

Pluto-bound probe faces its toughest task: finding Pluto - jdnier
http://www.nature.com/news/pluto-bound-probe-faces-its-toughest-task-finding-pluto-1.17811

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frakturfreund
Wow, this is the first ›real‹ telnet interface i saw in years:

telnet horizons.jpl.nasa.gov 6775

Thanks, NASA!

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jat850
That is possibly one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I could spend
hours looking through this.

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jkot
JPL Ephemerides is one of the most complex equations: 1TB of polynoms and
still growing :-)

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japaget
The polynomials are an end result of thousands of complex calculations. For
more details, see
[http://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-196/196C.pdf](http://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-196/196C.pdf)
. Many effects, including general relativity and the gravitational
perturbations of the planets and several hundred asteroids, were included.

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zymhan
The last part of this was my favorite:

"Calculations on where Voyager was headed were plotted each day on graph paper
posted on the wall at JPL. Soon the dots left the centre of the paper and
began to wander onto the wall and then overhead. “There were dots on the
ceiling for years afterward,” Owen says."

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yellowapple
> “You can’t tell whether it’s small and close or big and far,” says Fran
> Bagenal, a space physicist and mission co-investigator at the University of
> Colorado Boulder. “It’s a really interesting problem that we’ve never had at
> any other planet.”

AHA! So Pluto _is_ a planet after all.

Eat your heart out, Neil!

