New Horizons, Only 100 days from Pluto.

[ArmyAirForce]

With Pluto revealing how interesting it is now, you've got to wonder what other bodies lie out there and what secrets they hold.

[DRT]

This is a fabulous mosaic that lets you zoom in and pan around the various geological features of Pluto: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20151217

What a strange little world it is.

[Dave In Vermont]

Indeed. It makes me think it is at interesting as it would be if we were the Plutonians and had sent a 'New Horizons' probe to the Earth for the first time. We'll be analyzing the data from this for a long time to come.

Here's the link into NASA on this craft for any who lost it/missed it:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

Still amazed -

Dave

[DRT]

I love when I come across someone who is truly excited about their job. Not just enjoying what they do, but absolutely bouncing up and down like a small child with uncontrollable passion and enthusiasm.

Dr. Orkan Umurhan is one of these people. The selfie at the bottom of his blog post says it all

[Piero]

Just found this wonderful image of Pluto! 

Description here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=403

HERE instead a more 'scientific image' : http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=404

(gorgeous too!)

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

[Piero]

Just found this movie which shows the best close-up of Pluto's surface. The video is really cool!

Movie: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/common/content/videos/dataMovies/05-26-16_PressRelease_StripPan_FINAL_1080p.mp4  (it's a bit large, so it might be better to download it completely first).

Full description and credits: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=439 

[DRT]

New Horizons is now half way from Pluto to its next target flyby  

[Stu]

4 hours ago, DRT said:

New Horizons is now half way from Pluto to its next target flyby  

Great link Derek, thanks!

[Stub Mandrel]

9 hours ago, DRT said:

New Horizons is now half way from Pluto to its next target flyby  

KBO Goofy!

Whatever it finds, i bet it is as different from Pluto as Pluto was from what we expected!

[Pluto the Snowman]

On 06/05/2017 at 11:33, Stub Mandrel said:

KBO Goofy!

Whatever it finds, i bet it is as different from Pluto as Pluto was from what we expected!

 

Im game. I also bet that either Jupiter, or Mars will be in the way that day.

[Davey-T]

News from the ongoing Pluto mission now heading for asteroid 2014MU69.

On  Saturday 3rd June the Pluto team all headed for the far southern hemisphere to observe an occullation  of a star by said asteroid. 

For this exercise they bought 22 16" SW Dobs, nice work if you can get it 

Hope they got a discount

Dave

Team members playing with one of their new scopes

[DRT]

How time flies...

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20180104

 

[DRT]

A quote from the above link...

Quote

 

As with the hundreds of thousands of other small worlds in this zone of icy bodies, MU69 is shrouded in mystery. In fact, the all we know about it has come from the Hubble Space Telescope (used to discover the object in 2014) and a comprehensive observation campaign last summer, in which the New Horizons team gathered data on MU69 as it passed in front of three stars. Those observations indicated that MU69 could be two objects, perhaps accompanied by a moon.

"That tells us this object is going to have a lot of surprises in store for New Horizons," said Marc Buie, the New Horizons science team member from SwRI who led the observation campaign. "We're going to see something that dates back to the formation of the solar system."

New Horizons will fly about three times closer to MU69 than it did to Pluto in July 2015, allowing the spacecraft's cameras to provide a more detailed look at the object's surface. Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, pointed out that New Horizons' vantage point from about 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) from MU69 will allow it spot details about the size of a basketball court.

 

This should be extremely interesting!  

[Stub Mandrel]

I got all excited until I saw the date!

Hope their camera has a high frame rate!