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New Horizons Pluto Encounter
- Thread starter obeygiant
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Latest NASA photo of Pluto, via Twitter.
It has just reached its closest point to Pluto!
Reports of today's encounter should come in around 9PM EST tonight. Definitely switching from the ASG to take a look.
NASA said good close-encounter photos should be released tomorrow.
Onward to the next Kuiper Belt Object!
Onward to the next Kuiper Belt Object!
Amazing how NASA can receive images from 3 billion miles away yet I can't even get a good wifi signal in my backyard.
Who knew there would be a giant white heart on Pluto?!!? Wild!
It reminds me of … "The Earth creature has the illudium Q-38 space modulator!"
New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, says the mission now is writing the textbook on Pluto.
"The New Horizons team is proud to have accomplished the first exploration of the Pluto system,” Stern said. “This mission has inspired people across the world with the excitement of exploration and what humankind can achieve.”
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 (60 by 90 kilometers) 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 mph, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft. Once it reestablishes contact Tuesday night, it will take 16 months for New Horizons to send its cache of data — 10 years’ worth — back to Earth.
“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.”
"The New Horizons team is proud to have accomplished the first exploration of the Pluto system,” Stern said. “This mission has inspired people across the world with the excitement of exploration and what humankind can achieve.”
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 (60 by 90 kilometers) 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 mph, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft. Once it reestablishes contact Tuesday night, it will take 16 months for New Horizons to send its cache of data — 10 years’ worth — back to Earth.
“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.”
This is bizarre. Dude painted this in '79.
Now with these pictures, the Ames Research and New Horizons teams need to go to the International Astronomical Union, step on the podium to speak to them, put the NASA picture up on a huge monitor in front of them, and say just 4 simple words:
Pluto. IS. A. PLANET.
Drop the mic, then walk offstage.
BL.
Pluto. IS. A. PLANET.
Drop the mic, then walk offstage.
BL.
This is bizarre. Dude painted this in '79.
Cue the eerie background music!
Thanks for posting this; it's brilliant and uplifting and wonderful to watch.
Wow.
On the train today, I had a similar complaint…..
Oh, yes. A heartfelt amen to that.
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Don't you all worry sometimes that NASA is just a fancy way to funnel taxpayers money into God knows what? Maybe there's no Pluto at all.
Put your assumptions aside for a minute and think about it: they launched a rocket, and left it to drift in Space. Once in a while they ask an artist to draw some image in Photoshop, and they release it, saying "this is Pluto". How can we check they are saying the truth? Are we supposed to trust them? And the final images, honestly, look too much like the ones published by that artist in 1979.
Put your assumptions aside for a minute and think about it: they launched a rocket, and left it to drift in Space. Once in a while they ask an artist to draw some image in Photoshop, and they release it, saying "this is Pluto". How can we check they are saying the truth? Are we supposed to trust them? And the final images, honestly, look too much like the ones published by that artist in 1979.
Don't you all worry sometimes that NASA is just a fancy way to funnel taxpayers money into God knows what? Maybe there's no Pluto at all.
Put your assumptions aside for a minute and think about it: they launched a rocket, and left it to drift in Space. Once in a while they ask an artist to draw some image in Photoshop, and they release it, saying "this is Pluto". How can we check they are saying the truth? Are we supposed to trust them? And the final images, honestly, look too much like the ones published by that artist in 1979.
Well, @juanm, let me put it this way.
These days, there are very few things which return me to that state of dizzy excitement and awe-struck wonder that I experienced and felt as a kid, teenager, and later, young adult reading about, (and watching, agog, on news reports on TV) stories about space travel and exploration. This does.
There was even a time in my life when all I wanted to do was be a scientist, and stare at the stars (but fossils interested me, too, as did history) for the rest of my life.
So, the bottom line is - that, for at least twenty four hours - I don't care if this is an elaborate fraud perpetrated upon us all: I want to believe - call it a willing suspension of disbelief, if you like.
Then, given my well known even and docile temperament and benign and gentle disposition, should legitimate searching questions need to be asked, I am sure I can manage the barbed tone of interrogation required.
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Surely you're not serious.
And now my moderator hat...
Mod note: Let's keep the PRSI talk out of this thread please.
No, he is winding us up.
Let us have our fun, and let us savour our excitement. Actually, firstly, I have bitten my tongue - instead of the chilli nut I was aiming at, your post annoyed me so much; @juanm, your post reminds me of the kind of kid who would kick another kid's sandcastle down for the sheer sadistic thrill of it. Don't be a sandcastle kicker, please.
I remember staring at the moon as a kid and being awestruck with amazement that there were a few intrepid individuals on it for a few days. Their travels - and travails - haunted me.
of course I'm not serious.. but it would actually be very funny to go there in person, centuries from now, and realise Pluto doesn't look at all like what we're being shown, and that it was all a joke from some long since dead scientists at NASA.Surely you're not serious.
And now my moderator hat...
Mod note: Let's keep the PRSI talk out of this thread please.
Don't you all worry sometimes that NASA is just a fancy way to funnel taxpayers money into God knows what? Maybe there's no Pluto at all.
Put your assumptions aside for a minute and think about it: they launched a rocket, and left it to drift in Space. Once in a while they ask an artist to draw some image in Photoshop, and they release it, saying "this is Pluto". How can we check they are saying the truth? Are we supposed to trust them? And the final images, honestly, look too much like the ones published by that artist in 1979.
This is the thread you are looking for.
Confirmation of a successful fly around.
