Pluto New Horizons |OT| New images. Pluto/Charon still geologically active

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Closest approach right now!!

closest3iuv0.png
 
Anustart said:
It's not going to be that close right? It's just 8000 miles away from the closest it will be, which is much further, yeah?
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Considering it travelled over a billion miles to get there, no 8,000 miles is not much further than 5,000 miles. It's *really* close.
 
What a proud moment for humanity. Sometimes it's easy to forget how we are still living in a golden age of discovery.
 
Glad I couldn't sleep tonight. Gotta bust out a Sagan quote.
“Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.” -Carl Sagan
 
Mr Swine said:
Oh god, I cannot wait for much better pictures of Pluto! The last one was incredible impressive! :D
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Nah, they need to do this for budgetary reasons and to get the public riled up.
That was a pretty half assed U-S-A chant by American standards, you get louder ones when the McRib comes back.
 
Seanspeed said:
Considering it travelled over a billion miles to get there, no 8,000 miles is not much further than 5,000 miles. It's *really* close.
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Oh I know it's really close. I was probably interpreting his post wrong. Thought he was saying the probe would be that close.

Edit: How far away from Pluto was the probe at flyby?
 
Anustart said:
Oh I know it's really close. I was probably interpreting his post wrong. Thought he was saying the probe would be that close.
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He was just kind of pointing out how it puts it into perspective, since he's taken flights almost as far.

Anustart said:
Edit: How far away from Pluto was the probe at flyby?
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7,700 miles

Or about 1/30th of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, using the example somebody else gave.
 
The thing that blows my mind is, how can the signal hit a moving probe so far away? How do the photons not miss?!!?
 
Jeezus, that was the worst coverage on NASA TV. I'm glad I woke up at 4.30 to watch a dude in front of a macbook. Hey, why would I want to watch the guys on the mission team talking about stuff when I can watch a bunch of dudes talking over the guys on the mission team talking about stuff?

I am not a morning person >:(
 
Log4Girlz said:
Its already 1k miles away jesus fucking christ its fast
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New Horizons is quick, 14.5 km/s is nothing to sneeze at, but she's still not as fast as Voyager 1, who's still racing away into interstellar space at ~17 km/s.

Neither of them can even get close to the fastest spacecraft of them all, Helios A and B, which clocked up ~70 km/s (that's 0.02% of the speed of light, which is pretty impressive when you think about it) as they spiralled inward toward the Sun (they're still hanging out between the Earth's and Mercury's orbit, in a highly elliptical orbital of their own).
 
Congrats to mankind for completing the flyby of all 9 planets!

These are actually big moments in human history that will be remembered long after the current state governments are gone.
 
GK86 said:
9pm EDT.
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I don't think we'll be getting pictures then. Just a quick relay from New Horizons to basically ensure everything went smoothly. I'm guessing they'll still be close enough that their priority will still be gaining more information. Just because we went past it doesn't mean its not still close.
 
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