SCIENCE: DATA
How Does the SDC Take Data?
The SDC has a particle detector that will detect incoming particles (this will be better explained in the Design section). As these particles are detected, information about them is translated into a digital signal. Exactly how this happens is in the Design section, but in brief, the detector senses when a particle hits it and sends a signal to a
processor that then sends this interpreted signal to the
transmitter on the New Horizons spacecraft.
How Will the Data Get from Pluto to Earth?
So you have a spacecraft deep in space and it needs to send data back to Earth. So how does it do it? It's not like we run a
long cable out to the spacecraft so it can send data back. So how does it work? Well, the New Horizons spacecraft has a
high gain antenna on it that can transmit data back to Earth. This data streams back as
radio waves moving at the speed of light. But even moving at this speed, it will take the data
4 hours to get back to Earth from Pluto. The data is then recieved by NASA's
Deep Space Network and sent out to all the different projects and missions that will use the data!
What Does the Data Look Like?
With most spacecraft instruments, the data returned is more than just 100% relevant data that you can use and publish immediately. There is usually a lot of somewhat useless information that comes back. One type of this is
Flags. These are special markers in the data that tell you how well the instrument is functioning. There will be sensors on the instrument telling scientists what temperature the instrument is, where it is pointing, how much
radiation it is receiving, and just about anything else you can imagine. The flags are little things set in this data that tell you if the spacecraft is getting too hot, or too much radiation, or if it is pointing the wrong direction, or etc.
A lot of the data an instrument takes will also end up being
noise or something that's
not actually there. This means scientists have to make computer programs to help sift through all this data for the stuff they want.
What Will Scientists Do With the Data?
After scientists sift through all the data to find the stuff they are looking for, the next step is to see what it can tell them. This can be difficult; if the data
differs greatly from what scientists were expecting to find, they have to decide whether their instrument was wrong, or whether their theories were wrong. If the data is what was expected, scientists have to determine whether this was because they may have accidentally
forced the data to look how they want, or because that's how things actually are. Also, if scientists come to the conclusion that their data is valid and good, they have to determine what new information is learned from it. Given all these factors, it may sometimes take years or even decades between an instrument recording data and a scientist publishing a paper about what they have found. It's a tough, long process, but in the end, we learn more about this Universe we live in.