New Horizons to flyby Pluto this year

[Vertigo]

That's the first Pluto shot I've seen showing a heavily cratered area, suggesting that the new surface areas are localised, which in turn is really another nail in the coffin for that recent collision theory. However it is interesting that those mountains occur pretty much on the border of a young and old surface area.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

And another BBC update similar to The Register:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33622408

More info Friday.

 

[Vertigo]

Rats. I forgot!

@Ray McCarthy just noticed the sky at night Pluto special is being repeated tonight on bbc4 at 2355

 

[Dave]

So BBC4 really does have some use?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It used to be better.
I think it all when downhill about the time Channel Five launched.
We have about 400 too many channels.

Now if weather is good it will record. The evil Leylandii fir trees that were 6ft high next door when we moved in are now over 20ft and in wet windy weather tend to intermittently block our satellite signals for Freesat on 28E (the 19E, 13E and 9E satellites are not affected)

 

[Vertigo]

So BBC4 really does have some use?

It's not just the repeat, Dave; The Sky at Night was moved to BBC4 a few years back when the BBC were threatening to cancel it. To be honest I watch BBC4 more than any other channel these days (not that I find much to watch at all). BBC2 used to host all the 'serious' BBC stuff but now a lot of that stuff seems to be moving over to BBC4.

 

[Mirannan]

It's not just the repeat, Dave; The Sky at Night was moved to BBC4 a few years back when the BBC were threatening to cancel it. To be honest I watch BBC4 more than any other channel these days (not that I find much to watch at all). BBC2 used to host all the 'serious' BBC stuff but now a lot of that stuff seems to be moving over to BBC4.

I'm inclined to agree. It also seems that the BBC is more interested in useless rubbish (such as sending an outside broadcast team to stand in the rain outside Downing Street to cover political stories, instead of handling it in studio) than in providing content. It is rather likely that BBC3 will be transferred to a web-only service fairly soon; the BBC is claiming lack of money. Maybe if they didn't waste quite as much...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's because BBC etc are now instead of doing what they think they ought to do in the sense they had in past, they have three problems:

1. Outsourced too much.
2. Competing with lowest common denominator Multichannel TV, even though the TOTAL viewing time for any non-Terrestrial TV channel and ANY pay TV channel is less than 2%!
3. Dominated by under-educated "arts" people with narrow agendas.

Hence quality down the tubes.
The original concept of ITV has gone, regional stations competing to supply the national network. Government let ITV PLC take over almost every region. Only STV and UTV are left.
Channel Five was a mistake.
Channel Four suffering from same disease as BBC, completely different station to original 1980s and intention. Garbage like Big Brother. Karl Marx said TV was the Opium of the Masses. Or he would have if still alive in 1990s. They shuttered their own film production and stopped commissioning the excellent Animations.
Purely chasing ratings is ultimately death. I was first in the USA in 1984 I think and saw Multichannel US TV. I was depressed by it as I could see it was going to be the future in Europe.
The Specialist channels have not lived up to promises either. They are full of repeats, bad science and sensationalism.
BBC not yet as bad as Italian TV though. Or RTE.

Each year the dominance of American programming rises and displaces even more European programming so many stations (even NOT english speaking) are down to only 22% of non-news/current affairs is local.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Just finished watching recording.
1) Why two presenters? Yer woman seemed to be the expert one?
2) Why play on beach with pebbles instead of decent graphics (the short graphic after was too fast)
3) Why the messing with the tablet and finger instead of full screen images and pointer?

I thought a very amateurish production.

EDIT:
You did warn me I hadn't missed much.

 

[Vertigo]

That's always tended to be how The Sky at Night is done; it is and always has been deliberately amateur. I think a large proportion of their audience are young adults just getting into astronomy. Not exclusively YA by any means but they are a very large component.

To be fair, on this occasion I think they were under time pressure. The press conference they were attending was only two days (I think) before the programme was aired, so little time for fancy graphics.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Patrick Moore was originally a self taught Amateur Enthusiast. I don't think anyone can replicate his style!

I've not seen Sky at Night since the Moore days! Possibly I only had B&W TV! I moved from UK in early Feb 1983 and we never paid for cable (too poor quality and too expensive) but when Sky Digital officially launched here with subsidy we upgraded from Sky Analogue which we had for a short while (Channel five, some other channels and German TV was all free in Sky Analogue days, so we had satellite for over a year with no sub). Then eventually we cancelled Sky as waste of money, even before BBC / ITV/C4 etc went Free To Air.

So we had lost the habit of many BBC shows.

 

[Vertigo]

First episode was the year I was born!!! And yes no one can ever really replace Sir Patrick Moore! I think I'd have been terrified to be asked, even if my knowledge was up to it!

Back on track, there's another big press release today with more images etc.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I don't think we had a TV then, but I was too young to remember anyway, even though I'm a bit older.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first airing on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013, Moore having died on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped or thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live

Since lots more important BBC film was trashed and tapes reused, I'm amazed any survive from before 1990s. When I was in BBC in late 1970s the row about reuse of £85 tapes of expensive to make and irreplaceable programs had become epic. We only later discovered about film destruction to save tiny amounts of storage costs. Accountants and Book Keepers should oil the wheels of Commerce, not set policy of Institutions, Public Service providers and non-profit organisations.

Bruce Forsythe is of course the longest running TV personality, having been on air in 1939.

 

[Dave]

Patrick Moore was originally a self taught Amateur Enthusiast. I don't think anyone can replicate his style!

Trying not to take this too far off the topic but once upon a time EVERYONE in science was "a self-taught Amateur Enthusiast." There were very few "state" sponsored scientists until relatively recent times. Today they are called "citizen scientists." I'm a citizen scientist! I am helping to map the spawning sites and the extent of a fish called the Smelt in the River Thames with the London Zoological Society. We know about the ecology of deep oceans and the top of Everest, but the ecology of tidal estuaries in still a mystery. Last year I also listened to a speech from someone who is the Professor of Citizen Science at UCL. They have people doing all kinds of things. There are people measuring the health benefits of doing exercise outdoors. They have people recording wildlife with phone apps. They have people in Twickenham with phone apps monitoring aircraft noise from Heathrow Airport in their own back gardens. There is no other way you could ever get such detailed data recorded, however much you spent!

But think about many of the major scientific experiments - discovery of elements, electricity and magnetism - all amateur enthusiasts! Amateur naturalists were responsible for creating the subjects of Geography, Geology, Botany, Zoology and especially Paleontology. And there would be no Astronomy without enthusiastic amateurs. In fact, it is STILL an area where amateurs can make new discoveries at very little cost i.e. a back garden telescope.

Patrick Moore intended to go to University but was prevented by the Second World War and became a RAF navigator instead. I also believe his fiancee tragically died. However, at the time of the Moon landings he was still THE world expert on the geography of the Moon. Not bad for an enthusiastic amateur, I think!

 

[Ursa major]

I'm a citizen scientist! I am helping to map the spawning sites and the extent of a fish called the Smelt in the River Thames

So citizen scientists are not to be sniffed at....


Speaking of amateurs.... It was pointed out on the Sky At Night programme that Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, did not go to college. As Wiki explains:

After his family moved to Burdett, Kansas in 1922, Tombaugh's plans for attending college were frustrated when a hailstorm ruined his family's farm crops. Starting in 1926, he built several telescopes with lenses and mirrors by himself. He sent drawings of Jupiter and Mars to the Lowell Observatory, which offered him a job. Tombaugh worked there from 1929 to 1945.

 

[Vertigo]

Patrick Moore intended to go to University but was prevented by the Second World War and became a RAF navigator instead. I also believe his fiancee tragically died. However, at the time of the Moon landings he was still THE world expert on the geography of the Moon. Not bad for an enthusiastic amateur, I think!

I believe that is correct with regard to his fiancée and certainly is correct re the geography of the moon. I believe his maps of the moon were used for all the early landings.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

More articles
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/25/pluto_surprises_scientists_with_hazy_atmosphere/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/24/pluto_planet_nasa/

 

[Vertigo]

Interesting stuff, but a shame there'll be no more pretty piccies until September. All techie engineering data until then apparently.

 

[Serendipity]

Very interesting indeed.... the following should be considered speculative on the grounds I'm not expert astro-whatever...

Neptune's largest moon, Triton is considered as a planetary capture from the Kuiper Belt. Triton actually has nitrogen polar caps - which of course are glaciers. I understand that there is a sea of liquid nitrogen beneath the polar caps which is used to power geysers, which were observed by Voyager 2 on its 1989 fly past. These geysers left trails of dust on the surface.

What intrigues me is that Pluto has similar polar caps, but no (as yet) obvious signs of geysers... it would be interesting to know exactly why there is a difference....

Yes, there are other similarities between Triton and Pluto... but I'd be here all day trying to work them out and listing them...

Edit: PS The reason I know so much about this is that I had a story published about Triton's Mahilani geyser and of course I did my homework for that.

 

[Mirannan]

Very interesting indeed.... the following should be considered speculative on the grounds I'm not expert astro-whatever...

Neptune's largest moon, Triton is considered as a planetary capture from the Kuiper Belt. Triton actually has nitrogen polar caps - which of course are glaciers. I understand that there is a sea of liquid nitrogen beneath the polar caps which is used to power geysers, which were observed by Voyager 2 on its 1989 fly past. These geysers left trails of dust on the surface.

What intrigues me is that Pluto has similar polar caps, but no (as yet) obvious signs of geysers... it would be interesting to know exactly why there is a difference....

Yes, there are other similarities between Triton and Pluto... but I'd be here all day trying to work them out and listing them...

Edit: PS The reason I know so much about this is that I had a story published about Triton's Mahilani geyser and of course I did my homework for that.

I believe Triton is slightly darker than Pluto, and it's also slightly closer to the Sun on average. It's also considerably bigger than Pluto, which might make a difference. But (IMHO, I'm certainly no professional planetologist) the main reason for the differences may well be that Triton gets some tidal heating.