Just some fanciful artwork

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Enjoy

... and the sharpest view of the 'whale' on Pluto taken thus far:

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The only thing we can say for certain about Pluto at this time, is that there's a long-snouted elk on its surface.

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But there are other interpretations out there as well...

There is an interesting piece on Pluto by Moonlight that was released just before the picture. It has a cool artistic image of Charon shining over the Plutonian surface.

"Charon, although three billion miles from the sun, is so close to Pluto and so ice-covered that it would be only five times dimmer than the full moon seen from Earth."

To me, this picture of Pluto looks like a cheesy painting of a planet from the cover of a 1950s pulp sci-fi novel. So I made this. Apologies; resume science.

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Just havin fun....

Looking even more like "Eyeball planet".....


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Looks like da Vinci was leaving a clue that he was even more ahead of his time than we give him credit for!
I always thought Pluto was enigmatic.
Dan Brown is probably sharpening his pencil as we speak!
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I usually have a cup of coffee while perusing the UMSF Pluto (and other) news.
This was a two cup day! I'd better switch to decaf for the flyby!
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While we are waiting for new images, I present,

The Face On Pluto

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From 7/11/15 - More time was spent on this than it deserved...

Andy

The hat in the group shot here is *awesome*:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-women-who-...ission-to-pluto

Ramblings...

When I was born there were no satellites in orbit.
And then I remember Sputnik, and then Explorer, Gargarin, then Mercury, Pioneer, Echo (I saw Echo 2 sail over my backyard in a pre-dawn morning with my Dad), Telstar, Ranger, Gemini, Mariner, Surveyor, Apollo, Skylab, Viking, MIR, Voyager, the Shuttle, Galileo, Cassini, the ISS, and all the rest. In my lifetime we have surveyed the whole Solar System. And now Pluto. I saw it as it happened... in real time, and not as history... from newspapers, TV and radio, space magazines, a bunch of ham radio guys (like Dad), with my own eyes, and now with the Internet. WOW. It reminds me in a way of the discovery of a new and gigantic continental mass stretching from almost pole to pole in the 1500's . What will ever happen next?

"By the time New Horizons reached Pluto, it turned into a dwarf planet."
"Damn.... they told me not to buy cheap tickets...."

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Since NH use plutonium as energy, Will next Mars rover use Mars bars?

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Found this in an Emily's tweet: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gFo4u_ADiw4

There are two obvious times to observe the tradition of eating peanuts for good luck during the moments of greatest peril. July 14 @ 7:05 am Eastern Time, the moment of closest approach, and July 14 @ 9:02 pm Eastern Time, the scheduled arrival of the “phone home” signal.

I’ll be observing the tradition at both times, just to be on the safe side.

I recall all that, too.

I remember being in a Chinese restaurant downtown a couple of days after the Mariner-4 flyby of Mars marveling at newspaper presentations of the new Mars images. These were 4x5 copies of the facsimile-grade digital images, printed on cheap newspaper rag with a coarse halftone. And this was wonderful and a state-of-the-art presentation of the data. And now we are watching it "Live" and twiddling our thumbs waiting for the Light-Time delay to deliver the images.

How times have changed.

And looking up Mariner-4 to jog my memory, I find that the flyby was done of July 14-15 1965, a half century ago. And downlink of the data and images of the flyby was concluded on August 3. Some things can't change...

--Bill

Oh my, that didn't take long:

Going through the arrival celebration video, and this pic made me spit-take I was laughing so hard.

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...yeah, I caught that live. Cool that the janitor was wearing a NH T-shirt as well!

Alan gave NH 2 chances out of 10.000 to hit a piece of debris... This guy is doing his best to lower the risk

I dont know how it is in other countries but here in France, each day of the year is dedicated to a Saint. I couldn't believe when I checked for tomorrow, July 15th, that the day will be dedicated to .... Donald!
Yes, rigth after Pluto.

So, I heard that the New Horizons trajectory will allow for a Pluto observation during solar occultation. Given the shape of the bright terrain seen in the flyby, would this be considered a "total eclipse of the heart"?

First images interpretation: http://xkcd.com/1551/
I love the jpeg plumes...

Well, thanks for that...

This cannot be unseen. From now on every time I'm look at Pluto, I am seeing Pluto!

xkcd does it again!!!

Plus a new 'What If?' that we're all hoping will be obsolete in a few hours:
http://what-if.xkcd.com/

This one's pretty cute

Not mine, just found it linked on FB

"Celebration" staring Alan Stern

YouTube LINK

A nightcap in honor of the successful flyby:

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White rum, Kahlúa and ice cream substitute for the exotic ices and organics. I call it Pluto Express.

Pluto does look a bit like a choc+vanilla ice cream that was left out of the freezer
for too long (or a planet-wide experiment at cappuccino making, take your pick)

30 years ago this December... #ThrowbackThursday

NASA PR is doing a mess. Released the same inset (flipped) in two different locations.

Compare this:
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to this:
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From what I understand, the correct one is the first one.

NASA PR is not producing the images. What you're seeing is probably the result of pressure to release the images as fast as possible.

People complain when releases are delayed. People complain when they're not. There's just no pleasing some people.

Question about slightly older Pluto images. Pluto is noted in these glass plates from Tombaugh's discovery in 1930. What is (are) the other item(s) highlighted in red?

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Here's a crude blinking GIF:

https://twitter.com/rtphokie/status/621749241644498944

edit: deleted. I pay little attention some times.

Ok, rtphokie, a more studied answer this time. Strangely, the object appears to be the same in both frames, so I would assume not dust (though it has a peculiar shape). It appears to be going 90 degrees to the ecliptic. in this image. I don't see anything registering on Stellarium. Interesting. Hope to see a resolution to this as well.

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Also just noticed a few other moving dots. Pluto of course, near the middle in the ellipse.
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This is a discussion better placed in its own thread though.

Apparently, if instead of a blink comparator, Mr. Tombaugh had used a stereo comparator (where each of the two plates is projected to a separate eye), any slow-moving objects would have been immediately obvious as a dot hovering above (or below) the flat plane of the fixed stars. Not sure how it would handle objects moving at a near right angle, like the second object pointed out above. I believe the individual plates would be slowly rotated through a 180 degree half-turn, but I'm not certain about that. This method was widely adopted after the discovery of Pluto because it was far easier to spot slow-moving objects using this method than with a blink comparator.

rtpholke, that was probably an asteroid. Recall that Tombaugh was specifically searching for objects moving at a slow speed, which would normally indicate that it was a large distance from the sun.

Yeah. We have to keep in mind that the press release images are just that - and they're not meant for the kind of analysis many of us do here. (We've seen some bizarre stuff with the Dawn press release images, too.) We may have to wait for the jpegs at the New Horizons SOC site, and better still for the eventual downlink and release of the raws.

Push the gamma on one of those press release images too far and you never know what you may find...
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Makes sense, thanks

We can rule out another TNO, given it is not moving in the same general retrograde direction as Pluto. MBAs and NEOs can also be ruled out for similar reasons. Knowing how thorough Tombaugh was with his survey, he wouldn't have overlooked something of that magnitude. The non-symmetrical appearance in both images suggests they were specks of dirt on the plates when they were eventually scanned.

I know what you mean. Opened the 'false colour' image in Photoshop and it still had the 'guide lines'

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I wouldn't think it is an asteroid, since they move the same apparent distance in hours when Pluto takes months.

Depends almost entirely on the distance. NEOs at their closest can whiz by VERY quickly from our perspective, main belt asteroids not so fast.

I don't recall the interval between the two Pluto discovery photographs, but I'm pretty sure it was hours or at most a couple of days, not months. Those pics have an extremely small field of view.

A friend made this for their son's birthday.
They'd been waiting for years to be able to make a NH/Pluto cake for them.

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Anyone else remember seeing that special on TV a few years ago called "95 Worlds and Counting?" It featured "water skiing" on Titan, spelunking on Triton and other possible adventures in the outer solar system. I think the show could be updated to include skiiing on Pluto with those mountains we saw Wednesday. I'm sure the slopes would include plenty of black diamond ski trails

The original uncropped photos posted by rtphokie had the dates January 23, 1930 and January 29, 1930 respectively. So a weeks time. These objects are moving near the same speed or slower than Pluto. The largest is the biggest mystery. I wouldn't expect an asteroid because of the high inclination. Pluto is pretty close to the ecliptic here, hence why Tombaugh was able to find it. But this large object is moving somewhere around 60-70 degrees to that. Its possible its dust but it seems to have registered roughly the same shape in each frame. Could be a comet, could be dust. I agree that it seems strange that it would go unnoticed because it is brighter than Pluto in these frames.

Heres a Stellarium shot from January 23, 1930 with as much detail as I can add in.

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It unfortunately does not include asteroids, KBOs, SDOs, or anything else other than planets and stars unfortunately.

Here is Celestia with all solar orbiting body orbits in the standard version visible.

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That is amazing! I can not imagine how long that took to make.

Those two images were taken 6 days apart. Jan 23 and 29, 1930