Tag Archives: new horizons

The little ship that could

November 02, 2011   admin   No comments

I’ve been busy working on my new app, but I’ve still found time to give Solar Explorer some love.

This version includes a model of a small spacecraft called New Horizons that’s on a long, one way journey to the stars, following in the giant footsteps of Voyager I and II.

In 2015 New Horizons will do a flyby of Pluto, after which it will head on to the Kupier Belt, a cloud of debris left over from the solar system’s formation. It’s thought that this belt is similar to the asteroid belt we know and love, but much larger and composed mostly of chunks of water ice and frozen gasses, instead of rock and metals.

NASA has a handy countdown till New Horizons reaches Pluto and at the time of writing there’s only 1,350 days to go until it reaches Pluto.

The excitement is building!

Android Market problems

A user notified me that the paid version of Solar Explorer was blocked  on their tablet device, a Joypad M778, but the free one was available for install.

The only restriction Solar Explorer has is that it runs on Android 2.2. Apart from that, I haven’t blocked any devices, and none are disabled in the developers console.

In general, Android Market is pretty flaky, mostly because Google ‘s developers appear to make changes to the market code without adequately testing it, assuming they test it at all, which is up for debate.

Unfortunately, I have no control over a great deal of what goes on with the market, in particular things like payment issues and compatibility problems.

I can’t even contact Google on behalf of a user because they won’t respond to developers.

If you have any problems with the app, especially bugs, then feel free to let me know, but please post it as a comment on this website.

I may not be able to do anything immediately, but at least I’ll know it’s happening, and maybe I can come up with a workaround.

If you want to contact me, then don’t use the comments system in Android Market either. It’s broken too.

Solar Explorer Lite has had over 40 comments posted since I released it, but I can’t read half of them because they don’t show up in the developers console and they aren’t on the market page for the app.

If you report a problem via Android Market comments, I may never see it.

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The day the Solar System lost a planet

August 24, 2011   admin   No comments

I can’t believe that five years ago today, the 24th of August, Pluto was demoted from planet to the category of dwarf planet.

Pluto is not a big object, and since it’s discovery in 1930 we’ve found a number of other objects that are of a similar size, or even larger. If Pluto is considered a planet, then science would also have to consider other similar bodies to be planets as well, including asteroids and Kupier belt objects.

By the time we mark the 10th anniversary of this infamous decision, we’ll know a lot more about Pluto.

NASA’s New Horizons probe is currently on course for a fly-by in July 2015, giving us the first up-close look at what was once the only (former) planet a probe hadn’t visited.

Sadly, it won’t have time to stop and look around. After a journey lasting nearly 10 years, it will whip past Pluto travelling at 43,000kph or 27,000mph, on it’s way to the Kupier belt, which is it’s real destination.

Until then, Pluto will remain a blur in our telescopes, or a guesstimate in Solar Explorer.

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Catching up with Cassini

August 20, 2011   admin   No comments

Cassini has to considered to be the quiet achiever of space probes.

It left Earth in 1997, arriving at Saturn in 2004. After Huygens touched down on Titan, Cassini has largely been forgotten by the public while superstars like the Voyager twins set new distance and longevity records, and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers discover an ancient, wet Mars.

And yet, Cassini soldiers on, quietly studying the Saturnian system. In fact, it’s been doing such a good job (and is still in good working order) that it’s had it’s mission extended 2017.

I felt that it needed some recognition, so this week’s update for the Pro edition of Solar Explorer  features a detailed Cassini model.

A lot of work it was too.

Unlike Juno, Cassini has exposed instruments and struts all over it, which made it hard to convert to polygons. I’m getting the hang of spotting “shortcuts” now, so I was still able to come in well under my 2,000 polygon budget, to keep the speed up on all classes of Android devices, while keeping the model reasonably accurate.

My favourite feature of Cassini would have to be the sinister looking thermoelectric power generators that stick out around the base of the craft. Each of these produces electricity for the from heat generated by the radioactive decay of plutonium stored within the generator.

They kind of remind me of a Dalek’s gun from Dr. Who.

New Horizons, currently on it’s way to Pluto, got the Dalek ray gun treatment too, with a spare generator left over from Cassini bolted on.

There’s still lots more to come for Solar Explorer, but there’s only so many hours in a day…

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