New Horizons shoots a movie
In anticipation of its fly of Pluto next year, the New Horizon spacecraft has produced a 12 frame movie showing Pluto’s moon Charon circling the planet.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In anticipation of its fly of Pluto next year, the New Horizon spacecraft has produced a 12 frame movie showing Pluto’s moon Charon circling the planet.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
What I find really cool about this movie is that you can see Pluto wobble in response to the gravitational tug of Charon as the latter orbits around its host planet. (I refuse to add “minor.) This is readily apparent because the mass of Charon is substantial relative to Pluto. It’s one method (wobble) used to detect extrasolar planets, although I believe the light dimming method is preferred. Bob, please correct me if I’m wrong.
A couple of decades ago, before extrasolar planets were being discovered, I went to a talk about methods to find them. Each method had its disadvantages.
Occultation (dimming) required that the target solar system (or at least the planet’s orbital plane) be edge-on to our line of sight. Thus, I was surprised at the large number that Kepler seems to have found.
Doppler (wobble) would likely find many planets, but their mass would be difficult to determine, as the wobble would be reduced due to the angle of the orbital plane relative to the line of sight. Thus, all that could be determined was a planet’s minimum possible mass.
Direct observation would have been the preferred method, but the range for distinguishing a planet from its star was short, limiting this method only for nearby stars.