If this is not astro picture of the year, I don't know what is: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-...
I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
21–30 of 100 posts
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#22If this is not astro picture of the year, I don't know what is: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-...
For all the awe that the Martian and Lunar photos instill in me, this is just the most amazing thing ever. For the entirety of my life up until recently, Pluto was this impossibly distant planet that we knew very little about. We didn't even hardly know what it really looked like. I think the most we had was the blurry Hubble shots.
And now? Now I'm looking up close and personal at this impossibly distant object and can make out land structures. Just wow.
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#23I didn't thought that the atmosphere would be so visible, after all it is estimated to be just about 3-300 µbar.
> This new view of Pluto’s crescent -- taken by New Horizons’ wide-angle Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) Since this is a multispectral image it might not look like that to the human eye. I like this version better though!
Huh, I would have assumed that a multispectral camera would have (false) colors. What does that mean here? The frequency response of each pixel's light sensor has multiple peaks instead of a nice 'bell curve' shape?
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#24If this is not astro picture of the year, I don't know what is: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-...
It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?
It's just a representation of a collection of photons taken at a particular point in time and space.
... Context is everything
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?
Usually photos are evaluated not only for the reality that they've captured, but also how hard it was to take that photo. In the case of Pluto's high-resolution photos, there are maybe billion dollars behind it and hundreds of people that worked for years before actually the photo has been taken.
According to this page [0], which links to a broken link on NASA's site as source, it was "only" $720 million, not billions.
I only mention it to underscore that our intuition on the cost of NASA is often wrong. You see a lot of people complaining about the relevance of spending on NASA, when they actually represent a very small part of the overall budget and they spend the money very well.
In contrast, Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion, tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion, Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion. Maybe it's a sign we aren't taxing them enough, if apparently there is enough money to go around for toys but not NASA.
[0] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/07/14/Here-s-What-It-Cost...
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?
Pluto is 7.5 billion kilometers away. Let that sink in while you look at the photo.
While it doesn't take away from the magnitude of sending a grand piano-sized suite of instruments and cameras to Pluto, both the planetoid and the NH probe are actually closer to 5 billion km away[0][1].
Pluto does indeed have an aphelion at some 7,311,000,000km (~48 AU), but its eccentric orbit means that its perihelion is about 20 AU closer to the Sun than its aphelion.
[0]http://spaceprob.es/newhorizons/
[1]http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.phpRe: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#27Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#28If this is not astro picture of the year, I don't know what is: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-...
It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?
It is a photo, taken from a camera that we shot out of our atmosphere -- defeating gravity -- got to the depth of our solar system, with the sole purpose of photographing an icy rock.
Pretty neat if you ask me!
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually photos are evaluated not only for the reality that they've captured, but also how hard it was to take that photo. In the case of Pluto's high-resolution photos, there are maybe billion dollars behind it and hundreds of people that worked for years before actually the photo has been taken.
According to this page [0], which links to a broken link on NASA's site as source, it was "only" $720 million, not billions. I only mention it to underscore that our intuition on the cost of NASA is often wrong. You see a lot of people complaining about the relevance of spending on NASA, when they actually represent a very small part of the overall budget and they spend the money very well. In contrast, Facebook boug…
It's hard to agree on that, because I'm not a US citizen. Anyway what NASA / EU space programs are doing is far more significant for humanity ( IMHO ) than what Facebook Oculus and Snapchat are trying to achieve, so it looks really unfair.
Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama
#30I made one of these my cover image on Facebook and called it The Ice Mountains of Pluto, which is a Golden Age Science Fiction story title if I ever heard one. But this isn't SF! It's a real photo! That was taken by an atomic powered robot! Amazing...