of the globe; it continued to the present. Today explorers are going in new directions, not just east and west, north and south. They explore backward in time and upward in space. Arc- ology explores the shorter time scales, and geochemistry the longer time scales of geophy- cal events: asteroidal and cometary collisions, magnetic reversals, continental formation and more. However, on Earth we cannot go back inde nitely, for much of the evidence of the very earliest days has been lost.

Discovering Pluto

Discovering Pluto PDF

Author: Dale P. Cruikshank

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2018-02-27

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 081653831X

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Discovering Pluto is an authoritative account of the exploration of Pluto and its moons, from the first inklings of tentative knowledge through the exciting discoveries made during the flyby of the NASA New Horizons research spacecraft in July 2015. Co-author Dale P. Cruikshank was a co-investigator on the New Horizons mission, while co-author William Sheehan is a noted historian of the Solar System. Telling the tale of Pluto’s discovery, the authors recount the grand story of our unfolding knowledge of the outer Solar System, from William Herschel’s serendipitous discovery of Uranus in 1781, to the mathematical prediction of Neptune’s existence, to Percival Lowell’s studies of the wayward motions of those giant planets leading to his prediction of another world farther out. Lowell’s efforts led to Clyde Tombaugh’s heroic search and discovery of Pluto—then a mere speck in the telescope—at Lowell Observatory in 1930. Pluto was finally recognized as the premier body in the Kuiper Belt, the so-called third zone of our Solar System. The first zone contains the terrestrial planets (Mercury through Mars) and the asteroid belt; the second, the gas-giant planets Jupiter through Neptune. The third zone, holding Pluto and the rest of the Kuiper Belt, is the largest and most populous region of the solar system. Now well beyond Pluto, New Horizons will continue to wend its lonely way through the galaxy, but it is still transmitting data, even today. Its ultimate legacy may be to inspire future generations to uncover more secrets of Pluto, the Solar System, and the Universe.

Visiting Pluto

Visiting Pluto PDF

Author: Francis Spencer

Publisher: Crabtree Seedlings

Published: 2022-01-17

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781039644748

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Read about the New Horizons spacecraft and its mission to gather more information about the distant dwarf planet, Pluto.

Space Probes

Space Probes PDF

Author: Philippe Séguéla

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781554079445

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The first complete, up-to-date history of space probe exploration. In just 50 years, space exploration has advanced from the Luna 1, the first artificial object to overcome Earth's gravitational field, to the New Horizons Mission, which will reach Pluto in 2015. Progress has been spectacular, and it bodes well for the remarkable achievements to come. Space Probes is the first complete and fully illustrated history of the international space exploration program. Thoroughly up to date, it is organized by destination and includes every space probe launched by all countries active in space exploration -- the United States, the USSR/Russia, the European Union, Japan, China and India. Each probe is described as to its objective, its technology, the hurdles overcome, the successes and failures of the mission, the information gained and the lessons learned. Fascinating photographs and technical drawings give an inside view of each mission, and special features focus on key engineers and physicists and the fruits of their research. After a section on the history of astronomy, Space Probes covers missions to: The moon, the first objective Venus, our sister planet Mars, the red planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the giant planets Mercury The sun Comets Asteroids and the dwarf planets Future missions. The book also includes sections on the Apollo Space Program, the USSR-USA space race and a cross-referenced chronological index of all the probes. Engaging and accessible, Space Probes is a comprehensive and expertly researched encyclopedia of humanity's space explorations, an adventure that has not finished astonishing us.

Mission to Pluto

Mission to Pluto PDF

Author: Mary Kay Carson

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 0544868102

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In July of 2015 a robotic spacecraft reached Pluto after a nine-and-half-year journey. New Horizons is the first spacecraft mission to Pluto and revealed its five moons as never before seen. Images from the mission show a reddish surface covered in ice-water mountains, moving glaciers, and hints of possible ice volcanoes and an underground ocean. Pluto is geologically alive and changing! This addition to the Scientists in the Field series goes where no person or spacecraft has ever gone before. Follow along with the team of scientists as they build New Horizons, fly it across the solar system, and make new discoveries about a world three billion miles away.

Pluto and Charon

Pluto and Charon PDF

Author: Alan Stern

Publisher: Wiley-VCH

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13:

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Rave reviews for Pluto and Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged Edge of the Solar System The story of the quest to understand Pluto and the resulting transformation of our concept of the diminutive planet from that of solar-system misfit to king of the Kuiper Belt is told in this book by Alan Stern and Jacqueline Mitton. Stern, a Plutophile to the core, is one of the most energetic, talented, and savvy planetary astronomers in the business today. Mitton, trained as an astronomer, is an experienced writer and editor of scientific books for nonscientists. Together they have created an immensely informative book . . . Written in an engaging and informal style, Pluto and Charon takes the reader step by step from the discovery of the ninth planet in 1930 to the current understanding of Pluto and its moon, Charon.-Sky & Telescope More than a book summarizing what we know about [the] planet, [Pluto and Charon is] about how far and how fast astronomical technology has come since 1965 . . . Stern and Mitton use the narrative of Pluto research to explain in comfortable, everyday language how such work is done . . . One of the nice touches in the book is that Stern and Mitton tell us something about each astronomer.-Astronomy Pluto and Charon presents the exploration of the ninth planet-written as a vivid historical account-for anyone with an interest in science and astronomy . . . the authors describe in simple language the methods researchers use to explore the universe and the way ever-improving instrumentation helps their knowledge advance.-Physics Today

Pluto & Charon

Pluto & Charon PDF

Author: Codex Regius

Publisher: XinXii

Published: 2016-10-08

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 3961420033

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On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft passed through the system of the former ninth planet, Pluto. This book gives a preliminary overview of the results that had been obtained from data sent by New Horizons to Earth till spring 2016. Dr Rainer Riemann, astrophysicist of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has added a preface to this volume.