UPDATE (12:22 a.m. Pacific time): The launch has been scrubbed for today due to high winds. It happened at the end of the launch window for today, so the launch will be rescheduled for tomorrow at 18:16 Universal time (13:16 p.m. Eastern time).
Live webcam of the Pluto New Horizons launch:
At18:24 Universal time (10:24 a.m. Pacific) on Tuesday, January 17, the New Horizons Pluto mission is scheduled to launch.
This is pretty exciting, since we haven’t had a planetary probe launch in a while. Well, it’s exciting in any event! It’s also neat that this is coming right on the heels of the homecoming of the Stardust mission. Stardust returned a sample of cometary dust, and Pluto is considered to be one of the largest members of the Kuiper Belt, a collection of what are essentially giant comets in the outer solar system.
The launch is a big step, but just the first. The probe will go past Jupiter to get a gravitational assist, which will speed it up and shorten the flight time to Pluto; at least, it will if they launch at the right time. A delay may mean that Jupiter will move out of position, so the probe will have to go straight to Pluto, at a cost of a four to five year lengthening in the flight time. Still, if they launch on time, the flight duration from Earth to Pluto is nine years; it’ll pass about 11,000 kilometers from the tiny iceball on July 14, 2015.
When it does, it’ll turn its horde of fancy instruments toward Pluto and get better data than is currently possible to obtain from Earth. The best images we have now are pretty blurry, but what do you expect for something that’s only 2300 kilometers across and 4.7 billion kilometers away?
If you want to watch the launch, Kennedy Space Center has a fleet of webcams. The image above is also from a live webcam and updates every 30 seconds.
January 16th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Phil,
Oh, so you don’t believe Pluto is a Planet? I do so hope that you are just being funny!
At any rate, why are we ( or some of us ) just so hell-bent on being
revisionist?
January 16th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
So exciting for something else to look forward to, but such a long time to wait.
As far as the argument about being “revisionist”. Remember, science is about facts and knowledge. Our knowledge changes with facts. I hate to see Pluto go away as a planet, but reality is that there is probably at least 1 KBO larger discovered recently, possibly more in the near future. We can also now more accurately measure size than Clyde Tombaugh dreamed of in the 30′s. Besides, we found 2 new moons around Pluto. Should we say that Charon is the only one because we don’t want to change?
January 16th, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Did they stick the cd in with all our names on it? I was told, when I registered, my name would go out to the planet Pluto, not some cold rock. Hummmphhh.
Good luck Horizon, stay warm.
January 16th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Finally! I’ve been waiting to see Pluto since I was a kid. Sadly, waiting all this long and even knowing when it arrives gives me this “mortal†feeling.
January 16th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Has the IAU status of Pluto changed? Pluto is defined as a planet, and is also a Kuiper belt object. The claim for the largest KBO known, discovered last summer, is that it is the 10th planet, and also a KBO.
Personally, I want to have Pluto remain a planet, since it has been defined as a planet for so long, and seems to fall into all the definitions properly.
Pluto has mass enough to generate the gravity necesssary to maintain a sperical shape, and also to maintain a system of moons, and Pluto orbits the sun.
It’s orbit may be eccentric, and it certainly is a KBO, but so what? Mercury and venus have no moons, should they be scratched, or have their designation changed to moonless masses instead of planets?
LSR
January 17th, 2006 at 1:37 am
I am still waiting to hear of a last minute injunction against NASA launching this, on environmental grounds, incase the rocket blows up and spreads deadly plutonium all over the planet. (roll eyes icon)
Do you think these eco-types can get a compliant judge?
I just wonder if NASA have a legal team on standby as well as the usual technicians in case someone tries to pull a stunt like that.
BTW Re Pluto
Pluto is not a planet, it is a KBO
January 17th, 2006 at 2:50 am
The gentleman astronomer who discovered the 10th Planet says Pluto is the 9th Planet….so There!:)
He also says that the term “Planet” is more of a cultural term now.
Why don’t we just leave Pluto as the dividing line…any smaller and it’s an
Asteroid ( I call “em” “Planetoid” because they really are minor or small planets.)
Fact is that it’s the I.A. U.’s fault for not defining a Planet much sooner!
January 17th, 2006 at 2:59 am
The Astronomical Nomenclature battle lines are drawn. In the Pluto-as-a-non-planetery-body corner, is the biggest baddest, BA, on the other corner, there are thousands of non-revisionist challengers waiting to argue exogenic semantics. I for one hope this battle’s the undercard for the far greater battle against pseudoscience.
If one really wishes to dissect the word planet for semantic meaning, then we’d be well on the proper path realizing, that planet comes from the Greek phrase “to wonder”, therefore, since the ancients could only see as far out as Saturn, Uranus and Neptune should technically not be considered planets by the pure definition of the world. Yet, we’ve been referring to them as planets, since they were first discovered (even indirectly at first, in Neptune’s case). Embrace the future, let’s not follow convention down the conservative alley. This debate over Pluto’s planetery status reminds me of the paleontologists who argue for T-rex as a scavenger. The resultant dispute is loaded with vitriol and does not do justice to science. I would hate to see this debate about Pluto’s status lead to sniping and bickering. Let’s get over the traditionalism, and embrace progress.
January 17th, 2006 at 3:49 am
I’m sorry to interrupt, but “planet” does not mean “to wonder”, it actually means “to wander”, because Greeks were surprised that some of the stars were wanderring across the sky instead of being fixed in one place.
And yes, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not planets, because Greeks didn’t see them
Actually, what we’re arguing about is quite a stupid topic. Ceres is a planet. It’s called a minor planet (call it planetoid if you wish), but it’s planet nontheless. Eros is a planet. Yes, minor and irregularly shaped – so what? Pluto is Kuiper Belt planet. Jupiter is a gas planet. Earth is a terrestrial planet. Moon is a sattelite planet. Phobos is a sattelite minor planet. We can expand this list to the eternity by adding appropriate adjectives, because all objects that do not have enough mass to allow fussion are PLANETS (except neutron stars and black holes, which are incomprehensible.
And no, ability to sustain spheric shape and sattelites are not a quality of a planet, because several asteroids have sattelites and several planets do not. Go figure.
January 17th, 2006 at 4:43 am
I believe Saturn has been known since ancient times.
January 17th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Sorry to be pedantic but the word planet comes from the greek for “to wander” not “to wonder”.
January 17th, 2006 at 5:27 am
Yes, I was about to say the same thing..Planetes or wanderers, and BTW Uranus, Neptune & Pluto do “Wander”!:)
January 17th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Eco-crazy front…
Notice that the whole environmental movement has not condemned this mission.
Also, any rocket, with or without Plutonium or Uranium, could keel over and cause a disaster!
January 17th, 2006 at 6:37 am
Phil, you state that “A [launch] delay may mean that Jupiter will move out of position”, but I must reassure you that whether the current Pluto shot is delayed, or not, Jupiter WILL move on….
You’ve just got to get this cause-and-effect relationship in perspective!
James Randi.
January 17th, 2006 at 7:36 am
On the planet/KBO debate: I think it is perfectly OK two have both a scientific and a cultural meaning of the word “planet”. After all we do the same with “energy” (“I don’t think I have the energy to do that”). Scientifically speaking the definition of a planet may be modified, but in the context of popular culture Pluto is a planet. If we insist on the scientific definition, the general public will feel that we’re taking Pluto away from them.
January 17th, 2006 at 7:55 am
You’re right, Randi — that mis-statement was Amazing…
January 17th, 2006 at 8:16 am
There is a somewhat conventional component to any definition or referition. For example, consider all the variations in the form of the periodic table. None of these is the “correct form”; merely that there are more or less productive forms for (e.g.) understanding chemical reactivity. This is not to say that anything goes; The Elements is a fun song, but it is largely chemically worthless. Similarly, any understanding of “planet” includes a conventional component for the same reasons. I have no particular desire to stipulate that every grain of dust the focus of whose orbit is inside the sun a planet, but I don’t know where to draw a dividing line either. What I would want is to simply ask: what roles do you want the terminology to apply to? What useful law statements is the term to appear in? Can one make do without it, or some “degree of planetness” on some scale?
January 17th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Without revisionists, the sun would still be orbiting a flat Earth.
January 17th, 2006 at 9:15 am
I always thought Pluto was a Mickey Mouse planet anyhow…
January 17th, 2006 at 9:29 am
I think most of the debate about Pluto not being a planet is as follows: Pluto is a KBO. There’s no real debate about this, it’s a fact. The Kuiper Belt wasn’t even discussed until Kuiper himself wrote a paper about it in 1951.
KBO’s are also know to have eccentric orbits. Look at the extreme orbit of the recently discovered Sedna for example. Well, there is a lot of eccentricty inherent in Pluto’s orbit, it’s not even in the same ecliptic plane as the other planets. Other than Venus’ extremely slow and retrograde rotation, Jupiter’s lighting-fast days, and Uranus’ 98 degree axial shift, everything is pretty regular up until Neptune, and all the planets are on the same plane.
The argument about Mercury and Venus being too small is fallacious. The inner 4 planets are rocky, the outer 4 are gaseous. Think about the gravitational pull of the sun. Doesn’t it make sense that the closer ones would be denser? Nod your head.
Pluto is very icy, which is also a feature of Kuiper Belt Objects.
Let’s summarize:
1. Pluto has an eccentric orbit
2. It’s not (completely) in the ecliptic plane
3. It’s composed of typical KBO materials
4. It’s IN the Kuiper Belt.
I’m with Phil, I think it’s misnamed as a planet. It’s not like it makes the Earth less important if we take its planetary status away. Besides, science corrects itself, remember? Do we still open our veins and bleed ourselves when we have a fever?
January 17th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I’ve been looking forward to a mission like this since I first learned Voyager I was not going to Pluto. I can wait nine more years. I’m glad now we didn’t go then because we would have missed a great opportunity to explore other KBOs, which were not known at the time.
Is Pluto a “real” planet? The jury (IAU) is still out. Is Pluto a cultural planet? You bet. Should we keep it as such? Probably. Would congress have approved New Horizons if Pluto were not a cultural planet? Probably not. My 15 year old daugher and I were discussing this whole debate recently. She is not ready to embrace the “tenth planet” as such because she feels it is a KBO. At the same time, she was horrified to think that we might throw Pluto out. So would a lot of the rest of society.
January 17th, 2006 at 9:37 am
There is already a historical precedent of a planet being demoted. When the first asteroids (Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Juno) in the asteroid belt were discovered, they were originally designated planets until the number of them were determined and it was decided they were a population of like objects in that orbit rather than individual bodies. The precedent already exists.
I’m not hung up that Pluto must remain a planet, I just would like a consistent definition for planet that makes a reasonable distinction. I don’t have any problems with deciding Kuiper-belt objects don’t get to be planets, or with saying they must be included. I’d just prefer consistency over ambiguity.
Josi, if you reread you should see that HawaiiArmenian said the ancients could see Saturn, but not Uranus and Neptune. The comma is the end of the clause, not the separators in a list.
January 17th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Just a dumb little question, but would be grateful if someone had a ballpark figure for it.
Q: Given that the New Horizons probe will be eventually racing out to interstellar space, assuming that it never hits a large stellar body (planet, Star, etc) what will its “lifespan” be. Essentially how long will this chunk of metal exsist in the universe before decay from micrometeorites, radiation, tempature change,etc turns it into nothingness. I said about a billion years, but a guy here at work says for eternity.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Charles, what you’re asking is more of a philosophical question since there is no way, other than statistically, to know what it will encounter. It will exist until it is destroyed. Part of it will always exist, I suppose in one form of another. If it runs into a star or burns up in some distant planet/moons atmosphere then its molecules will be scattered, but parts of it will still ‘exist’.
See why this is a philosophical question? Considering it will 10 million years or so to reach even the nearest star (provided that it’s heading that direction) there’s no telling really. There’s nothing to make it corrode or oxidize, but it may run into things out there that knock it around.
A better question is how long it will remain functionally intact, but there’s no good way to really tell that either since the power cell will likely last considerably longer in deep space than it would here on the hot earth. The Mars rovers were only supposed to last for 90 days, and here it is 2 years later.
All I know for sure is it will most likely outlast me unless something happens to it before it’s mission is complete. Since it will likely outlast you too, does that count as eternity?
January 17th, 2006 at 10:25 am
TEN….
January 17th, 2006 at 11:00 am
NINE….
January 17th, 2006 at 11:08 am
TJ
Thanks for the insight, I paid the guy his $5.00
Charles
January 17th, 2006 at 11:20 am
OY! they have moved the launch time, I’m running out of chips here….
January 17th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Is Pluto a planet? I think since it was considered a planet all this time, we should leave it at that.
I think it would do honor to Clyde Tombaugh.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I hope work doesn’t mind that I’m fifteen minutes late today. I mean there’s work everyday, but there’s only one first launch to Pluto.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Personally I agree with Brian Marsden I think Pluto should be given dual citizenship and be both a major and a minor planet.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Sorry, misspelling, I meant to say to Wander. My point was that since the ancients never themselves saw Uranus and Neptune, they would not have referred to them as planets. We only refer to them as planets since their discovery, but my point was that originally, the term applied to those heavenly bodies seen as moving accross the sky by the ancient Greeks, and since Uranus and Neptune were not visible, they were not referred to as Planets. It’s just an arbitrary name, given to bodies that move accross the sky with regulariy, whether we can see them visually or not. Therefore, it’s just arguing semantics.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:49 am
I’m watching NASA TV right now… Say, what’s that smoke coming out of it?
Good thing for me the launch was delayed! I was lazing around in my bed waiting for it, and then suddenly I snapped that I probably missed the launch! PHEW.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Reschuduled launch for 2:30 Eastern.
I think the “smoke” is release from the supercooled gas (nitrogen?) used to keep the fuel nice and stable.
January 17th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I’m guessing it’s the natural venting of boiling Liquid Oxygen/Hydrogen fuel from the Centaur stage?
January 17th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Oops, no what Andrew Yen said, think its liquid Helium used for the cooling.
Launch now set at 19:50 UT .. lets hope thats the one!!
January 17th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
argh, COME ON, I got a dinner to cook here….
January 17th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Me too!!
Oh well, its now been put back to the v.last launch time for today 20:23 UT
.. Wind, stop blowing!!!
January 17th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
I’m having a hard time pulling up the New Horizons website. Does anyone know when the next window opens?
January 17th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Oh no…. abort…
January 17th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Rats!!
.. can’t say i’m too surprised though.
Next launch
Jan. 18 will be 1:16 to 3:15 p.m. EST.
(add 5 for UT of course).
January 17th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
No. I would not consider pluto a planet by any means. We only described pluto as a planet because of our lack of KBO knowledge at the time. If we consider pluto a planet now then we might have to consider other KBO’s as planets. We need to draw the line somewhere.
Anyway, Pluto is the oddball amoung the official “planets”. It’s a tiny rock with a weird orbit that is far beyond anything acceptable.
Pluto is simply a large KBO, and we should keep it at that. The only surviving chance it has is amoung modern culture.
January 17th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
I read somewhere that if they missed a certain launch window, they would not get the gravitational boost from Jupiter that is needed to keep the trip a measly 10 years. Anyone know what that window is? Was it today’s launch window, or is it days or weeks long?
January 17th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
See mission profile here:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=NHORIZONS
It has another 22 days left.. phew!
Hey, i’ve missed most of a new Stargate SG1 for this! … who sez real spaceflight/science isn’t more interesting!
January 17th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I imagine this craft will surpass Voyager 1 as the most distant human artifact.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
I can’t help feeling the fight over Pluto’s planethood is a foolish one. Shouldn’t we be saving our energy to fight people who claim the Universe was put in place as it is 6000 years ago?
Since the definition of a planet is arbitrary anyway, let it rest. Argue over something that matters.
(which is my way of saying call it a planet
)
January 17th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
I think it was Clark Chapman (he used to write for the planetary society) who described it best, Pluto is Pluto and its a very interesting place. When taken all together the 3 moons, double planet configuration which may have formed like the earth-moon system, the temporary atmosphere, could be an interesting geyser riddled surface like Triton as well. I suppose it is possible there would be no mission if it wasn’t catagorized as a major planet but still I think change in the nomenclature should occur. I was thinking today maybe a new catagory of semi-major planets could be established, these are small planets that are large enough for gravity to make them spheroidical but have many similar sized bodies in near orbits, orbit in eccentric comet like orbits or out of the ecliptic plane. The largest of the asteroids and kuiper belt objects would qualify. Fortunately even semi-major planets do eventually get probed…Vesta and Ceres will finally getting a probe sent to them in the near future, Vesta in particular should be interesting with its possible lava flows.
January 17th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Since we’re opening the old can of worms, its clobberin’ time.
1) Elliptical orbits: Ok, so what do you have to say about the rather impressively elliptical orbits of some gas giants orbiting other stars? Are these now ubermassive comets? Doesn’t sound to me like this is a very useful trait for defining planethood.
2) Ecliptic Orbits: Since not even the eight verfiably definite planets of the solar system orbit perfectly on the ecliptic, are you now proposing an equally arbitrary level of Eclipticality to qualify planets? Heaven forbid a planet formed in the early days settle into an orbit other than stellar-equatorial after a post-natal interaction with another planetary body.
3) Mass: Here we go round the mulberry bush yet again. Purely arbitrary, with no real defensible position to define a meaningful breakpoint between asteroid/KBO/TNO and planet. Follow the lead of the Brown dwarf/gas giant boundary. Structure more critical than some dart thrown selection on the mass chart. I could care less about how much of what is there, I want to know more about how its put together.
Look, the definition the current army of eight planet revisionists seem to be after is dangerously myopic on the level with geocentrism. This star system isn’t the end all be all, and from what I’ve seen coming out of the planet hunters, this system’s downright BORING in its stable arrangement. The supposed best arguements for dethroning Pluto that I’ve seen would seem to come out of a mindset that totally disregards the fact that our nine currently defined planets are now in a vast MINORITY given the diversity of known planets discovered around other stars.
The stringency I’ve seen applied to the current trend in defining planetary status is so dogmatically limiting that any result using the eight largest planets in this star system as the baseline is utterly meaningless. Find a definition for planet I can use with equal meaning both around Sol, Ursa Majoris, Upsilon Andromedae and the one hundred plus other stars with known planets, or go back to the drawing board.
January 17th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Aiabx:
Yes, it is a foolish argument to be having. It’s obviously a KBO, so why don’t you just surrender your side of the argument, and we’ll all be happier.
January 17th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Revise “Mass:” to be “Size:”
Thanks,
James
January 17th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Universal Time. It just sounds so…presumptuous.
January 18th, 2006 at 1:37 am
One attribuate James Buchanan didn’t rebut is that of multiplicity, Pluto’s status is being challenged less for its mass and eccentricity instead it is because we’re finding that Pluto looks more like a member of a belt of similar sized bodies than the exclusive and solitary resident of its orbit. This is why Ceres was dethroned as a planet.
Major Planet itself will always be an arbitrary non-scientific cultural designation. Extrasolar planets will never evoke the familiarity and sentimentality that we give our planets so the arbitrary designation won’t likely be used to describe them.
Anyway I would be curious to see how he would address the issue of multiplicity.
January 18th, 2006 at 6:03 am
the New Horizons website says the webcam updates at 30 sec intervals – it seems to me that its more like 60 secs – if so, is it possible that the mission will launch and be out of frame without anyone seeing it on-line ? or will the refresh rate increase closer to launch ? be a shame to miss it !!
JB
January 18th, 2006 at 6:35 am
Well I had NASA TV up yesterday & will again today (good frame rate but about a minutes delay). Some of the news channels I get here in the UK were also going to cover it.. at least until it missed the dinner time news programs
January 18th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Multiplicity is again an arbitrary factor. At what point is multiplicity applied? At what point is it logical? Multiplicity could be applied in that sense to strip Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars of planetary status because they share the inner solar system with hundreds of other silicate bodies with distributed, layered interiors with some level of geological activity, they just happen to be the largest of them. What’s to prevent the existance of Ceres and the other large, spherical asteroids with planet-like structural make ups from being a multiplicity factor that becomes a cornerstone for an arguement positing that the Solar System only has four true planets?
January 18th, 2006 at 10:21 am
I’m going for my 3 mile walk. Don’t launch ’til I get back,,,
January 18th, 2006 at 11:44 am
OK – not to nitpick (but that is sort of the etgos of this sight, isn’t it) -
Anyway, 13:16 p.m. Eastern time?
Is there a 13:16 a.m.? And if so, is it tomorrow or yesterday?
January 18th, 2006 at 11:46 am
I know, I know, “etgos”.
But the glass house has such a nice view!
January 18th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Why is Pluto being a KBO inconsistent with it being a planet? (Or put another way, why are the two categories mutually exclusive?)
January 19th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Oh, there I agree. Where the issue lay is calling it a KBO instead of a planet. Its to me like calling the Earth an asteroid instead of a planet.
I’ve kinda spelled out my stance on what makes a planet here: http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=37201
I’d be happy to continue there so we don’t clog up Phil’s blog with a major tangent.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I think pluto is a planet and well there is no reason for it not to be just because its small does not mean it is not a planet just saying^-^