Going to the extremes of the Solar System to unravel the mysteries of its evolution… Upto a few months ago, our solar system was known to have nine planets orbiting around the Sun. Now the situation is different; a new member is added in the group of planets. Thus, the number of planets is increased to 10 instead of 9. The 10th planet is still an unnamed object. But, the discoverers of the planet are of opinion to name it as Xena.
The new planet could be one and a half times bigger than the size of Pluto. Astronomers have also found out a satellite going around it. Discovery of a satellite is an extremely important finding, as it enables us to estimate the size and the mass of its parent object. The name that is most likely to be given to the satellite is Gabrielle. Both the names, Xena and Gabrielle, are the names of two female friends from some Roman historical story.
We drifted from Pluto to Xena to get updated on some of the latest developments. What we know about Pluto is very less, even though its discovery was made 75 years ago. If compared with the information of other planets, then the information about Pluto that we have shall fit on one page, whereas each planet will consume a book of at least 100 pages.
Man’s quest is to know as much more as possible about everything. Then, why is it so that we know so less about Pluto? There are several viable reasons for this. One of the reasons is its size. In our solar system, there are two satellites, which are bigger than planet Pluto. Isn’t this an interesting fact? One satellite is of Jupiter called Ganymede and another is of the ringed planet Saturn called Titan. To study a planet it is necessary to observe it. Planets do have light of their own. They only reflect the light received from the Sun. Pluto receives very feeble sunlight as it is extremely far from the Sun and because of its smaller size, not much of light gets reflected from its surface. Whatever light is reflected has to come all the way back to Earth for us to examine it. Most of the reflected light from Pluto gets scattered while traveling and whatever light is left gets damaged once it enters the atmosphere of the earth. These are some of the key reasons for our lack of information about Pluto.
The only way we can have loads of information about Pluto is by going very near to it and explore it. The only hurdle in this is the enormous distance between the Earth and Pluto. It is at a mean distance of 5,900 million kilometers from the Sun; whereas Earth is at a mean distance of 150 million kilometers from the Sun. Rest all other planets have been richly explored with the help of space probes like Voyager, Viking, Galileo, Cassini, Mariner, etc.
New Horizons is a space probe exclusively planned for studying the planet Pluto, its companion Charon and than the Kuiper belt objects. The probe shall also study two more objects P1 and P2, which were recently found orbiting the planet.
The New Horizons spacecraft is 8 feet across and weighs 465 kilograms when loaded with fuel. The spacecraft will move at 58,338 kilometers per hour. This is the highest speed; none of the other NASA probes of past have traveled this fast. The probe will take nine years to reach Pluto. The day 14th July 2015 shall be an interesting day, as many new revelations would be made about the distant icy cold world.
It is inspiring to know that aboard the NASA spacecraft are ashes of the late astronomer Clyde Tombugh, who discovered the planet in 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He died in January 17, 1997.
The spacecraft may reveal about the extra moons that might be orbiting around the planet and another astonishing feature that may come in light is about the ring system around Pluto. Calculations done by the scientists show that small moon around Pluto-having low escape speeds-when hit by objects not only are craters formed, but debris from the moons would be tossed off into space resulting in a thin ring system.
Imagine a relative of yours on the planet Pluto. He gives you a call from his cell phone. The signals from his cell phone, traveling at the speed of light will take 4 hours to reach here on Earth. So when he says “hello”, you will hear him after 4 hours. Obviously you will respond back. Let us assume that you reply him with “How are you?”. This sentence of yours, he will hear after another 4 hours. This means that he gets a reply after 8 hours.
The data that New Horizons will send will take 4 hours to reach on Earth. Any command that Ground Control sends will also take 4 hours to reach upto New Horizons.
New Horizons is composed of 7 primary instruments meant for all the explorations it has to do. An instrument named Alice is a spectrometer, which shall measure the gas composition by analyzing the light bounced off the surface. Second instrument is RALPH is a combination of spectrometer and a color optical imager which shall do surface structure mapping. Third instrument called REX is a radio experiment for measuring atmospheric temperature and composition. The most interesting one is LORRI an optical telescope, which will provide us with the highest resolution images of the surface. Fifth is PEPSSI, a plasma-sensing instrument for measuring particles escaping from Pluto’s atmosphere. Sixth instrument is known as SWAP, it will measure the properties of the solar wind and also check for the magnetosphere around Pluto. The last instrument is SDC, its use is to measure dust impacts at the New Horizons spacecraft during its entire trajectory. This instrument was built by a group of students at the University of Colorado in Boulder…. lucky students.
New Horizons space probe is designed such that it draws its power from the decay of a radioactive element. The heat released in the decay process gets converted into electricity and stored in a battery. The spacecraft cannot rely on solar power, the quantity of sunlight will decrease as it goes away from the Earth and when it nears Pluto, barely any sunlight will be there. Sun just looks like a bright star from the surface Pluto.
Pluto holds many secrets, which shall be unrevealed by New Horizons. Text books will have to be changed throughout the world. It will also help us in understanding about the evolution of our Solar System, about our beginning, about our origin. This journey is a journey of Man’s desire to the extremes of the solar system to know about its own origin and evolution.
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