APOD: Solar System Family Portait (2019 Feb 14)

[APOD Robot]

Solar System Family Portait

Explanation: On Valentine's Day in 1990, cruising four billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back one last time to make this first ever Solar System family portrait. The complete portrait is a 60 frame mosaic made from a vantage point 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In it, Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up with gas giant Neptune, the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right. Positions for Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are indicated by letters, while the Sun is the bright spot near the center of the circle of frames. The inset frames for each of the planets are from Voyager's narrow field camera. Unseen in the portrait are Mercury, too close to the Sun to be detected, and Mars, unfortunately hidden by sunlight scattered in the camera's optical system. Closer to the Sun than Neptune at the time, small, faint Pluto's position was not covered.

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[Ann]

Interesting, of course.

My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System.

Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness" between them!

Ann

[Boomer12k]

Too bad WE are not more of a family....this shows that for a very long distance...WE are all we have GOT...
Love, Patience, and Tolerance...

:---[===] *

[orin stepanek]

Interesting, of course.

My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System.

Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness" between them!

Ann

OMG Ann; That guy did a lot of work!!

[Tszabeau]

It looks like a lounge chair.

[E Fish]

Interesting, of course.

My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System.

Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness" between them!

Ann

Wow. I spent five minutes just getting to Jupiter, and if I keep it up, I'll probably end up late for work. I may have to add this into my class this semester.

[MarkBour]

Interesting, of course.

My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System.

Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness" between them!

Ann

Wow. I spent five minutes just getting to Jupiter, and if I keep it up, I'll probably end up late for work. I may have to add this into my class this semester.

It is cool. I like Josh Worth's comments in the middle of the space as well. The left and right arrows at the top of the page are handy, too.

I see no evidence that anyone instructed Voyager 1 or 2 to make any other snapshots looking back, since the time of the composite in this APOD. I think it would be cool to see a photo just looking back at our Sun from the farthest ever. And it would also be nice if one could say, for some image, all of the planets of our Solar system are within the single frame (even if none of them were detectable). My understanding is that the Voyagers are still sending data and able to communicate. There may be reasons that it is impossible to instruct them to make and transmit such an image now.

[neufer]

Science Fiction Theatre: Are We Invaded? December 31, 1955
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3b5brh

<<A reporter and the daughter of a respected astronomer, watching the stars one evening from their parked car, see what they consider a flying saucer. A stranger appears at the door of the car saying he too saw the light in the sky, and asks if he can be given a lift down the hill into town. Later, the astronomer refuses to believe the couple saw anything more than an optical illusion. To prove the existence of UFOs, the reporter films a documentary of witnesses, while the astronomer promptly demonstrates scientific explanations for each witness's sightings. But the mysterious stranger has left a photograph at the astronomer's lab- a photograph of our solar system taken from space. The stranger has disappeared, but left a forwarding address: Centauri 6. The sixth planet of the star Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light years from Earth.>>

I see no evidence that anyone instructed Voyager 1 or 2 to make any other snapshots looking back, since the time of the composite in this APOD. I think it would be cool to see a photo just looking back at our Sun from the farthest ever. And it would also be nice if one could say, for some image, all of the planets of our Solar system are within the single frame (even if none of them were detectable). My understanding is that the Voyagers are still sending data and able to communicate. There may be reasons that it is impossible to instruct them to make and transmit such an image now.

There are many reasons that it is impossible to instruct them to make and transmit such an image now.
(And all of the planets of our Solar system would never fit in a single frame.)

Code: Select all

Year 	End of specific capabilities as a result
      of the available electrical power limitations
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                             Voyager 2

1998 	Termination of scan platform and UVS observations

2007 	Termination of Digital Tape Recorder (DTR) operations

2008 	Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)

2016 	Termination of gyroscopic operations

2020 	Initiate instrument power sharing

2025 	Can no longer power any single instrument 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                              Voyager 1

2007 	Termination of plasma subsystem (PLS)

2008 	Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)

2016 	Termination of scan platform and Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)

2018 	Termination of Data Tape Recorder (DTR) operations

2019 	Termination of gyroscopic operations

2020 	Start shutdown of science instruments
    (the Low-Energy Charged Particles, Cosmic Ray Subsystem, Magnetometer,
      and Plasma Wave Subsystem instruments are expected to still be operating)

2025–2030 	Will no longer be able to power even a single instrument. 

[Odysseus]

I've never seen the Pale Blue Dot in context before, so this is awesome in every sense of the word.

[Odysseus]

There are many reasons that it is impossible to instruct them to make and transmit such an image now.
(And all of the planets of our Solar system would never fit in a single frame.)

Code: Select all

Year 	End of specific capabilities as a result
      of the available electrical power limitations
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                             Voyager 2

1998 	Termination of scan platform and UVS observations

2007 	Termination of Digital Tape Recorder (DTR) operations

2008 	Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)

2016 	Termination of gyroscopic operations

2020 	Initiate instrument power sharing

2025 	Can no longer power any single instrument 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                              Voyager 1

2007 	Termination of plasma subsystem (PLS)

2008 	Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)

2016 	Termination of scan platform and Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)

2018 	Termination of Data Tape Recorder (DTR) operations

2019 	Termination of gyroscopic operations

2020 	Start shutdown of science instruments
    (the Low-Energy Charged Particles, Cosmic Ray Subsystem, Magnetometer,
      and Plasma Wave Subsystem instruments are expected to still be operating)

2025–2030 	Will no longer be able to power even a single instrument. 

"2025-2030 — Will no longer be able to power even a single instrument."
That's kind of sad to read.

[richard schumacher]

Closer to the Sun than Neptune at the time, small, faint Pluto's position was not covered.

And of course Pluto is not a planet so it would have been inappropriate.

[Nitpicker]

Pluto was a planet in 1990 (but too dim for the camera, out of frame on left). These days it is just a planet.

[sillyworm 2]

Interesting, of course.

My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System.

Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness" between them!

Ann

I got as far as Neptune.. anyone else?

[Ann]

Interesting, of course.

My favorite portrait of the Solar system is this one, however: A Tediously Accurate Map of the Solar System.

Keep scrolling until you are bored out of your skull! But don't go too fast. You will miss the little planets and just see the gulfs of "almost nothingness" between them!

Ann

I got as far as Neptune.. anyone else?

When I had first discovered this page, I decided I would go to the end one day, and when I had a day off, I did. I don't remember if Pluto was there or not, but I guess it was. But it must have been so small that it was hardly noticeable.

I don't feel like scrolling through all of that once again!

Ann

[Zargon]

I agree it is beautiful... Todays post on the 15th is about Opportunity and it's 15 years on Mars... I believe that there was much more info we the public could have been given about mars and of course Voyager and we were NOT given Data... So much locked up for only NASA to see... There was so much data... That's what is sad, the lack of sharing info...

[Chris Peterson]

I agree it is beautiful... Todays post on the 15th is about Opportunity and it's 15 years on Mars... I believe that there was much more info we the public could have been given about mars and of course Voyager and we were NOT given Data... So much locked up for only NASA to see... There was so much data... That's what is sad, the lack of sharing info...

Every piece of data collected by NASA missions is publicly available. The maximum embargo period (to allow exclusive access to affiliated researchers) is one year.

(You are bordering on crackpot territory, so your post... and maybe my response... could disappear.)

[MarkBour]

Science Fiction Theatre: Are We Invaded? December 31, 1955
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3b5brh

<<A reporter and the daughter of a respected astronomer, watching the stars one evening from their parked car, see what they consider a flying saucer. A stranger appears at the door of the car saying he too saw the light in the sky, and asks if he can be given a lift down the hill into town. Later, the astronomer refuses to believe the couple saw anything more than an optical illusion. To prove the existence of UFOs, the reporter films a documentary of witnesses, while the astronomer promptly demonstrates scientific explanations for each witness's sightings. But the mysterious stranger has left a photograph at the astronomer's lab- a photograph of our solar system taken from space. The stranger has disappeared, but left a forwarding address: Centauri 6. The sixth planet of the star Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light years from Earth.>>

I see no evidence that anyone instructed Voyager 1 or 2 to make any other snapshots looking back, since the time of the composite in this APOD. I think it would be cool to see a photo just looking back at our Sun from the farthest ever. And it would also be nice if one could say, for some image, all of the planets of our Solar system are within the single frame (even if none of them were detectable). My understanding is that the Voyagers are still sending data and able to communicate. There may be reasons that it is impossible to instruct them to make and transmit such an image now.

There are many reasons that it is impossible to instruct them to make and transmit such an image now.
(And all of the planets of our Solar system would never fit in a single frame.)

Code: Select all

Year 	End of specific capabilities as a result
      of the available electrical power limitations
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                             Voyager 2

1998 	Termination of scan platform and UVS observations

2007 	Termination of Digital Tape Recorder (DTR) operations

2008 	Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)

2016 	Termination of gyroscopic operations

2020 	Initiate instrument power sharing

2025 	Can no longer power any single instrument 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                              Voyager 1

2007 	Termination of plasma subsystem (PLS)

2008 	Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA)

2016 	Termination of scan platform and Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)

2018 	Termination of Data Tape Recorder (DTR) operations

2019 	Termination of gyroscopic operations

2020 	Start shutdown of science instruments
    (the Low-Energy Charged Particles, Cosmic Ray Subsystem, Magnetometer,
      and Plasma Wave Subsystem instruments are expected to still be operating)

2025–2030 	Will no longer be able to power even a single instrument. 

Interesting stuff !

“Never is an awfully long time.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

The wide angle camera on Voyager has a 3^o field of view. Since sin(3^o) = about 0.05, I guess you'd get a view of the entire orbit of a planet when you were about 20 times as far away from it as its orbital radius. Neptune has an orbital radius of 30 AU (if we want Pluto, as much as 50 AU). So, to capture Neptune's entire orbit, Voyager would have to be about 600 AU away, right? Currently Voyager 1 is a mere 145 AU from us.