Pluto

[HaloFan85]

They've already likened that big bright spot to a heart.  I believe the close-up pictures of the fly-by won't be available until Wednesday.

 

 

[CaliAngel]

I like this comparison the best.

 

[Spirit]

[Amazing Larry]

$700 million memes.

[fan_since79]

Pictures!!

 

Stunning images of Pluto and Charon:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/15/finally-here-are-the-stunning-pictures-of-pluto-nasa-has-waited-a-decade-to-capture/

[HaloFan85]

Here's the link to the image gallery which should be updated as soon as new pics are released.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/images/index.html

 

Charon:

 

[Sully151]

That's no dwarf planet

[Mark68]

That's no dwarf planet

That's a space station!

[Mark68]

 

 

Pluto and Charon have a similar relationship to us and our own Moon.  I wonder if Charon has given life, in a geological sense, to Pluto's core causing things like tectonic movement.

I thought Charon wasn't that similar to our moon...I'd heard they were orbiting their mutual center of gravity.

[HaloFan85]

I haven't looked into it much and was just going off the pictures and their relationship in size/distance to each other at first glance, but I did hear that Charon (like our Moon faces Earth) always has the same side facing Pluto.

[fan_since79]

The transmitter that sends the photos and other data from the spacecraft has 10 watts of power.

 

3.7 billion miles, 10 watts. Many AM radio stations which have an effective range of a few hundred miles transmit at 50,000 watts.

 

Large radio telescopes are required to pick up the signal. Amazing, the whole process.

[HaloFan85]

The transmitter that sends the photos and other data from the spacecraft has 10 watts of power.

 

3.7 billion miles, 10 watts. Many AM radio stations which have an effective range of a few hundred miles transmit at 50,000 watts.

 

Large radio telescopes are required to pick up the signal. Amazing, the whole process.

Yeah, I believe they said that because of the lack of bandwidth, the full compressed data won't be done transmitting until some time in 2016.

[gotbeer]

The transmitter that sends the photos and other data from the spacecraft has 10 watts of power.

 

3.7 billion miles, 10 watts. Many AM radio stations which have an effective range of a few hundred miles transmit at 50,000 watts.

 

Large radio telescopes are required to pick up the signal. Amazing, the whole process.

 

Just amazing what Nasa is able to accomplish if it had some money.  I forget what Vgers computer memory was.  But I think my bluetooth headphones might have more.  

 

Nasa's budget I believe in 2015.  $18 billion.  Military budget.  $599 billion.  

[Tank]

They're estimating that Pluto's atmosphere goes about a thousand miles up. Ours is what, about six or seven miles?

[fan_since79]

Mountains of nitrogen have evaporated into space and there's some sort of heat source underneath the surface. Just a couple of things revealed today.

[Tank]

Mountains of nitrogen have evaporated into space and there's some sort of heat source underneath the surface. Just a couple of things revealed today.

Change nitrogen to methane and I'd swear you talked to my wife.

[Hollyw00d]

[gotbeer]

Mountains of nitrogen have evaporated into space and there's some sort of heat source underneath the surface. Just a couple of things revealed today.

 

Aliens.  

[Amazing Larry]

[Tank]

Kohagen!!

[Vegas Halo Fan]

Aliens.  

 

[HaloFan85]

 

[Blarg]

That mountain range is impressive.

[Spencer]

We had a thread a couple years back about the overuse of words like 'awesome' and 'amazing'.

 

The grand piano-sized spacecraft is travelling 30,000 miles an hour, and scientists placed it within 8,000 miles of Pluto after sending it on a 3 billion mile journey. On the way, it also collected a bunch of data from asteroids and Jupiter and its moons.

Now the spacecraft is sending back high resolution images of an object 3/4 the size of our own moon. 

 

This is both awesome and amazing.

[HaloFan85]

The original full scale shot: