Eye's on the New Horizons and the Kuiper Belt

[rockytopva]

I photoshopped the Pluto/ Charon picture. This system is nothing like the gas giants of Uranus and Neptune but has a quality all its own. I would say that the Xena/Gabrielle systems have the same properties. Anxiously awaiting more photos!

 

[rockytopva]

NASA’s New Horizons Detects Surface Features, Possible Polar Cap on Pluto


New Horizons

 

[Oafman]

Thanks for the continued updates Rocky. I can't hide my excitement about getting to see what this (dwarf) planet really looks like for the first time. Just a few more weeks of waiting...

 

[Oafman]

Also, is Charon's orbit fairly eccentric, or is that just an optical illusion due to the angle the images were taken from?

 

[rockytopva]

The images from the Ralph (color camera) and the LORRI (long range) cameras definitely show different perspectives! It looks like LORRI currently sees Pluto in 100 pixels of light. I would say the Ralph spectrograph sees half that resolution. In time our resolution will improve!

Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)

 

[rockytopva]

<Edit>

 

[rockytopva]

New Horizons is now only 0.5 AU away from Pluto... It is show time!

New Horizons has spotted Pluto's five moons. This image does not include Charon. Refresh your screen to catch the animation.

 

[rockytopva]

New Horizons is now less than 0.4 from Pluto.

In the image below shows some tails with Charon and Pluto. The brightness of the planet exceeds LORRI's saturation level. In other words the image is too bright for the camera. I just wonder how much 'Photoshopping' goes into an image before NASA releases the image to the public.

 

[loveofourlord]

Some new pics today comparing how much a difference a short distance can be :>

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto

I'm so excited, been waiting for this day ever since I heard as a kid that none of the voyagers would be going anywhere near Pluto.

 

[Shemjaza]

I would say that the Xena/Gabrielle systems have the same properties. Anxiously awaiting more photos!

After passing the Pluto system is it going to pass close to any other of the dwarf planets out there?

 

[rockytopva]

 

[rockytopva]

NASA’s Hubble Finds Pluto’s Moons Tumbling in Absolute Chaos

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-hubble-finds-pluto-s-moons-tumbling-in-absolute-chaos
If you lived on one of Pluto’s moons, you might have a hard time determining when, or from which direction, the sun will rise each day. Comprehensive analysis of data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows that two of Pluto’s moons, Nix and Hydra, wobble unpredictably.

“Hubble has provided a new view of Pluto and its moons revealing a cosmic dance with a chaotic rhythm,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “When the New Horizons spacecraft flies through the Pluto system in July we’ll get a chance to see what these moons look like up close and personal.”

This set of computer modeling illustrations of Pluto’s moon Nix shows how the orientation of the moon changes unpredictably as it orbits the “double planet” Pluto-Charon...

ubble data also reveal the moon Kerberos is as dark as a charcoal briquette, while the other frozen moons are as bright as sand. ..
This illustration shows the scale and comparative brightness of Pluto’s small satellites. The surface craters are for illustration only and do not represent real imaging data.
Credits: NASA/ESA/A. Feild (STScI)

 

[rockytopva]

0.25 AU's from Pluto. So far the most interesting stuff has been from the Hubble space telescope... 31.5 AU's further away!

 

[rockytopva]

Images are getting better!

 

[dgiharris]

Thought this would be a cool addition to your thread...

here is the Wiki link to all the probes ever launched

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes

pretty cool.

 

[Oafman]

My first thought when I saw the most recent LORRI shots was, is there some sort of huge crater in the southern hemisphere? But apparently it's a deconvolution error, and we can be assured that Pluto is more or less spherical.

I've been reading a lot about New Horizons recently, and have learned that, while it's good that we're all excited about the flyby next month, it will be much longer before we see many of the results. It's going to take about one year for NASA to download all the data from NH!

This brilliant blog from the Planetary Society explains why downloading data from 6,000,000,000km is so difficult:
Talking to Pluto is hard! Why it takes so long to get data back from New Horizons

Also from the planetary society:

 

[rockytopva]

0.2 AU's from Pluto!

 

[rockytopva]

Getting closer! I can imagine a good deal of math required to thread the needle. If their math is not exact the spacecraft will film outer space during the pass.

 

[Shemjaza]

I'm really excited about the pictures we'll get soon.

But I'm also really looking forward to the full composite images they'll be able to form from all the data in the next few months.

 

[Michael]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...discovered-towering-surface-dwarf-planet.html

Nice video at this link by the way.