• skolor
    +6

    How much more clear is this expected to get? I understand the data link is low bandwidth and that this is a composite image, I'm just curious how good we'll get, since I assume New Horizons will be the best images for at least another decade.

    • crincon (edited 8 years ago)
      +10

      There are two cameras on board. The navigation camera is a 1024x1024 device, will provide 50 m per pixel images at closest approach - way too much detail to cover the whole planet in the little time available, but will probably be used for especially interesting spots. The main instrument will take high resolution (5000px) pictures at 250 m per px at closest approach. Those will be visible colour and other wavelengths, will snap stereo pairs, will map surface composition and temperatures and a bunch of other stuff (there'll be pics from the dark side, in "Charon light").

      So anyway, not quite Google Earth detail level, but close, in those especially interesting places, and I certainly expect gorgeous high resolution global maps. Can't wait.

      • anonycon
        +1

        My son and I have been excited to see a Pluto that looks a clear as the other planets, not like an amorphous blob. So Google Earth level isn't necessary, but a solid 12 in. photo will be exciting.

      • shadow1515
        +1

        On the high-res camera, do you mean it will capture pics in visible/other wavelengths combined, or will we get to see pictures that are only visible light? I realize those might not be the most useful to astronomers but I would like to see what Pluto "really" looks like to a human eye just out of interest.

        • crincon
          +1

          Well, that high resolution instrument, the same that snapped the picture above, is not exactly a camera like we're used to think of them. It's a single telescope that "feeds" two different detection instruments (by way of mirrors), each of which has several arrays of detector elements (CCDs) sensible to different wavelengths of light: blue (400-550 nm), red (540-700 nm), near IR (780 – 975 nm), narrow band methane (860 – 910 nm), what you have. Note no "green", probably because planets other than Earth offer very little interesting data to gather in that band. Even the CCDs are not what we're used to: they capture "stripes" of 5000 and change pixels width but only 30 or so pixels height. The sampling is synchronised with the motion of the spacecraft so that stripes can be joined and produce images like the above.

          So anyway, the point is, when this instrument "snaps a picture," what it really produces are distinct, independent feeds of data from all the sensors. These are beamed back to Earth, and here scientists can reconstruct the visible spectrum to produce "human eye" colour photographs for all of us, while still having access to the "unmixed" components for their research.

          The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has a nice page detailing the science payload of New Horizons. If you're curious: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Spacecraft/Payload.php

          And if you want the gory technical data, dive in this paper by the people who developed the gadget: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-ralph.pdf