NASA's probe to Pluto, New Horizons, spent mere minutes skimming past that celestial body's surface on the morning of July 14th. As it did so, though, its camera was snapping at full pelt and storing pictures in the craft's databanks. Since then, those databanks have gradually been disgorging their contents back to Earth. It is a slow process, because only about 1,000 bits a second can be transmitted reliably, given the limited nature of New Horizons' power pack (200W--enough for a couple of dec...
NASA's probe to Pluto, New Horizons, spent mere minutes skimming past that celestial body's surface on the morning of July 14th. As it did so, though, its camera was snapping at full pelt and storing pictures in the craft's databanks. Since then, those databanks have gradually been disgorging their contents back to Earth. It is a slow process, because only about 1,000 bits a second can be transmitted reliably, given the limited nature of New Horizons' power pack (200W--enough for a couple of dec...
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