 Recently NASA has claimed that 'New Horizons", its latest satellite, has taken photographs of Pluto, the farthest planet of the solar system, after a long journey of almost ten years. Of course the media have marveled at these photographs, almost a door on the infinite. Even Jarrah White has fallen into the trap..but not me, I'm immune of NASA fakery. Since Jarrah White seems unable to debunk this new hoax, it is my task to do it. |
 The photos of Pluto have stricken me as unnatural, bizarre. There are plenty of strange things on these photos. On this photo I can see what looks like an animal's head on what I have circled in red. What I have circled in green also looks strange. And, what I have circled in yellow looks like the figure '3'. Some will say that it's just due to chance. So, I am going to show more embarrassing things. |
 On this photo, they show a part of pluto on its whole view, and the corresponding close-up taken closer. |
 I have had the idea of comparing the two. |
 The crater I have circled in red is not positioned the same relatively to two neighbor craters. On the global view, it is closer to the crater which is on its left than to the crater which is underneath. On the close-up, it is the converse! And the difference cannot be attributed to the perspective, for the close-up is obviously taken as it appears on the extreme right of Pluto, which would tend to shorten the distance between the crater circled in red and the one on its left. And, whereas the crater I have circled in yellow appears with the same size on the close-up as some other craters, it is not as visible as the latter on the global view. |
 Another strange thing: This is a animation made with a series of photos taken by the satellite. |
 What seems strange is that the rotation of Pluto on this animation does not appears straight...  ...but inclined instead. It might be normal if is was Pluto which which was turning and not the satellite, but it is not Pluto which is turning on this series of photos, but the satellite instead! |
The problem is not only with the photographs that the satellite has taken. There also are big questions about technology. Pluto is a small planet with a diameter of only 2370km, and is the farthest planet of the solar system. It is so distant that its existence has only been known since a relatively short time. It is at a distance comprised between 30 and 49 astronomical units, so averagely 40 astronomical units. An astronomical unit represents 150 million kilometers. That means that Pluto is at an average distance of 40*150=6000 million kilometers, so 6 billion kilometers; it really represents an enormous distance. At that distance, and considering the size of Pluto, Pluto is seen under an angle of around 0.00002 degrees from the earth, that is a tenth of a second of arc. |
 Missile guidance consists of first using inertial navigation to guide the missile (i.e. gyroscopes), and, when the radar has managed to catch the target, using its indication to guide the missile till the target. |
 The navigation is normally done with an inertial platorm. An inertial platform contains three gyroscopes and three accelerometers, which allow to mesure the angular positions and variations of speeds in all directions. There are now quite precise gyroscopes, but the precision required to navigate to Pluto is extreme; indeed, from the earth, Pluto is seen under an angle of the order of a tenth of arcsecond (0.00002°). The problem with the gyroscopes is that they tend to drift with time, and to give more and more erroneous indications. The travel to Pluto was almost a decade long, and gyroscopes cannot remain precise on a so long duration. |
 That's why, after a certain time, an intertial platform needs to be reinitialized so it gets a correct reference again. Reinitializing an inertial platform is done by pointing an optical system toward stars; three stars are needed for the reinitialization (we are in a three dimensional system). New Horizons had star cameras allowing to take photos of the sky, and the attitude of the spaceship was calculated by comparing the photos of the cameras with star maps. Till then, it may seem normal, but now that's where it becomes delirious: The photos taken by the star cameras were compared with a collection of 3000 stars, and the star recognition was made each tenth of second! First it makes no sense to have a so huge collection of stars, when only three identified stars are needed to make the recognition; and, to identify a star in a galaxy, just some stars are needed. |
Then it is senseless to make the star recognition in so close intervals, because, if the gyroscopes drift in time, they don't drift so fast that they would need to be reinitialized every tenth of second. The variation of attitude sensed with the gyroscopes is more precise than the variation calculated between two star recognition processes; the star recognition should only be made when the estimated error on the gyroscopes reaches the precision of the star recognition, and that represents much more than a tenth of second. |
 If the navigation is made in a so absurd way, the consequence is that there is going to be an accumulation of errors in the navigation which will make that, when New horizons reaches the orbit of Pluto, it will be very far from it (the orbit of pluto is almost 20 billion kilometers long), and it will never find it with its radar. In other words, the probablility that New Horizons reaches Pluto can be considered null. And, even if New Horizons miraculously manages to reach Pluto (in case of the extremely small probablity that the errors of navigation would cancel each other), it will move so fast that it will not have the capacity of deceleration to stop on Pluto and will move on beyond Pluto's orbit. |
 And, even assuming that New Horizons can reach Pluto and stop on it, when New Horizons wants to send photos it takes to the earth, it would have to orient its antenna toward the earth with a damn precision (from Pluto, the earth is seen under an angle of hardly more than an arcsecond), which is made still more difficult by the fact that New Horizons is not static, but orbiting Pluto. People think that the waves emitted by New Horizons diffuse in all directions, that the whole solar system could receive them, but it is simply not true. |
 On earth, the radio waves can reflect on the ground, and also on the ionosphere, which allows their reception in many directions. But, in the void, the radio waves have nothing to reflect on, so they must be directed toward their target with a great precision. If the radio waves could diffuse in all directions in the void of space, the Apollo astronauts would not have cared to orient the antenna toward the earth. |
 The consequence is that the radio wave emitted by New Horizons, and which carries the photographs, has virtually no chance to reach the earth and will miss it. They say that they reduce the bit rate of transmission of the photographs when emitting from Pluto, but it is to no avail, for, if the high frequency carrier allowing to transmit the photographs is not received by the earth, it is not because they have reduced the bit rate inside the carrier that it will work better. |
 But the media will never care about these questions. They never doubt the "exploits" of NASA, and call "idiots" those who doubt, even though they have good reasons to doubt. And this time, NASA has even managed to fool Jarrah White. Hopefully, it didn't work with me, I'll never believe any of NASA's hoaxes, I have seen too much bullshit (more than Jarrah Whitte). |
