First Pluto-Charon Color Image from New Horizons

[TexasTowelie]

This image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken by the Ralph color imager aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on April 9 and downlinked to Earth the following day. It is the first color image ever made of the Pluto system by a spacecraft on approach. The image is a preliminary reconstruction, which will be refined later by the New Horizons science team. Clearly visible are both Pluto and the Texas-sized Charon. The image was made from a distance of about 71 million miles (115 million kilometers)-roughly the distance from the Sun to Venus. At this distance, neither Pluto nor Charon is well resolved by the color imager, but their distinctly different appearances can be seen. As New Horizons approaches its flyby of Pluto on July 14, it will deliver color images that eventually show surface features as small as a few miles across.

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

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=175

[mike_c]

1. can't wait....

Damn this is cool. A hundred years ago crossing the continent was a big deal. Soon we will look at flyby photos of Pluto.

Just because it always gives me goosebumps, here is one of the other coolest photos of my lifetime. Just another sunset. On Mars.

[byronius]

2. %!$#&*%$ exciting.

Something I love paying taxes for.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Mark me down as "can't wait", too.

[AlbertCat]

4. So amazing! Love it!

I fondly remember Voyager ( and Pioneer).

And I hope all science teachers....hell all teachers.... ask their students: "How do you think we manage to get these probes the size of a VW bug through the empty vastness of space to these moving targets????"

MATH

Math is real!

Here's proof!

Math is real.... don't you forget it!