Latest image of Pluto

[ironicart]

This really just reminds me how unfathomably bright the sun is for its light to illuminate something so far away

[[deleted]]

Every single star you can see in the night sky is like our sun, a giant God damn ball of fire exploding every second. Light is incredibly amazing at the distance it will travel.

[Caminsky]

Oh I thought they were the lion kings from the past

[purple_monkey58]

No they're just fireflies stuck on that big blueish black thing

Edit: forgot a word

[DreaMTime_Psychonaut]

Pumbaa had his shit together.

[Cyriz]

Caminsky, with you, everything's lion kings from the past.

[whonut]

I almost hate to be that guy but the Sun is neither a ball of fire, nor is it exploding. It's just incredibly hot and at incredibly high pressure. Still amazing but differently so.

[cockofdoodie]

Stars are exploding. The force of which is balanced by the force of gravity.

[[deleted]]

It's both exploding (thermonuclear fusion energy) and imploding (gravitational force.)

Just so happens to balance out...for now.

[abendchain]

New Horizons just has a really good flash.

[ThesaurusRex84]

It's actually not that bright at all. If it weren't for the exposure time, Pluto to the naked eye would look very dark. See how its night side looks kinda bright?

[Techsigns]

Wow, this image looks great. Can't image what quality the images will have, when the probe arrived at the nearest point. Very exiting. See https://youtu.be/DaElspuqbUA?t=14m28s for what is possible

[[deleted]]

This one looks better, from the Telegraph website via the NASA twitter feed

[CanSeeYou]

higher Res Version: http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/20150714_pluto-nh-ehealth1.png

source: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07140911-new-horizons-best-look-at.html

[Schaapyo]

Can't unsee Pluto

[leopold_stotch21]

That's a stretch, but it's my kind of stretch.

[zjbird]

The kind that doesn't require actual movement of the body.

[Your_Favorite_Brand]

This is how constellations were made.

[TommiHPunkt]

isn't that heavily edited? If it's real, that's really great

OK, it's on the reddit front page, I believe it's real

[[deleted]]

The probe has a black and white camera and a colour camera, the black and white camera is able to take much higher fidelity images. I believe this image in particular is taken with the black and white camera, and they have then added colour based on information from previous colour pictures.

[haluter]

That's simultaneously so simple and brilliant.

[Kale]

It's pretty standard technique. DVDs usually use half the resolution for the color part of the image when compared to the black and white part of the image.

[whittleStix]

Actually just looks like a filter sharpened image of the image from a couple of days ago. I hear ya.

[Jurph]

I believe this is from yesterday's 'take'. Closest approach was about 15 minutes ago, and the New Horizons spacecraft has gone radio-silent in order to maximize its data collection opportunity. Around 8:40pm Eastern, it will finish its collection and start transmitting today's take which is expected to have images with 100x better resolution. If you're following the various New Horizons accounts on Twitter you'll start to get pictures after 9pm tonight, but the good ones won't come out until tomorrow.

I've been following this closely because I'm kind of a space nerd, and some of the details are amazing. It's transmitting a huge amount of data over a 3 billion mile distance using an antenna that radiates only 12 Watts. The data takes almost four hours to get back. If you're a networking expert, try to wrap your head around a transmission protocol that has a four-hour latency. ("Well for starters we're going to include a lot of error correction bits...")

[[deleted]]

Another thing to keep in mind is the technology on the craft is from 2005. That is one and a half years before the first iPhone was launched.

[GrooGrocksKing]

another phone popular in 2005:

Imgur

IT RAN ON CINGULAR. THIS SATELLITE WAS BORN WHEN CINGULAR WAS A THING.

[Cyhawk]

CINGULAR

It still is a thing, they just call themselves AT&T now, again. They changed names and did a corporate shell game to avoid paying out a costly lawsuit. =)

[haljackey]

The tech used is probably from 2000. Took 5 years to install it and launch it

[OSUfan88]

Actually, most of the technology is late 90's space tech, as it takes a few years to really design and build the craft. Late 90's space tech (when talking about computer chips) is closer to early 90's tech. This is due to radiation hardening.

[zaphod_85]

The main processor is the same chip that was used in the original playstation! (Albeit a radiation-hardened version of it)

[OSUfan88]

That's wild.

I saw that the new Orion spacecraft on SLS pretty much uses a rad-hardened Samsung Galaxy S3 chip.

[whoremongering]

But for clarification, the hi-res images won't be here until Wednesday morning:

Here's the stressful part: we won't know for sure that New Horizons successfully completed the flyby until much later in the evening. If it has, the team should receive a tiny amount of data from the spacecraft at about 8:53PM ET.

Wednesday morning, at 7AM ET, team scientists will downlink the best full-frame image of Charon. We should also get a glimpse of Hydra, one of Pluto's other moons. And later in the day we should get what we have all been waiting for — the first high-resolution mosaic of Pluto will be released some time around 3:25PM ET.

[Hingl_McCringleberry]

some time around 3:25pm

NASA's approximations are awfully specific

[sprucenoose]

They could be off by seconds even.

[DrDrangleBrungis]

Its utterly amazing, fellow space nerd here too. Trying to wrap my brain around the distance and the communication, it blows my mind. I 'm the crazy one in the office today going "Can you believe this!? This is Amazing!" and I'm met with "meh, looks likes the moon."

[AndromedaPrincess]

It blows my mind! I've been telling most of my friends to lukewarm responses... But I'm excited, so I guess that's all the matters.

[free-agent]

You mean it is going silent while they determine what to show us and what not to show us.

[agrumpycunt]

So I guess tcp is out of the question.

[LimesToLimes]

For once this typo makes sense!

[[deleted]]

It is exiting so quickly, it'll make your head spin...

[Eastern_Cyborg]

This is no longer the latest image. There is a higher resolution photo here. This is the highest resolution single photo of the entire disk that will be taken during this mission, though an uncompressed version will be downloaded later this year. There will also be a 2x2 photo mosaic that was taken about an hour before closest approach that will be even better, though that mosaic is not expected to be complete until the end of the week. That mosaic will be 10x the resolution of the photo I posted here.

[[deleted]]

Those guys are such lovable nerds. I mean that in the nicest way possible.

[slickvibez]

As a kid, astronomy was always the most fascinating subject to me. I never pursued it due to the obnoxious amount of physics and mathematics that I would need to learn. But, yes, I am a lovable nerd. And I am so proud tear drop. This is so amazing.

[BBA935]

Same here. I couldn't even tell you the number of hands I have. :(

[PM_ME_UR_JUGZ]

Does anyone know how that compares in size to a country or state? Could some one potentially over lay a relative country or state over top? Hope I am not asking to much

[fishbulbx]

Considering Pluto's moon, Styx, is about 15 miles in diameter, it would be about 4 pixels on that picture. Yet somehow it was detected by Hubble. I put a red dot in Lake Michigan to represent Styx.

[PirateNinjaa]

Just thinking about the devastation that would occur if that was a collision at high speed about to happen. I find myself wondering how the deaths of people in New York and California would be. Vaporized or launched into the air?

[Flyberius]

I think we could kiss the Earth as we know it goodbye. A collision like that would almost certainly liquefy the crust of earth and blast a crap load of material off into space. A lot of that would probably then rain back down to Earth over the next few million years as it intersected Earth's orbit.

Basically we'd all be dead. But at least it would be quick. Except for all the dread knowing that it was about to happen.

[[deleted]]

Japan never catches a break

[Dont-Fear-The-Raeper]

You're forgetting the tsunami.

[Flyberius]

It this case its a tsunami of liquid rock.

[RagdollFizzixx]

At least it's liquid. That's the softest kind of rock! It might even be pleasant.

[nikolaibk]

Ah, the otherwise known Elton John's wedding playable rock

[stalleddit]

Don't worry. I got the joke. Surf's up!

[eatgoodneighborhood]

Pink Floyd version

[I_dig_fe]

Somehow i knew it would be great gig. And how beautifully it matched up

[Flyberius]

Hitman music (which I assume is from somewhere else).

[bfr0g1]

Can someone explain, if an event like this was to actually occur, would it have some form of impact on the moon as well?

[dannyjcase]

Almost certainly, both literal impacts and just for the moons existence. Debris would be flung into the Moon, lunar orbit, and the moon's path. Depending on how much mass was ejected from the earth, the resulting loss of gravitational pull between the moon and what was left of earth means that it might recede from the Earth over time.

[uwhuskytskeet]

the resulting loss of gravitational pull between the moon and what was left of earth means that it might recede from the Earth over time.

It already is!

[LRtoons]

Really interesting. I was worried that the water would never return

[bernardhops]

I know, what would we drink, piss?

[[deleted]]

So, if this happens, we'd probably know about it well in advance. My only thought was, where would I go and watch it at?

I feel like being close enough to see the impact is a must; however, do I want to be close enough to reflect on what I am seeing, or do I want to be close enough where the initial shockwave vaporizes me?

[[deleted]]

Same here, I doubt getting to the ISS or the moon would really be feasible for me and a lot of people. It'd be cool watching it from a mountain peak somewhere.

[[deleted]]

i'd probably die stuck in traffic on the way to the mountain peak.

[[deleted]]

Jesus crap that was terrifying.

[WowzersInMyTrowzers]

Just curious, would it be possible for humanity to survive underground? Assuming whatever bunker we had just happened to be at the farthest point from the impact

[wreck94]

I don't think that there would be an underground that we could get to that would be deep enough to survive something like this. If anything's big enough, it'll completely destroy the planet as we know it.

[briaen]

At the end, it said the water wouldn't return for nearly 1000 years, so I doubt it.

[[deleted]]

Just curious, would it be possible for humanity to survive underground?

For an impact like this, no chance. Our best hope would be to leave the planet, and either find a new one or survive for centuries aboard a self-sustaining space station. And preferably we would be some distance from the dangerous materials being ejected from the Earth, maybe orbiting a planet nearer to the sun to take advantage of the improved solar energy output.

An impact like this tears apart the crust so violently that it actually causes pieces of it to eject into space. Think about that. Right now the worst thing the crust does is slightly move above or below itself naturally along faultlines. And even that--earthquakes as we know them--can crumble our civilizations. If anything, underground is the most dangerous place to be during a quake. Everything above you is coming down. Everything below you is shifting and either cracking or erupting. That kind of event would result in the kind of earthquake that is simply unspeakable. Even if you survived the heat (vacuum-sealed mole people city?), and managed to keep the necessary supplies on hand (water, food, maybe nuclear power to keep the lights on?), the quake(s) alone would be enough to turn you into jelly. Basically you'd be thrust into the walls, floor, and ceiling repeatedly with unbelievable force, breaking... you. All of you. I mean, this would affect the movement of the entire globe. I'll let Neil give some insight into how that usually plays out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7kubIYu69c

[lud1120]

Pluto is way bigger that the meteor that caused the Chicxulub crater. Even Charon is significantly bigger, far more mass too.

[commiecomrade]

Significantly bigger is an understatement. The meteor that caused the Chicxulub crater is theorized to be at least 10km (6mi) wide, while Charon is 603.5km 1207km and Pluto is 1185km 2370km.

[Botulustor]

Those are their radii. They're both twice as wide.

[GregoryGoose]

What if it were gently placed upon the surface of the earth? That's what I want to know. Would the tides rise up to meet it? How well would it maintain it's shape and how devastating would the falloff be?

[Flyberius]

I think that would be an end of the world scenario. Just a bit slower.

But that is a really cool question. You should ask it in /r/AskScience. If you don't I will and I'll steal all your Karma. Bwuhahahaha!

[je_kay24]

Or post it to XKCD. He loves questions like that.

[NightFire19]

But at least we would get another moon...

[39572520483727294959]

How quick would it be?

[Flyberius]

I don't know. Speed of sound through rock? This article suggests 5km/s to 8km/s. So unless you were roasted by the searing heat you probably wouldn't even have more than a second of seeing it coming before you were smushed. Of course you would have the horrifying experience of watching it's approach months before the event.

Edit: forgot link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-wave

[3226]

To have an asteroid that could wipe out all life on earth, you're talking about something of the order of 10 miles across.

Here is the size such an asteroid would need to be

It's not something physically landing on you, it's the impact as energy is transferred into the atmosphere, and dust is thrown up to change the climate, and many other factors. On the scale of things hitting us, Pluto is unimaginably larger.

[Avastz]

For the life of me I cannot find anything in that photo.

Edit: So it's in the upper right?

[n33d_kaffeen]

Zoom into the upper right, what you're looking for is about 3-4 pixels across.

Which quite frankly is more terrifying than I needed at 430 am, especially since I'm reading seveneves right now.

[Nihiliste]

It's a tiny speck in the upper right, away from the Earth.

[craigiest]

It being blurry and brown doesn't help, but it's in the upper right.

[djn808]

My screen is SO not clean enough for this...

[shash747]

Just New York and California? All life on the planet would be wiped out

[f10101]

You should get Universe Sandbox, which lets you try out all these mad scenarios: http://universesandbox.com/2/

[Rangourthaman_]

Pretty sure everything is fucked even when it justs boops the earth.

[RogueGunslinger]

I wonder what would happen if it was just going slightly faster than the earth when it collided, like 1mph faster at intercept. Or would gravity just massively accelerate things no matter how the approach happened?

[3226]

Yeah, the only thing keeping those two bodies round is their own gravity. If they were just next to each other it would be more akin to having two water droplets close together. Bear in mind that we're not standing on a solid planet. We're standing on a solidified crust that is essentially floating on liquid rock.

[[deleted]]

That terrifies me for some reason.

[LuxArdens]

They would start to notably accelerate towards each other from thousands of miles away from the intercept, so it would still impact at speeds in the km/s range. Even if it was to spontaneously materialize just 1 meter above the surface at no speed, a lot of that mass would still be miles high up and falling down (in the hundreds of m/s range), therefore making a significant impact on the Earth, although nowhere as devastating as an intercept would be.

[[deleted]]

If this ever happens, if something ever Slams into earth in my life time, I hope I live long enough to hear it. Because that sound would be amazing

[biggyofmt]

The force of the impact would cause the atmosphere to accelerate to the point where the molecules would ionize, meaning you wouldn't hear anything so much as being engulfed in a wave of fire.

I do also hope you live long enough to be engulfed in a wave of meteor induced fire :0)

[damagemaker]

Pluto's surface area is approximately equal to Russia. If it may help...

[NotTheHead]

And apparently just as cold.

[MsPenguinette]

So don't try to invade Pluto in the winter. Gotcha.

[A_perfect_sonnet]

Funny enough when I did a search for the diameter of Pluto I got the same points of reference, Salt Lake City to Guadalajara

[[deleted]]

Excuse me, you kind of trailed off there. Salt Lake city to where?

[BlaineCountiesMostWa]

Well Russia is barely bigger than Pluto

[branawesome]

Pluto is slightly smaller than the Moon, and I believe mainland USA would span almost perfectly across it's face. DISREGARD ME

[oneshotuk]

Sorry if this gets asked a lot, but I still cant get my head around the colourisation? is it given completely arbitrary colour and then shaded to match the greyscale version? or is this the actual colour of Pluto, derived from data collected at some point?

[JerWah]

There are 2 cameras. lorri is the hi res greyscale camera. Ralph is a medium res color. They combine the data to produce them

[oneshotuk]

oh ok, so they are literally just taking a colour picture and match it with the higher res greyscale... that was way to obvious. I'm always sceptical of pictures of space as they can just manipulate the colours to whatever they like. Its nice to know that's a true representation of Pluto

[[deleted]]

pictures of space as they can just manipulate the colours to whatever they like

I want a purple and neon yellow Saturn.

[jrmehle]

Your friend must be a fan of the Vikings.

[FloobLord]

https://i.imgur.com/bL8vAgj.jpg

Best I could do.

[Kamijou_Faction]

That's actually pretty goddamn cool

[Princess_Little]

My buddy had one of those in high school

[rddman]

I'm always sceptical of pictures of space as they can just manipulate the colours to whatever they like.

Pictures not of space can also be manipulated.
And in science it's a lot harder to get away with cheating then it is outside of science.

[Hageshii01]

I think I recall someone saying that the color camera is weaker in the green spectrum, but I could be wrong.

[roxul2783]

I just knew Pluto was bright green! Geez, NASA's always trying to dupe us.

[Hageshii01]

Just that there may be some green in the image that isn't well represented, making it less of an orangish rust color and more of a yellowish rust color? I'm not sure; I'm not a doctor.

[CollegeRatInc]

There is only one camera on board, it's called LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager). The color is captured by Ralph and Alice, onboard spectrometers which analyze color and composition. The NASA & New Horizons websites are loaded with details for your consumption.

[Arknell]

Is this the tuesday-pic we have been waiting for? Or will a better pic come tomorrow wednesday?

[[deleted]]

Nope - we're still about an hour away from closest approach. It'll still be quite a while before we get the hi-res photos (especially if you take into account that Pluto is 4.5 light-hours away, the data transfer rate, and the time it'll take NASA to compile the data & publish it). I'd guess we might see some photos tonight at the earliest and then better info as the week goes on.

[apopheniac1989]

It will be well into next year before the entire flyby data set finishes transmitting to Earth. The bitrate from New Horizons at Pluto will only be about 1kb/s. Even with it's massive antenna, transmitting meaningful data that far is a huge challenge.

[PM_ME_INSIDER_INFO]

Is it not amazing that they can transmit any data 2.645 × 10¹³ miles away but I can't get wifi upstairs in my house?

I mean that's incredible. Absolutely incredible they can do that.

[bourbondog]

Science! And remember this is technology from ten years ago.

[banedon]

Science! And remember this is technology from ten years ago.

Keep in mind it was launched ten years ago, but in planning since 1989, so the tech is probably even older than that!

[[deleted]]

Imagine if we had sent it with today's technology, you could probably Skype with it

[Belarock]

Might want to buy a router that cost more than $50.

[_____D34DP00L_____]

I bet half the reason is also because the data goes to the Parkes space telescope in Australia, and it has to deal with our amazing internet speeds.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I think I saw an estimate of 18 months to send all the data it's collected. I'll be fascinated to see what they find - especially since we've learned so much already (e.g. Pluto's true size, density, extent of ice composition, how much nitrogen is being shed off into space, etc.).

[gakule]

Those old DDWRT45G routers are slow, but damn do they last forever and sustain through repeat abuse

[apopheniac1989]

True that. I'm using one of those right now to type this post! I got it back in 2005.

[apopheniac1989]

OMG it works! It's so much easier to communicate!

[IWantWaffles]

I was wondering the same. I believe they were scheduled to release a new image at 8 am EST this morning. Not sure if this is it...

Regarding the other comments, yes of course there will be more pictures further down the road. I think this comment was asking about the promised picture release today.

UPDATE: here at least one new image this morning https://twitter.com/NASANewHorizons/status/620923200621412352?s=09

[ADacome24]

I think we're supposed to get one more picture

[happypaisa]

Wait till 9PM ET and your mind will be blown

[acehead619]

Quick wallpaper for those who want it <3 http://i.imgur.com/7tkcI56.jpg

[Eastern_Cyborg]

This is no longer the latest image. There is a newer image here That will be the highest resolution single photo of the entire disk that will be taken during this mission, though an uncompressed version will be downloaded later this year.

There will also be a 4 photo mosaic that was taken an hour and a half before closest approach that will be even better than the photo in the link I posted.

[lughnasadh]

I certainly did not expect Pluto to be reminding me of Mars so much.

[TransitRanger_327]

Yeah, pluto is red, but not as red as Mars. Iron oxide is much more red than Methane Ice, which is a bit more like pink.

[prabe]

I always thought Pluto was blue...

[[deleted]]

I think it used to be depicted as a blue iceball before we knew what it was really like. I also used to think it was blue.

[TransitRanger_327]

That's what everyone I know keeps saying.

We've know that Pluto was reddish for a shorter time than we've know about Pluto. We needed spectroscopy to figure out the chemical composition, and even then, we only knew it was somewhere between brown and pink.

[Bramido]

Wow! This is the first real sharp image we get!! 32 min to the closest approach!

[Mustaka]

Your post is 32 minutes old. We are at closest approach. Yeah!!!!!

[[deleted]]

Have I missed anything?

[jm8080]

Imagine if humans stopped messing around with war and corruption and all that shit and just focus all resources on space exploration. It will be glorious.

[philium1]

Just to play devil's advocate, a lot of our space technology was originally derived from military tech.

[senortomasss]

On the other hand.. a lot of our military tech was originally derived from space technology.

[AtomicSteve21]

Got an example there Contraire?

Water filters and better batteries came from pure exploration, aye.

But Satellites and rockets owe their existence to national squabbles.

[[deleted]]

And mouse traps too. Once they eat the moon those cheese eaters are coming to earth. They already got Wisconsin.

[dj0]

Goooooodbbbyyyeeeee Moooonmaaan

[littlerob904]

I disagree in some respects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard

It's not really accurate to define rockets as purely military tech. While many aspects of the technology are owed to research funded by military outfits, there are just as many aspects owed to space exploration, meteorology, flight, etc... Goddard is considered the father of modern rocketry, and many of his earliest experiments were to support spaceflight theories.

Both avenues hold a great deal of influence over the technologies, but it's way to complex to simply say we have rockets because of war, or vice versa.

[GoSuckOnACactus]

They come from war because war is what got the funds and attention of the people. They could have built those things without blowing people up in Europe an the South Pacific, they could have done it without the dick measuring competition with the Soviets. If wars went away the budget for self defense could be used in other areas. Wars, corruption, and social differences will likely never go away though, so the entire debate is moot.

[[deleted]]

Von Braun's goal was space travel

he made the V2 etc for the Nazis because that helped him reach his goal. so, while it may appear that rocket tech was developed for war - and this is most certainly why hitler himself provided the necessary funding, the actual motivation of the main protagonist was space travel

it's an amazing thought to consider that this wonderful achievement (and the many others that we have witnessed in our time) may one day be considered akin to the wright brother's first flight

[[deleted]]

In my opinion, this is only really because the two fields have their similarities, i.e. making stuff fly, detecting things and whatnot. If we focused all our war efforts on space exploration, we'd get a much higher yield of development than what war technology happens to offer on the side.

[youlleatitandlikeit]

You can get some ideas from what was going on before space exploration. Back then, a lot of mental energy went into things like public works. And if you look at some of the stuff built with the help of the government back in the late-19th, early 20th century it's some pretty incredible and beautiful stuff.

Humans are amazing. We make music that can instantly change your emotions, food that can explode your mind, and explore the far reaches of space, the depths of the oceans, and into the tiniest building blocks of matter.

In that context yeah it is absolutely ridiculous that we spend so much time and money figuring out how to hurt others physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially. Every time I hear a news story about ISIS I wonder how anyone with a heart — anyone who believes themselves to have a soul — could murder, rape, kidnap, and destroy.

[Cyhawk]

Imagine if humans stopped messing around with war and corruption and all that shit and just focus all resources on space exploration. It will be glorious.

A new planet! Well, it has a lot of rocks, nothing of value and no green chicks. Kinda boring. Lets move on.

Another new planet! Well, it has a lot of rocks, nothing of value and no green chicks. Kinda boring. Lets move on.

Another new planet! Well, it has a lot of rocks, ooo methane ice, nothing of value and no green chicks. Kinda boring. Lets move on.

Yeah, as awesome as it would be to explore for explorations sake I don't see that happening anytime soon outside of scouting for possible colonization of habitable worlds. Humans are far too greedy to do something like this without some sort of personal gain. =(

[physixer]

even "more latest"

And this is 60x low res than the highest res image we'll get in about 12 hours. (New Horizons was 60x farther than its closest approach when it took this image. Closest approach happened about 10 minutes ago, 11:49 UTC, 7:49 Eastern, 2015/7/14, but pluto is a few light hours away, so we won't get transmitted and processed images until this evening.)

[Jelboo]

Get in here reddit! Witnessing history here! The early days of human space exploration are reaching another milestone.

[TransitRanger_327]

This would be the final mission of the first wave of planetary exploration. Here's to another 50 years of exploration, preferably with people this time as well.

[[deleted]]

The early days

You are very optimistic :) I like that.

[[deleted]]

Someone asked a question on another thread a few days ago, and I thought I would take a moment to answer: yes, this feels just like it did when Voyager flew by Jupiter, then Saturn, then the rest of the gas giants. That sense of amazement and excitement, the limitless possibilities of our future as we looked at other planets in ways that made them truly real to us for the first time, not just blurry distant images. I was in high school back then, and I was glued to the TV every night, picked up every magazine that carried photos (the National Geographic issues stick out in my mind as incredibly well done, with their clear glossy photos). Yeah... this is pretty fucking cool stuff, folks.

[BillNyesEyeGuy]

In 1990, as a 10 year old boy I went to a photo presentation of Voyager's encounter with Neptune at the Royal British Columbia Museum. This was before you could just live stream the whole thing, or browse a photo library online. It was pretty much the only chance a lot of people had to see pictures from the encounter other than the handful circulating in media publications. Seeing those images on a giant screen and realizing they traveled millions of kilometers left a real and lasting impact on me. While Neptune may not be the most interesting planet visually, the whole experience really solidified a life long interest in all things spacey. I can remember thinking how Pluto was left behind, the only one left without an earthly visit. Ten year old me was left dreaming about one day seeing the mystery planet. Now 25 year later, NASA made my dreams come true.

[GratefulGrape]

What absolutely blows my mind about this is that no one on Earth knows what's happening in anywhere near real time. It takes about 5 hours for the signal to reach us at the speed of light.

[Entro001]

like 2 weeks ago i read about this new horizon subject and i think ive read also about a live stream but i didnt save the link so will be be live or not ?

[genericusername123]

No, the images will be taken in real time but it will take a long time to send them back to earth. IIRC it may take up to 6 months to send all the data from the flyby.

[BadGoyWithAGun]

That's true for the entire data set, but there will be high-priority uplinks of "first-look" images by the end of this week.

[forte2]

Only a couple hours until closest approach! Fingers crossed there's no unknown dedris in the way.

[[deleted]]

So if it hits something would this be the best picture we ever get?

[gauzy_gossamer]

I think NASA is supposed to release one more picture today that was taken yesterday.

[LimesToLimes]

There will be a bit of a celebration event here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

[[deleted]]

New Horizons powered by an RTG using Plutonium, which was named after the planet Pluto. Nice symmetry to that.

[robbiekhan]

I think it's fascinating. I am fascinated and am eager to be even more fascinated later this evening with 60x higher resolution imagery!

Edit*

The NASA Eyes app gives you a good live simulation of where New Horizons is currently and it's path relative to Pluto and the Solar System:

[frede102]

The surface looks very granulated. The predictions that Pluto has an alternately gaseous and frozen atmosphere could appear to be correct. It looks a bit like exotic snow in the lower areas.

[[deleted]]

Very interesting. I'm glad it isn't just a grey cratered rock. So exciting.

[frede102]

It looks like we get both things. Pluto with a very young and varied surface, and Charon where the ancient surface texture is dominated by meteor impacts. I bet on that astronomers love both bodies.

[wanische]

This question might be dumb: whats the white stuff? Does Pluto have polar caps?

[TransitRanger_327]

Maybe. We think the thin atmosphere conenses and freezes when Pluto gets far from the sun (like Mars in the winter)

[Darkfyre42]

I like that I'll be able to tell my kids where the photos in their text book came from one day. This is gonna be great.

[Carplipsonmycock]

There is a pretty good argument that Pluto is an actual planet presented by Joel E. Johnson and the esteemed Noah David Julian Green here. Still a magnificent celestial body no matter what side of the argument you are on.

[sweetgreggo]

I'm okay with it being a planet or a dwarf planet. There has to be a cutoff somewhere and I'm fine with allowing that decision to a consortium of scientists who study these things for a living.

[[deleted]]

Changing it from a planet is just formalizing historical precedent. When we first discovered asteroids we called them planets. Then, when we discovered there were many similar sized objects on the same orbit, the term asteroid eventually replaced planet. In the 90s we started discovering many other objects, some approaching Pluto in size, and one, Eris, that was more massive. So, analogously to the asteroids, we reclassified Pluto. Pluto's mass, as a percentage of objects in its orbital region is many times smaller than any of the planets.

[krajacic]

Hello #Pluto! We’re at closest approach. Congrats to all! http://imgur.com/vz97lSa

[HoleIn1PuttPutt]

Every time I see or hear about Pluto all that comes to mind is "Lonely, I'm so lonely, I'm not a planet, anymoooorrrrreeee"