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Just before 6 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, the call that everyone was waiting for came in.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft “phoned home” to tell the mission team and the world it had accomplished the historic first-ever flyby of Pluto.
After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface – roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India – making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.
“I know today we’ve inspired a whole new generation of explorers with this great success, and we look forward to the discoveries yet to come,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “This is a historic win for science and for exploration. We’ve truly, once again raised the bar of human potential.”
The preprogrammed “phone call” – a 15-minute series of status messages beamed back to mission operations at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland through NASA’s Deep Space Network – ended a very suspenseful 21-hour waiting period.
New Horizons had been instructed to spend the day gathering the maximum amount of data, and not communicating with Earth until it was beyond the Pluto system.
“With the successful flyby of Pluto we are celebrating the capstone event in a golden age of planetary exploration,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “While this historic event is still unfolding – with the most exciting Pluto science still ahead of us – a new era of solar system exploration is just beginning. NASA missions will unravel the mysteries of Mars, Jupiter, Europa and worlds around other suns in the coming years."
Bolden said the exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons “represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States. Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match.”
Pluto is the first Kuiper Belt object visited by a mission from Earth. New Horizons’ flyby of the dwarf planet and its five known moons is providing an up-close introduction to the Kuiper Belt, an outer region populated by icy objects ranging in size from boulders to dwarf planets. Kuiper Belt objects, such as Pluto, preserve evidence about the early formation of the solar system.
“Following in the footsteps of planetary exploration missions such as Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager, New Horizons has triumphed at Pluto,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “The New Horizons flyby completes the first era of planetary reconnaissance, a half century long endeavor that will forever be a legacy of our time."
New Horizons is collecting so much data it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth.
The Pluto story began only a generation ago when young Clyde Tombaugh was tasked to look for Planet X, theorized to exist beyond the orbit of Neptune. He discovered a faint point of light that we now see as a complex and fascinating world.
"Pluto was discovered just 85 years ago by a farmer's son from Kansas, inspired by a visionary from Boston, using a telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Today, science takes a great leap observing the Pluto system up close and flying into a new frontier that will help us better understand the origins of the solar system.”
New Horizons’ almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile window in space – the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball.
Because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched – hurtling through the Pluto system at more than 30,000 miles per hour, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft.
New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments at NASA, including multiple rovers exploring the surface of Mars, the Cassini spacecraft that has revolutionized our understanding of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. All of this scientific research and discovery is helping to inform the agency’s plan to send American astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.
“After nearly 15 years of planning, building, and flying the New Horizons spacecraft across the solar system, we’ve reached our goal,” said project manager Glen Fountain at APL. “The bounty of what we’ve collected is about to unfold.”
APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates also will be available on the mission Facebook page.
For more information on the New Horizons mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm .
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will hold a “bear aware” presentation for area residents this week.
The event will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16, in the clubhouse at Orchard Shores Homeowners Association, 500 Orchard Shores Drive in Clearlake Oaks.
“We have been getting several bear calls over the last few months in this area and felt the need to do some community education,” said CDFW representative Janice Mackey.
Mackey said the 90-minute talk CDFW staff will give on Thursday will cover bear biology, human/bear conflicts, food attractants and public safety, Mackey said.
CDFW will host the presentations in other locations if there are 15 or more people planning to attend, according to Mackey.
Information about black bears can be found at the CDFW Web site, https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Keep-Me-Wild/Bear .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Lake Community Pride Foundation will present its fifth annual “Power to the Youth” event on Saturday, Aug. 1.
The festival will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Clearlake's Austin Park, 14077 Lakeshore Drive.
Admission to the event is free so bring the whole family.
Power to the Youth offers physical activities, youth entertainment, music and community education.
This year's event will feature a three-on-three basketball tournament for different age groups and a skate park competition for varying skill levels in scooters, BMX and skateboarding with prizes for the winners.
It is free to enter these activities. All participants must register in advance and/or be prepared to play at 10 a.m. on the day of the event.
Glory Days Flag Football League will have their annual Power to the Youth flag football event.
There are a few new activities this year, including a whiffle ball pickup game and a youth car show. Think your car is hot? Bring it down and enter it in our contest and win a prize. A final addition to this year's event is pony rides for the kids.
Two stages across the park will play this year's musical lineup made up of As All Else Fails, Death and Taxes, Dawn of Delirium, James Taylor, Fetti Rich, Masta Slash Beatz, Ojeezus Tha Gawd and more.
There also will be multiple bouncy houses, a sand box, a Lego table and video games.
Local agency booths offering activities and information about their services will be available throughout the park. Ranging from education to politics to health care and local businesses, over 20 booths will be featured at this year's event.
Lake Community Pride Foundation is a nonprofit group that maintains and supports a teen shelter, the Safe House of Lake County; supports the youth performing arts; and organizes youth events for the community.
If you're interested in holding a booth for the event, volunteering for the event, or donating towards the cause of the event, contact Bruno Sabatier at 707-695-0834 or at
Follow the event at www.facebook.com/PowertotheYouth .
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – At its meeting last week the Clearlake Planning Commission chose to hold over its consideration of a cell phone tower proposal until later this month in order to give commissioners and the public a chance to go over the associated documents.
The commission met on Tuesday, July 7, at Clearlake City Hall with plans to discuss the cell phone tower project on Burns Valley Road.
Complete Wireless Consulting applied on behalf of Verizon Wireless for a use permit and variance for the tower, a 70-foot monopine – a tower designed to look like a pine tree.
The tower is proposed to be located within a leased 40-foot by 40-foot area on a vacant parcel at 14549 Burns Valley Road, owned by Anthony and Maxine Lamperti of Santa Rosa.
City Attorney Ryan Jones suggested the commission delay the public hearing for two weeks because the mitigated negative declaration based on the project's initial study had been completed that same day.
He said the whole point of the California Environmental Quality Act is to give people notice and an opportunity to go through that document.
Jones said he didn't feel there was enough notice and a reasonable opportunity for community members or the commission to review it.
As such, Jones proposed continuing the matter to the commission's July 21 meeting, which the commissioners agreed to do.
Commission Chair Carl Webb opened the public hearing to take brief public comment from a resident of the Burns Valley area who had concerns related to health impacts. He then closed the hearing until the July 21 meeting.
The remainder of the meeting was devoted to an ethics training session for the commission, which over the past year has welcomed new members Nathalie Antus and Dirk Slooten.
Jones led the session, touching on topics including the Brown Act, public records, the California Environmental Quality Act, the importance of the commission, campaign contributions and gifts, general plan and specific plan definitions, and land use and planning issues.
New City Manager Greg Folsom and retiring City Manager Joan Phillipe also were on hand for the meeting.
Phillipe had promised to attend the meeting despite her retirement becoming effective June 30.
The commissioners bid her farewell and thanked her for her service to the city.
The full video of the meeting – including Jones' PowerPoint – can be see above.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith reported Monday that California has seen an increase in syphilis cases among women, pregnant women and newborns over the past two years.
“The increase in congenital syphilis is particularly concerning,” Dr. Smith said. “Congenital syphilis occurs when syphilis is transmitted from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy. It is a needless tragedy that can be prevented with good prenatal care and timely and effective treatment.”
From 2012 to 2014, the annual number of reported early syphilis cases among women statewide more than doubled from 248 cases to 594, CDPH reported.
In Lake County, there were no such cases reported in 2012, with six cases reported in 2013 and three in 2014, according to data compiled by CDPH.
CDPH said the annual number of reported congenital syphilis cases more than tripled during the 2012 to 2014 time period, rising from 30 to 100.
Only two congenital syphilis cases were reported in Lake County during the 2012-14 time frame, both in 2013, the state reported.
Syphilitic stillbirths also increased statewide, from one case in 2012 to six cases in 2014. None of those cases occurred in Lake County, based on state data.
The increasing trend of syphilis among women appears to be continuing in 2015, officials said.
Most of the congenital syphilis cases have been reported in the Central Valley and Los Angeles County.
CDPH has not identified a cause for the increase in congenital syphilis, which officials said is often associated with poverty and lack of access to health care.
Officials said most of the women who gave birth to babies with congenital syphilis did not receive adequate or timely prenatal care.
“When women do not receive proper prenatal care, they’re missing a crucial opportunity to be screened for syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs),” Dr. Smith said. “It is vital that pregnant women get comprehensive prenatal care, including getting tested for STDs, to avoid transmitting infections to their babies.”
CDPH is addressing the rise of syphilis cases by working with local health departments to identify causes, reach out to infected pregnant women to make sure they and their partners are treated, and intensify efforts to follow-up on contacts of syphilis cases, particularly women of childbearing age.
The agency also is partnering with the health care community to work to increase enrollment for women. This is in addition to developing patient and provider informational materials focused on congenital syphilis.
More information about syphilis is available on the CDPH Web site, www.cdph.ca.gov .
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The Yuba Community College District reported that it has undertaken the sale of refunding bonds to save taxpayers $14.2 million.
The district said the refunding bonds sale will convert noncallable capital appreciation bonds, or CABs, into lower-cost current interest bonds.
“This is a win-win for our students and taxpayers,” said Yuba Community College District Board President Gary Sandy. “This was the fiscally prudent move to make; it will reduce the financial burden on local taxpayers for years to come.”
The district has a presence in eight counties – primarily across the northern Sacramento Valley – with two colleges in Yolo County and Yuba County and the campuses in Clearlake, Colusa and Sutter counties that serve 13,000 students.
The high-interest bonds that are being restructured are from Measure J, district Chancellor Dr. Douglas Houston told Lake County News.
In November 2006 voters passed Measure J, which authorized up to $190 million in bond sales to fund improvements across the district's campuses and facilities, including the Clear Lake Campus, Houston said.
The next year, the bond sales began. “We're refinancing almost all of the Series A bonds that were sold in 2007,” said Houston.
In doing so, the district was able to buy back some of the noncallable Series C bonds issued in 2011, which had relied on capital appreciation bonds that required balloon interest payments. Houston said the Measure J Series B bonds have not been refinanced.
The high-interest bonds were converted through Dale Scott & Co. CAB Restructuring Bonds program, which engages with investors to buy capital appreciation bonds back at their fair-market price, according to a report from the district.
The district said it is replacing the CABs with lower-cost current interest bonds to save taxpayers money over the long term.
Dale Scott & Co. converted nearly $40 million of capital appreciation bonds for the district, reducing the total amount of outstanding CABs by more than 30 percent.
“In some cases, CABs were the only viable option for a district at the time they were issued,” said Dale Scott & Co. President Dale Scott. “But many of these bond deals were put together in a way that made a traditional refinancing impossible. In response to this problem, we’ve developed a program that can restructure these non-callable CABs, allowing districts to provide substantial long-term benefits to their taxpayers.”
Houston said the Yuba Community College District is the first community college in California to implement the restructuring bonds program. “We are very pleased with the results.”
While the district had authorization to issue up to $190 million under Measure J, it has sold only $130 million as of June 2011, Houston explained.
“We can't issue the remaining $60 million,” which Houston said is a result of the recession.
The district can only issue bonds if it can certify the tax burden is $25 per $100,000 value on property, Houston said.
The collapse of the property market during the recession meant the district couldn't meet that requirement, said Houston.
While property values are coming back up, they still have a ways to go, he said. As a result, the bond sales have stopped.
The Measure J Citizen's Bond Oversight Committee decided to suspend operations at its meeting last month until the next projects take place, with Houston noting that it may be several more years before the district takes on more projects.
In the mean time, he said the district turned its efforts toward reducing the tax burden on its property owners. While the district could have sold another series of bonds to refinance the Series A bonds, instead it decided to refinance the capital appreciation bonds.
“We really thought that was the best thing we could do for property owners,” Houston said.
As for the projects the bonds funded, Houston said most of them were completed as of the last academic year.
The Clear Lake Campus has three new state-of-the-art buildings thanks to Measure J.
Campus officials said the buildings house the library, media center and student services; culinary arts and the multipurpose room; and biology and chemistry rooms. The total cost was reported at $9 million.
“We're really proud of those,” Houston said, adding the buildings are beautiful.
“The students love them,” he said, and students have indicated that the new buildings have made the campus feel like a real college.
With the exception of removing some older buildings and completing minor curb appeal work at the entrance to the campus on Dam Road Extension, Houston said the main projects at the Clear Lake Campus are complete.
“We've built all the buildings we intended to build there,” he said, noting the campus is starting to see some modest growth in its student body.
In terms of projects across all of its campuses, the district may look for new opportunities to sell the remaining bonds in the future to fund some two buildings at the Woodland campus and a new building at the new campus north of Yuba City, Houston said.
He said there also are some renovations that are needed at Yuba College's Marysville campus.
Yuba Community College District’s conversion of capital appreciation bonds follows similar moves by K-12 school districts in Alameda, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Stanislaus counties, according to the district's report.
More than 200 school districts and community college districts in California issued approximately $3 billion of high-interest capital appreciation bonds between 2001 and 2013, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 182 into law, prohibiting K-12 and community college districts from issuing capital appreciation bonds with debt ratios of 4-to-1 or greater, the district said.
Visit the college district online at www.yccd.edu .
Email Elizabeth Larson at