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Mission to Pluto: New Horizons


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Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire

I can't wait to see what New Horizons shows us. I've always wondered what Pluto was like ever since I first got into astronomy 25 years ago.

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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

It's certainly going to get 'very' interesting from this point onwards. 

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Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire

It almost looks a bit like a lighter version of Mars. Can't wait to see some more detailed surface pictures when New Horizons gets closer.

 

What's weird is that despite both being Kuiper belt objects, Pluto and Charon appear to be completely different. This probably suggests they weren't formed close together and Charon was 'captured'.

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Posted
  • Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Location: Bratislava, Slovakia

It almost looks a bit like a lighter version of Mars. Can't wait to see some more detailed surface pictures when New Horizons gets closer.

 

What's weird is that despite both being Kuiper belt objects, Pluto and Charon appear to be completely different. This probably suggests they weren't formed close together and Charon was 'captured'.

Pluto & Charon are technically a double planet (planetoid, dwarf planet, whatever) because the centre of gravity between the two lies above the surface of the larger companion. As a comparison, the centre of gravity between Earth and the Moon likes beneath the Earth's surface, so the Moon is technically a satellite.

 

Amazing to see proper colour imagery appearing. Pluto almost doesn't seem that far away.

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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

7.8 Million km

 

lor_0298615084_0x630_sci_1.jpg

Edited by Polar Maritime
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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

New Horizons just took the best picture it will ever take of Pluto's farside from a distance of 2.5 million miles:


 


Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, describes this image as "the last, best look that anyone will have of Pluto's farside for decades to come."


Of particular interest on the farside are four dark spots connected to a dark belt that circles Pluto's equatorial region. What continues to pique the interest of scientists is their similar size and even spacing. "It's weird that they're spaced so regularly," says New Horizons program scientist Curt Niebur at NASA Headquarters.  Jeff Moore of NASA's Ames Research Center is equally intrigued: "We can't tell whether they're plateaus or plains, or whether they're brightness variations on a completely smooth surface." The spots appear on the side of Pluto that always faces its largest moon, Charon.


No one knows what these spots are, but there is hope for a solution to the mystery: "When we combine images like this of the farside with composition and color data the spacecraft has already acquired but not yet sent to Earth, we expect to be able to read the history of this face of Pluto," says Moore.


When New Horizons makes its closest approach to Pluto in just two days, it will focus on the nearside of the dwarf planet. On the morning of July 14, New Horizons will pass about 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) from the face with a large heart-shaped feature that's captured the imagination of people around the world.


 

farside_strip.jpg


 


http://spaceweather.com/


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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

New Horizons: Pluto probe enters key flyby phase

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33517532

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Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire

1 hour to go until flyby, I bet they're all holding their breaths until tonight when contact is re-established at mission control!

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Posted
  • Location: Near Beverley, East Yorks. (5 metres a.s.l.)
  • Weather Preferences: Something good in all four seasons
  • Location: Near Beverley, East Yorks. (5 metres a.s.l.)

post-3933-0-86088600-1436884098_thumb.pn

 

The last full photo of Pluto (NASA) as fly by time was reached.

Really looking forward to the full frame close-up details to come

after midnight.

Amazing science.

 

B.  :)

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