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Amazing…and Tantalizing

While data and pictures will be downloading for the next sixteen months, NASA’s New Horizons probe already provided humanity with some astoundingly tantalizing photos of Pluto and it’s main moon, Charon.

What strikes me the most about the color photos of Pluto is the color. They look like antique tintype prints. Even when I see the planet with the dark grey Charon immediately next to it, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this is the planet’s actual color.

What’s even more amazing to me is the fact that with the level of sunlight falling on these worlds and the speed at which New Horizons sped past that NASA was able to get any images whatsoever.

Science is cool.

And the fact that they can get closeups of the surface of this quality is nothing short of astounding—with even higher resolution images coming that will download over the coming months.

If Pluto weren’t fascinating enough on it’s own, Charton is revealing just as many surprises.

For example, how do you get a peak rising out of a circular depression? No one seems to know. What it looks like to me is that a space rock came in very, very slowly, and almost had a soft landing on an extremely plastic surface. Not traveling fast enough to form a traditional crater/ray structure, but fast enough to impact the surface and only slightly deform the surrounding terrain.

All I know is that after seeing these few images, it’s obvious that humanity will have to return at some point for an even better look. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, but it still fires the imagination—especially when you consider that we didn’t get any sharp photos of Pluto’s much more interesting face:

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Hungry Mouths to Feed

Several weeks ago a couple birds decided to take up residence on our balcony. They built a pretty impressive little home on the sprinkler head. It’s been quiet up there, but today while cleaning off the balcony I noticed several broken eggshells below the nest and happened to look up.

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W00t! Back Online!

From NASA:

NASA’s New Horizons on Track for Pluto Flyby

Science Operations to Resume for On Time Encounter

The recovery from a July 4 anomaly that sent the New Horizons spacecraft into safe mode is proceeding according to plan, with the mission team preparing to return to normal science operations on time July 7.

Mission managers reported during a July 6 media teleconference that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft resumed operations on its main computer overnight. The sequence of commands for the Pluto flyby have now been uplinked to the spacecraft, and full, as planned science observations of Pluto, its moons and the solar winds will resume at 12:34 p.m. EDT July 7.

The quick response to the weekend computer glitch assures that the mission remains on track to conduct the entire close flyby sequence as planned, including the July 14 flyby observations of Pluto.

“We’re delighted with the New Horizons response to the anomaly,” said Jim Green, NASA’s director of planetary science. “Now we’re eager to get back to the science and prepare for the payoff that’s yet to come.”

The investigation into the anomaly that caused New Horizons to enter safe mode on July 4 has confirmed that the main computer was overloaded due to a timing conflict in the spacecraft command sequence. The computer was tasked with receiving a large command load at the same time it was engaged in compressing previous science data. The main computer responded precisely as it was programmed to do, by entering safe mode and switching to the backup computer.

Thirty observations were lost during the three-day recovery period, representing less than one percent of the total science that the New Horizons team hoped to collect between July 4 and July 16. None of the mission’s most critical observations were affected. There’s no risk that this kind of anomaly could happen again before flyby, as no similar operations are planned for the remainder of the Pluto encounter.

“This is a speed bump in terms of the total return we expect to receive from this historic mission,” said Dr. Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator with the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “When we get a clear look at the surface of Pluto for the very first time, I promise, it will knock your socks off.”

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This is Disturbing

Especially with the New Horizons project going on for nearly a decade and now being so close to Pluto…

From NASA:

The New Horizons spacecraft experienced an anomaly the afternoon of July 4 that led to a loss of communication with Earth. Communication has since been reestablished and the spacecraft is healthy.

The mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft — now 10 days from arrival at Pluto — at 1:54 p.m. EDT, and regained communications with New Horizons at 3:15 p.m. EDT, through NASA’s Deep Space Network.

During that time the autonomous autopilot on board the spacecraft recognized a problem and – as it’s programmed to do in such a situation – switched from the main to the backup computer. The autopilot placed the spacecraft in “safe mode,” and commanded the backup computer to reinitiate communication with Earth. New Horizons then began to transmit telemetry to help engineers diagnose the problem.

A New Horizons Anomaly Review Board (ARB) was convened at 4 p.m. EDT to gather information on the problem and initiate a recovery plan. The team is now working to return New Horizons to its original flight plan. Due to the 9-hour, round trip communication delay that results from operating a spacecraft almost 3 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) from Earth, full recovery is expected to take from one to several days; New Horizons will be temporarily unable to collect science data during that time.

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Ready For This To Be Over

It’s not just the wall-to-wall clutter. It’s also the anxiety. Once again I find myself stepping off that cliff, trusting in the Universe that employment will be quickly forthcoming once we’re back in Phoenix. I’m somewhat reassured that I’ve been getting lots of emails from recruiters after simply updating my profiles on the various job boards, but there isn’t really much I can do about any of it until I’m actually there—other than acknowledge their receipt and ask their patience. (So far, everyone’s fine with my timeline and have told me to get in touch once I’m there.)

I’ve also reached out to previous coworkers, who have forwarded my resume to their respective managers. Hopefully networking the good relationships I built over the seven years I spent at Abrazo will come in handy before I have to do any cold interviews.

In any case, we’re down to less than a week, and I just want all this—at the very least, the physical moving part—to be over.

Next Saturday at this time we’ll be packed and on the road, beginning the next chapter of our lives with Denver and it’s bipolar weather and heinous drivers rapidly fading into memory.

Four years ago we wanted an adventure. We got one. It’s now time to go home.

The dogs are anxious; they know something’s up. Normally well trained, they’re both peeing everywhere now. Sammy is barking at every sound outside, and even the heretofore quiescent Bobo has developed a voice.

My stress is manifesting in the return of an old friend I haven’t seen in nearly seven years, plantar fasciitis. Thankfully I still remember how to deal with it, so it’s more an annoyance than anything else, but I wanna say, “Really dude? Now?”

Monday is my last day at  DISH. My exit interview is scheduled for 4 pm (I normally leave at 4:30), and anyone there I care about saying goodbye to leaves at 4, so I’ll have time to do so before the meeting with HR and being shown the door. They’re going to get an earful, even though I know nothing I say will make any difference whatsoever.

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“That’s No Moon. It’s a Space Station!”

Science is cool.

From NASA:

New Horizons Color Images Reveal Two Distinct Faces of Pluto, Series of Spots that Fascinate

New color images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft show two very different faces of the mysterious dwarf planet, one with a series of intriguing spots along the equator that are evenly spaced. Each of the spots is about 300 miles in diameter, with a surface area that’s roughly the size of the state of Missouri.

Scientists have yet to see anything quite like the dark spots; their presence has piqued the interest of the New Horizons science team, due to the remarkable consistency in their spacing and size. While the origin of the spots is a mystery for now, the answer may be revealed as the spacecraft continues its approach to the mysterious dwarf planet. “It’s a real puzzle—we don’t know what the spots are, and we can’t wait to find out,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder. “Also puzzling is the longstanding and dramatic difference in the colors and appearance of Pluto compared to its darker and grayer moon Charon.”

New Horizons team members combined black-and-white images of Pluto and Charon from the spacecraft’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) with lower-resolution color data from the Ralph instrument to produce these views. We see the planet and its largest moon in approximately true color, that is, the way they would appear if you were riding on the New Horizons spacecraft. About half of Pluto is imaged, which means features shown near the bottom of the dwarf planet are at approximately at the equatorial line.

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It’s Been a Very Bad Week in Wingnuttia

And I couldn’t be more delighted.

First it was upholding “Obamacare.”

Then it was the Confederate Flag.

And the icing on their fucking big cake of sadz was Marriage Equality in all 50 States.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

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Love Wins!

“Today the Supreme Court fulfilled the words engraved upon its building: ‘Equal justice under law.’” ~ Bernie Sanders

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