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[EdwardTivrusky]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32311907

Thanks for this. It's enchanting. Wow, i wasn't expecting colour so soon.

 

[Version 3.0]

This is what you can expect when everything's going to plan. But beaming all this data back to Earth will take many months.

Then, around November 16, New Horizons will begin to downlink the entire science data set losslessly compressed. It will take a year to complete that process.

Man, science requires patience.

 

[Arcblast]

Been waiting for this since forever! So excited!

 

[Merino]

That video is damn fricking epic!

Space exploration needs more cultural excitement again

 

[Kup]

Huge moment and I'm excited to see how this unfolds. Just imagining how far away Pluto is and the fact that we're so close to seeing it properly is just incredible.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

There's two Pluto threads going, figured I'd post this here, too.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-and-its-moon-charon-now-in-color

 

[GK86]

Not the color I expected Pluto to be.

 

[Cub3h]

I can't wait for this, I remember NH launching and thinking 2015 was SO far away, I think there is / used to be a twitter account that would give occasional updates on how far NH had gotten that always fascinated me.

Next up, Europa!

 

[TTOOLL]

According to New Horizons - Location it's travelling at 32,569 miles per hour.
Though the Helios probes are apparently the fastest at 153,000 mph. Flippin' 'eck!

how do these things achieve such speed?

 

[GK86]

how do these things achieve such speed?

They (usually) use planets/moons to slingshot them.

 

[Mario]

how do these things achieve such speed?

Years of acceleration with no friction to decelerate them?

 

[Zom]

Glad to say, what a time to be alive.

 

[Prez]

Not the color I expected Pluto to be.

I always imagined Pluto to be blue for some reason.

 

[davepoobond]

When does New Horizons come back as Nezon?

 

[GK86]

Nice little documentary called, "The Year of Pluto"

 

[DarthWoo]

When does New Horizons come back as Nezon?

You mean N'zon?

 

[diaspora]

Is the plan for New Horizons to just keep going or would they use a gravity slingshot to fire it back when it's done with Pluto?

 

[GK86]

Is the plan for New Horizons to just keep going or would they use a gravity slingshot to fire it back when it's done with Pluto?

Once it explores Pluto and it's moons, it will head towards the Kuiper belt. They have three objects in mind that they want to get a better look at. I don't know the names of those Kuiper belt objects off the top of my head.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Not the color I expected Pluto to be.

Its very similar to Pluto's color. .. from the cartoons.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Its very similar to Pluto's color. .. from the cartoons.

They knew all along.

 

[Bear]

Does anyone know how close it will get at the nearest point? I hope we can finally get a reasonably clear view of the surface.

 

[Fusion Pizza]

I am so excited for this, I love science. SCIIIIIIIIIENCE.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Does anyone know how close it will get at the nearest point? I hope we can finally get a reasonably clear view of the surface.

You're going to be happy then.

This is what you can expect when everything's going to plan. But beaming all this data back to Earth will take many months.

When New Horizons flies by Pluto on 14 July, Ralph will deliver colour images that show surface features as small as a few km across.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32311907

 

[luso]

Does anyone know how close it will get at the nearest point? I hope we can finally get a reasonably clear view of the surface.

Wikipedia is your friend, 12,500 km. Pretty close!

Launched in 2006, and using tech older than that specific year. So we depend on stuff done 10+ ago.

 

[Bear]

You're going to be happy then.

Wikipedia is your friend, 12,500 km. Pretty close!

Launched in 2006, and using tech older than that specific year. So we depend on stuff done 10+ ago.

Wow, that's awesome. I didn't realize we were going to get such close footage of Pluto so soon.

Those stand-in images are really enticing, I can't wait to get a look at the actual photos once they are available.

 

[Future]

Ridiculous how that we can still communicate with that thing. How isn't all our money not going into just probing space constantly. Every year instead of a stupid iPhone conference I should be seeing the latest and greatest in space tech and what's flying out this year

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Ridiculous how that we can still communicate with that thing.

The fact that we can still communicate with the Voyagers is even more impressive. It won't be until the 2020s when they run out of energy that we'll lose them.

And this has their current distance.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/

 

[Kysen]

Mind boggling how far they have traveled and just how big the solar system is. The Suns gravity must be something else to hold objects that far away.

 

[Space Monster]

Man, it would be cool if we could park a probe at the barycenter of the system. The probe would stay stationary, and Pluto and Charon would rotate around it.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-fro...ety-on-plutos-close-approach-hemisphere-and-a

In a long series of images obtained by New Horizons’ telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) May 29-June 19, Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, appear to more than double in size. From this rapidly improving imagery, scientists on the New Horizons team have found that the “close approach hemisphere” on Pluto that New Horizons will fly over has the greatest variety of terrain types seen on the planet so far. They have also discovered that Charon has a “dark pole” – a mysterious dark region that forms a kind of anti-polar cap.

"This system is just amazing," said Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator, from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. "The science team is just ecstatic with what we see on Pluto’s close approach hemisphere: Every terrain type we see on the planet—including both the brightest and darkest surface areas —are represented there, it’s a wonderland!

"And about Charon—wow—I don’t think anyone expected Charon to reveal a mystery like dark terrains at its pole," he continued. "Who ordered that?"

New Horizons scientists use a technique called deconvolution to sharpen the raw, unprocessed pictures that the spacecraft beams back to Earth; the contrast in these latest images has also been stretched to bring out additional details. Deconvolution can occasionally produce artifacts, so the team will be carefully reviewing newer images taken from closer range to determine whether some of the tantalizing details seen in these images persist. Pluto’s non-spherical appearance in these images is not real; it results from a combination of the image-processing technique and Pluto’s large variations in surface brightness.

"The unambiguous detection of bright and dark terrain units on both Pluto and Charon indicates a wide range of diverse landscapes across the pair," said science team co-investigator and imaging lead Jeff Moore, of NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. “For example, the bright fringe we see on Pluto may represent frost deposited from an evaporating polar cap, which is now in summer sun.”

 

[Higgy]

Sorry for this question, it's probably dumb. So if we point Hubble at Pluto what would we see? I always assumed that since Hubble can see deep into the universe that it could be used to examine something like Pluto.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Sorry for this question, it's probably dumb. So if we point Hubble at Pluto what would we see? I always assumed that since Hubble can see deep into the universe that it could be used to examine something like Pluto.

I wish there was a way to search the internet to find the answer.


Seriously all it sees is an unresolved blob.

 

[Xe4]

Sorry for this question, it's probably dumb. So if we point Hubble at Pluto what would we see? I always assumed that since Hubble can see deep into the universe that it could be used to examine something like Pluto.

It used to be the highest resolution photo of pluto, until New Horizons a this month, I think.

 

[Higgy]

I wish there was a way to search the internet to find the answer.


Seriously all it sees is an unresolved blob.

Or just ask about it a thread about Pluto from people who are passionate about it. Much more interesting.

Anyway thanks for the pic.

 

[Volimar]

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-fro...ety-on-plutos-close-approach-hemisphere-and-a

It's a giant skull! Pluto is Knowhere, confirmed.

 

[RiverBed]

Why does the video state 2015 for when pluto is visited? Didn't either of the Voyagers visit it?

Also, I am sad that the years between the planets visited were relatively short, but then it takes a huge leap till Pluto's visit. As an Astrophysics nut, I would love to see space exploration be in the main stream media and a constant global focus/push.

Anyways, I think I'll shed tears of joy when I see the first clear images of Pluto. I feel like being on a ship exploring brave new worlds and my eyes would be among the first to ever witness them- and I am and we all will be. Such feats don't happen every day. I'll be telling the story of where I was when this happened in the far future- just like with every space milestone that happened in my lifetime.
What a time to be alive.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Why does the video state 2015 for when pluto is visited? Didn't either of the Voyagers visit it?

Voyager 1 could have but they didn't.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Voyager_1

Because Pioneer 11 had one year earlier detected a thick, gaseous atmosphere over Titan, the Voyager space probes' controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory elected for Voyager 1 to make a close approach of Titan. Its trajectory with a close flyby of Titan caused a gravitational deflection that sent Voyager 1 onto a trajectory that took it below the south pole of Saturn and out of the plane of the ecliptic, thus ending its planetary science mission. Voyager 1 could have been directed to visit Uranus and Neptune (later accomplished by Voyager 2). Also, Voyager 1 could have been commanded onto a different trajectory, whereby the gravitational slingshot effect of Saturn's mass would have steered and boosted it out to a flyby of Pluto. However, this Plutonian option was not exercised, because the close flyby of Titan was determined to have more scientific value and less risk

Voyager 2 went by Uranus and Neptune. There was no way it could get to Pluto, so they put it on a trajectory that could flyby both Neptune and it's moon Triton before it went out of the system.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Voyager_2

Because this was the last planet of the Solar System that Voyager 2 could visit, the Chief Project Scientist, his staff members, and the flight controllers decided to also perform a close fly-by of Triton, the larger of Neptune's two originally known moons, so as to gather as much information on Neptune and Triton as possible, regardless of Voyager 2's departure angle from the planet. This was just like the case of Voyager 1's encounters with Saturn and its massive moon Titan.

EDIT:

Sorry for this question, it's probably dumb. So if we point Hubble at Pluto what would we see? I always assumed that since Hubble can see deep into the universe that it could be used to examine something like Pluto.

Someone covered you on the image but if you want the "why" then read this.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/02141014-hubble-galaxy-pluto.html

 

[RyanardoDaVinci]

Sorry for this question, it's probably dumb. So if we point Hubble at Pluto what would we see? I always assumed that since Hubble can see deep into the universe that it could be used to examine something like Pluto.

Maybe Pluto moves too fast for Hubble to get a clear image?

All of Hubble's deep space pictures are of relatively stationary objects, perhaps Hubble looking at Pluto is like trying to track a fly with binoculars?

 

[Upsidedown Fuji]

This is exciting news. I can't wait to see it clearly later next month. Incredible.

 

[Soul Beat]

We're gonna see aliens. Calling it right now.

 

[Mik2121]

Really looking forward to seeing what we can get from this!
News should talk about this a bit more... :/

 

[rokkerkory]

Amazing human feat! Just crazy how science has come.

 

[Space Monster]

Can't wait to see what UNEF Miami Base looks like.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

We'll discover one of two things.

1. A Gamilan base on Pluto.

2. Charon is actually a mass relay.

Place your bets, people.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Maybe Pluto moves too fast for Hubble to get a clear image?

All of Hubble's deep space pictures are of relatively stationary objects, perhaps Hubble looking at Pluto is like trying to track a fly with binoculars?

No, it's simply too small of an object at that distance. Our moon is significantly larger than it and pluto is at the outer reaches of the solar system. That's why with the exception of like a handful of stars, no telescope, not even Hubble can resolve stars as anything but points of light.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

We'll discover one of two things.

1. A Gamilan base on Pluto.

2. Charon is actually a mass relay.

Place your bets, people.

That's no moon.

 

[RiverBed]

Voyager 1 could have but they didn't.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Voyager_1
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Voyager_2

Thanks so much for the info. Fascinating.

When the first images of Pluto from New Horizons came in recently, for a split second, I was confused since they were blurry. Then I found out it was closing in on it. But for a second, I felt like this:

 

[Branduil]

What's the final "resolution" we'll get for the closest image?

 

[Log4Girlz]

What's the final "resolution" we'll get for the closest image?

I think half a kilometer per pixel or there abouts

 

[liliththepale]

Maybe Pluto moves too fast for Hubble to get a clear image?

All of Hubble's deep space pictures are of relatively stationary objects, perhaps Hubble looking at Pluto is like trying to track a fly with binoculars?

No, it has to do with scale. Like if the Pillars of Creation are 100K times as far from Earth as Pluto is, but it's 100MM times larger than Pluto, then we're going to be able to get a picture 1000 times clearer. Those aren't the right numbers, but you get the idea.