New Horizons, Only 100 days from Pluto.

[Laurie61]

Not long to go now for this 'once in a lifetime' encounter  Some dates. 

April 2015 Approach Phase 2 begins

April 5, 2015 100 days until Pluto close approach (P-100)

April 9, 2015 Colour approach imaging of Pluto system begins

May 15, 2015 Trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) opportunity

May-June 2015 New Horizons provides best-ever images of Pluto system

June 2015 Last full Pluto system "family portraits" (from LORRI) expected;

Approach Phase 3 begins; optical navigation (OpNav) campaign

June 4, 2015 Trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) opportunity

June 14, 2015 Trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) opportunity

June 18, 2015 Infrared approach imaging of Pluto system begins

June 24, 2015 Trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) opportunity

June 30, 2015 Trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) opportunity

July 4, 2015 Last trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) opportunity

July 12-13, 2015 Last critical pre-flyby data sent back to Earth (P-2 and P-1 days)

July 14, 2015 Closest approach to Pluto.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/index.php

[gooseholla]

Yup I cannot wait. As I have said before, when I was young I read a book about the solar system. At the time all the planets had been visited but Pluto and Hubble had not yet been launched. There was speculation about what the planet was like and I was gripped. Be good to finally see it, rather than the 'artists' impression.

John

[Wikiastro]

Exciting, isn't it!

[Piero]

I am also very curious about it and took down a note on my G-Calendar so many months ago that I don't even remember! 

It is really exciting that in the next few months, for the first time, we will start seeing the first real high quality photos of Pluto!

[dweller25]

Brilliant thanks for sharing

[gooseholla]

I went back and looked at an artist's impression from 1978. It had hills and large craters covered in ice and lakes of liquid... We'll see how accurate it was

John

[mikeDnight]

Exciting times!

I felt a little sorry for Pluto when it got demoted. I hope its payback time and they find its the planet of the Clangers. That would be sweet! Soup Dragon and the Metal Chicken as well.

Mike

[Dave In Vermont]

I'm waiting with baited-breath. Unless New Horizons blows up or something, I won't be disappointed.

Tick, Tick, Tick,,,,,

Dave

[kirkster501]

Really looking forward to it likewise.  My bet it that it looks like Triton.  But as we know, they may be nothing like each other.  Just look at the moons of Jupiter and how different they are even though they are in the same space!

[gooseholla]

I'm waiting with baited-breath. Unless New Horizons blows up or something, I won't be disappointed.

Maybe Pluto is so offended that it was demoted that it is going to be lying in wait to ambush it?! Bet the scientists never thought about that when they demoted it, did they?

 

[Laurie61]

A discussion about the history and future of our understanding of Pluto, as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft speeds toward an encounter with the distant world on July 14. 

https://youtu.be/1_qtG9QMejI

[Piero]

Pluto and Charon: 

[Piero]

When I saw this video I was very impressed by how Pluto is gravitationally affected by Charon and by the colour differences Pluto has in the 3x image.. 

Looking forward for new images! 

[Laurie61]

It might just be the big albedo range across Pluto causing the effect but it does not look very round ? The next few images should be very interesting.    

[Piero]

Yeah, the shape is very interesting too! I'd have thought it was round as well! Let's see the next images!

[Naf]

These next few months are going to be exciting and interesting and we are down to just 70 days, clear skies. :grin:

[Laurie61]

Another update, 

New Horizons mission has now spotted not just Pluto’s largest moons, but the smallest natural satellites too.

Imaged at a distance of over 55 million miles (88 million kilometers) from the Plutonian system between April 25 and May 1, this animated sequence of five 10 second observations by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument show Pluto’s largest moon Charon, plus smaller moons Nix and Hydra, and it has also pinpointed, for the first time, the recently-discovered moons Kerberos and Styx.

http://news.discovery.com/space/new-horizons-probe-spies-plutos-entire-moon-family-150513.htm

[Physopto]

All this just amazes me. When I was a kid in the fifties all of this was the stuff of science fiction. I remember serving in a pub and watching the first moon landing and being enthralled. I would hazard a guess and say that so far my life has seen some of the most interesting science in astronomy ever over a relatively short period in history. I now image things that were impossible to do when I was first born, unless it was using an extremely large national telescope. This from a field in the middle of nowhere.

I just enjoy every moment of human endeavour that we get to see.

Derek

[Wabbit]

I just enjoy every moment of human endeavour that we get to see.Derek

I absolutely agree. I too have marked the calendar... Getting excited

[steven_w82]

It always bothered me that we never really knew what Pluto looked like, it also bothers me that the New Horizons encounter with the planet(dwarf?) is only going to be a mere flyby

[Piero]

These short videos are just amazing! I am getting excited more and more every day hoping that new images and videos come out!

Pluto has been a mystery for everybody and now we are almost there to see it!      

[Matt Scunthorpe]

It always bothered me that we never really knew what Pluto looked like, it also bothers me that the New Horizons encounter with the planet(dwarf?) is only going to be a mere flyby

Yes it is a shame, but unfortunately New Horizons is going to fast to either slow itself down with a burn, and Pluto doesn't have enough gravity to grab something going so quickly.

I do wonder if in the future they will put a spacecraft into orbit around pluto (maybe with some fuel to slow it down to a capture) so they can see how the planet varies between being so close to the Sun and being so far away. But as Pluto takes 247 years for it to complete an orbit, then it will be a multi-generation mission!

Matt.

[impactcrater]

yes..wonders ahead ! just cannot help thinking...an object with a Moon system and proposed weather...still sounds more like a planet to me...I want  Pluto back where it belongs....I suppose if other Kuiper belt objects are all like Pluto, then the question is tougher to decide...but not for me !

the flyby will take loads of pics and will only start downloading the majority in  August...so we will have to be patient.

[Laurie61]

Less than 50 days to go now, come on NASA where are the new images   

[Laurie61]

Some new images 

These images, taken by New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), show four different "faces" of Pluto as it rotates about its axis with a period of 6.4 days. All the images have been rotated to align Pluto's rotational axis with the vertical direction (up-down) on the figure, as depicted schematically in the upper left.

This "movie," composed of images taken by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), shows Pluto as it rotates about its axis. The images were taken May 28-June 3, 2015, from distances ranging from approximately 56 million kilometers to 48.5 million kilometers.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150611

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=181