Happy Moon Landing Day! (Apollo 11 lunar landing: July 20, 1969)

It was 46 years ago today that the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module touched down onto the lunar surface in the Sea of Tranquility. A few hours afterwards, Neil Armstrong became the first human ever to step down onto the surface of another world. Buzz Aldrin followed a few minutes later. In the history of the Earth, only 10 other people have ever had the chance to accomplish that feat. Wouldn't it be something to see humans accomplish great things once again?



ADDENDUM:
If you are interested in the history of the Apollo moon landings and are particularly interested in the nitty gritty details of how the landings played out, be sure to check out the Apollo Lunar Surface Journals, a website that contains pictures, videos, audio recordings, logs, debriefings, and more. It provides a wealth of raw information, and well worth a few dozen hours of perusal.

Pluto Painstakingly Probed Perfectly!

First images sent back from the New Horizons spacecraft have given planetary scientists much to think about. Images were first shown during a NASA news conference that was held on July 15th at 3PM EDT. Alan Stern was happy to report that photos of the surface of Pluto seem to match up nicely with the teams predicted models. Vertical cliffs are an indicator that much of the surface of Pluto is comprised of water ice. A thin veneer of Nitrogen indicates that Pluto may possess active cryo-volcanoes or geysers emitting Nitrogen into the local space. These first images are tantalizing, but the real bulk of the images won't be sent back in their entirety for about another year and a half.

The New Horizons spacecraft will now continue on out further into the far reaches of outer space. The team has three Kuiper Belt Objects (essentially small objects about 1 to 2% of the size of Pluto) that are being evaluated as potential targets for a follow-on New Horizons fly-by. Meanwhile, Pluto will never be seen the same after New Horizons' brief but thorough visit.

..and now we wait.

So the New Horizons spacecraft passed Pluto and now has begun to send back pictures to the ground team. The transmitter data rate is down to 2000 bits per second, and they can only achieve that by using the spacecrafts two transmitters. The amount of data being sent back is pretty huge, and will take upwards of a year to get all of the data from the fly-by sent down from the spacecraft, although early this evening a few tantalizing images should be available. At this range (approximately 7.5 billion kilometers), it takes a radio signal about 7 hours to get from the Earth to the spacecraft, or about 14 hours for one command to be sent and a response to be returned. (Yikes!)

Fly-By of Pluto Mere Hours Away

The New Horizons Spacecraft is expected to make it's closest approach to Pluto in less than 14 hours from now. Thus the craft's nearly 9 and a half year journey to Pluto will be complete (although the mission itself will continue on past Pluto for some time). A sample of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the (dwarf) planet Pluto, are on board the New Horizons spacecraft, so after 85 years, Clyde and his planet will finally get the chance to meet!

The nearest approach to Pluto will occur at 11:49 UTC on July 14th (7:49 AM Eastern/4:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time). You can follow the progress of the spacecraft at the primary Johns Hopkins mission site or the NASA Pluto site.