New Horizon's Passing Close To Pluto On Tues...high Rez Images Incoming Soon Of Pluto And It's Moons.

[ContraBardus]

We should be getting some very cool images soon. The seriously high rez ones will probably take some time to become available, but we'll definitely be getting some great pics of Pluto and it's moons from the Navigation cam almost instantly.

New Horizons will be passing about 12,000km from Pluto, that's roughly the width of the Earth. The largest of the cameras is LORRI which has a 8.2" telescope lens on it and is Black and White. During the close flyby it will take images that are roughly 70m per pixel, that's super detailed. It will stop sending data during the flyby in order to put all of it's resources towards collecting data, and we'll be getting information back from it for about a year after, but we'll have some very cool pics to drool over in the near future from the probe.

 

After my last post, I wonder if Chandra Wickramasinghe will claim there is evidence of life on Pluto when the pics drop?

[duderonomy]

I keep hoping that they get a great photo of Pluto raising its middle finger with a caption that reads, "Dwarf this, motherfuckers!"

 

But then, I'm old.

[ContraBardus]

I keep hoping that they get a great photo of Pluto raising its middle finger with a caption that reads, "Dwarf this, motherfuckers!"

 

But then, I'm old.

 

 

"I wuv you even if you say I'm not a pwanet anymore..."

[TheOutsider]

Huh, It's less blue than the cartoon representations lead me to believe.

 

Seriously, that's pretty cool.

[ContraBardus]

 

This is probably the last best look at this side of Pluto for decades to come...

[Thought2Much]

We should be getting some very cool images soon. The seriously high rez ones will probably take some time to become available, but we'll definitely be getting some great pics of Pluto and it's moons from the Navigation cam almost instantly.

 

The high resolution images will be sent to Earth over the next 16 months, due to the low bandwidth (which in turn is due to the low strength) of the signal.

 

After my last post, I wonder if Chandra Wickramasinghe will claim there is evidence of life on Pluto when the pics drop?

 

Probably.

[Jeff]

Is that a pyramid I see???? Omg!

[WarriorPoet]

Is that a pyramid I see???? Omg!

Around the 7-8 o'clock position it looks like, well I'll let you figure it out for yourselves.

 

R'amen

[Tsathoggua]

Yuggoth! My beloved homeworld! Such a beautiful sight!

 

Okay, i'll stop, now.  Nifty pics!

[Thought2Much]

 

Is that a pyramid I see???? Omg!

Around the 7-8 o'clock position it looks like, well I'll let you figure it out for yourselves.

 

R'amen

 

 

My god... it's full of carbs...

[bornagainathiest]

Pluto (right) and it's major moon, Charon.

 

[bornagainathiest]

[ContraBardus]

[duderonomy]

^^^ Good Gawd that's funny! ^^^

[ContraBardus]

It was only a matter of time...

 

[Fweethawt]

Here's live footage as the satellite passed by.

.

http://i.imgur.com/7C2GfIF.gif

[Fweethawt]

[Burny]

Here's what I posted on FB yesterday. Some of my xtian friends / family even "liked" it, which made me wonder if they read what I wrote...

 

I find this historical accomplishment by NASA overwhelming. Often people ask why we should spend billions of dollars on such "trivial" or "wasteful" science when we have so many (expensive) issues to solve on our own planet. This is a good point, but I think the money is well spent as long as folks back on Earth take some time to think about the implications of these achievements.

 

I mean, think about it yourself for a few moments. Almost a decade after sending up an object the size of a piano into space, it arrives over 3 billion miles later and travelling at over 31,000 miles per hour at precisely the place it was supposed to - all because of some pretty decent mathematics. Think about the fact that this tiny craft never hit anything as it flew so fast - even hitting something as small as a tennis ball would have blown it apart at 31,000 mph.

 

This is how incredibly vast the universe is! It's so darn big that you don't even hit anything else as you travel through it. And remember, this is just one tiny, tiny corner of just one galaxy which contains millions of other solar systems. There are billions of galaxies, each with potentially billions of their own planetary bodies, each circling their own suns. Each one the "center" of its own existence.

 

I often wonder how it's possible that in all this unimaginable vastness, such a tiny and insignificant species as ourselves managed to make it all about US as if somehow WE are what it's ALL about - and then we narrow it even more by saying it's only those humans that think about reality EXACTLY like we do, that are eternally important.

 

Meditating on where we truly are in the immensity of the universe in which we find ourselves and the reality of our own importance in it humbles me more than anything else ever has and makes our wars and our hate and our prejudice seem incredibly trite, useless and immature. Think about all the HATE and ANGUISH we have perpetrated on each other over our short history on this tiny blue speck of dust floating around our sun at 67,000 mph in a solar system that's moving around the center of our galaxy at 490,000 mph!! (Our galaxy is also moving btw - at 1000 kilometers per second!)

 

I can only hope that we will eventually rise out of our petty ignorance and selfishness, to unite and gaze up at the sky in wonder - TOGETHER.

[Fweethawt]

Where did you get your numbers for the speeds of everything?

[Thought2Much]

Where did you get your numbers for the speeds of everything?

 

I always use this as my reference:

 

[Thought2Much]

One big surprise revealed today: Pluto has newly formed mountains up to 11,000 feet high. No one is sure what could cause that kind of activity within Pluto's crust to create that kind of geology.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto

[ContraBardus]

[ContraBardus]

[Fweethawt]

 

http://i.imgur.com/D9rEUkQ.jpg

[ContraBardus]