New Horizons is gearing up to cross the sun's "termination shock," Stern said, where the subsonic solar wind slows down and becomes subsonic as it rams into the interstellar medium. Guessing game Though New Horizons is now in hibernation mode, the spacecraft is still collecting heliophysics data around the clock, Stern said, squirreling that data into onboard solid state memory — basically a big flash drive. "We went into hibernation mode on October 3 of last year. We exit that mode on April 2 of this year. When we wake up, we'll transmit the backlogged New Horizons data down to NASA's Deep Space Network," said Stern. "But actual crossing of the termination shock, the timing is a guessing game. No one can fully predict that, but it could potentially be as early as 2027 … and we want to be on guard then so we don't miss it," Stern noted. Meanwhile, New Horizons is in perfect health. "There's nothing broken on the spacecraft and the seven instruments that it's carrying," he added. "They are working super-well, as well as when they were launched." Historic encounter The crossing of the termination shock itself could be as short as 10 minutes, said Pontus Brandt, the New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. "But there will likely be multiple crossings as the shock moves back and forth over the spacecraft for multiple days and surely will be another historic encounter for New Horizons," said Brandt. "The data from the termination shock encounter will be a treasure trove for space physicists worldwide who are eager to understand how this vast boundary works," Brandt told Space.com. "All these discoveries from pioneering missions like Voyager and New Horizons teach us how little we know about what lies beyond, and pave the way for a future dedicated Interstellar Probe mission," he said. Essence of exploration Brandt underscored another possible New Horizons exploration bonus. "I think we may have only seen the tip of the iceberg of the Kuiper Belt, which could be much more extended than we ever could imagine," Brandt said. "Dust hits measured by the spacecraft just keep being elevated, defying all our expectations of a 'Kuiper Cliff.' One must always give oneself the opportunity of discovery," Brandt added, "the essence of exploration." In a few years, New Horizons could very well find itself in the midst of a new region of the Kuiper Belt, Brandt suggested. That would be "a historic opportunity for planetary science with important implications for understanding exoplanetary systems."
Heard a comparison yesterday with how big the solar system is and how far away the Oort Cloud is. It takes light from the sun 8 minutes to reach earth, 4 hours to reach Neptune, and then another 28 days to reach the leading edge of the Oort Cloud. It then takes 18 months for that light to make it to the other side of the Oort cloud
For reference it takes 23ish hours to send a signal to voyager. That’s how far it is beyond Neptune and how much further it has to go to get to the Oort cloud
This is delaying my wife’s flight from Ft Lauderdale which means she’ll miss her connecting flight which means I’m stuck with 3 fucking kids by myself for another day so fuck you even more than usual Elon.
It seems the move to the new Block 2 model brought fuel line pressure issues. They probably need to relook at the whole connection system before launching again.
video from a nearby commercial plane of the rapid unscheduled disassembly https://bsky.app/profile/keithedwards.bsky.social/post/3ljr5tpfnus2e
NASA needs to name every single project a variation of “Trump” over the next four years and throw some PR about how “Trump” will make the “greatest scientific discoveries the world has ever seen.” Basically just trade on Trump’s ego to get funding.