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An Intentional Mistake
There is a lie lurking on this web page!
And it's right in plain sight: that picture of the solar system that shows all the planets lined up in a nice, straight line. Because all the planets are orbiting around the sun at their own unique speeds, you will never see them queued up like they are waiting to go outside for recess. Instead, they will be spread out along their orbits, pointing east, west and everything in between.
Of course, the New Horizons team took this into account when they planned their launch date and route through the solar system. This winter, Jupiter is closely aligned with Earth, making it a convenient roadside attraction for New Horizons. While it is snapping some images of Jupiter, New Horizons will also use the planet's tremendous gravity to get the energy boost it needs to speed on toward Pluto. Pluto, then, will be a fairly straight shot from Jupiter.
Check out the image below to see New Horizon's real path through the solar system.
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And it's right in plain sight: that picture of the solar system that shows all the planets lined up in a nice, straight line. Because all the planets are orbiting around the sun at their own unique speeds, you will never see them queued up like they are waiting to go outside for recess. Instead, they will be spread out along their orbits, pointing east, west and everything in between.
Of course, the New Horizons team took this into account when they planned their launch date and route through the solar system. This winter, Jupiter is closely aligned with Earth, making it a convenient roadside attraction for New Horizons. While it is snapping some images of Jupiter, New Horizons will also use the planet's tremendous gravity to get the energy boost it needs to speed on toward Pluto. Pluto, then, will be a fairly straight shot from Jupiter.
Check out the image below to see New Horizon's real path through the solar system.
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What is scientific error?
The SDC has twelve detector panels on its exterior. But it also has a pair of panels that you can't see, because they face in toward the New Horizons spacecraft.
Why would you want to outfit a dust detector with panels that can't detect dust?
The answer has to do with what scientists call "error."
When scientists talk about error, they don't mean "mistakes," exactly. Scientific error is the piling up of small mismeasurements, random electrical noise, and other imprecisions that make an experiment's result slightly different from the "true" result. So how did the SDC designers try to make that error as tiny as possible?
High-energy particles speeding through space, electrical noise and glitches, and vibration from the rest of the spacecraft can all trick the SDC's brain into thinking it has seen a dust mote. By placing detectors where no dust could ever hit them, the SDC team can establish a "false alarm" rate that they can apply to all the detector panels.
Another built-in reality check: Any hit reported simultaneously by more than one of the active, outward-facing detectors must be a false alarm. After all, a dust particle can't be in two places at once.
[close this panel]
Why would you want to outfit a dust detector with panels that can't detect dust?
The answer has to do with what scientists call "error."
When scientists talk about error, they don't mean "mistakes," exactly. Scientific error is the piling up of small mismeasurements, random electrical noise, and other imprecisions that make an experiment's result slightly different from the "true" result. So how did the SDC designers try to make that error as tiny as possible?
High-energy particles speeding through space, electrical noise and glitches, and vibration from the rest of the spacecraft can all trick the SDC's brain into thinking it has seen a dust mote. By placing detectors where no dust could ever hit them, the SDC team can establish a "false alarm" rate that they can apply to all the detector panels.
Another built-in reality check: Any hit reported simultaneously by more than one of the active, outward-facing detectors must be a false alarm. After all, a dust particle can't be in two places at once.
[close this panel]