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Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

nasa.gov

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Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#71

Post by jonknee »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #69
mikeash wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before this year, I believe this was the best image of Pluto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_animie...

Here is our best image of Pluto just 3 months ago: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-... The image above is from the same camera as the images released today. Taking great pictures is not about the camera but about getting in the right spot at the right time

> Taking great pictures is not about the camera but about getting in the right spot at the right time

Exactly. It's an amusingly low res camera too, just 1 megapixel. But it's a workhorse!

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#72

Post by ckarmann »

psygong2 wrote: post #9
dvh wrote: post #2

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-...

It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?

While other have insisted on how that photo is a technology feast, taken from billions of miles away, from something we have never seen before, it's also breathtaking from what it shows: a multilayered atmosphere, completely unique in the Solar System; mountains of water ice next to vast plains of what may be ice nitrogen, also features never seen before on any other body of the Solar System. Before July, many people thought that maybe we would see just another round rock full of craters, ala Mercury, nobody expected what we see now. How many times in your adult life a photo has shown you something that you could never have imagined before?

On top of that, the backlit quality of the photo makes the relief jump at you in a staggering way. It's not like the pictures taken from above, where you can see the same features from very high, in a detached way. Here the landscape just feel real, like if you were there looking at it. Also it gives a sense of the size of the mountains, especially compared to the curvature of the horizon.

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#73

Post by tdkl »

heyitskevin wrote: post #40

For a visual of how far away Pluto really is from Earth(and really how far away everything in our solar system is from eachother) I recommend checking out Riding Light https://vimeo.com/117815404 "This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective." The video is 45 minutes long and m…

Grasping that it took New Horizon about one year since launch to reach Jupiter, then about 9 years extra to reach Pluto is also a nice demonstration.

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#75

Post by qbi_ »

Breathtaking picture.

I'm surprised no one has yet generated 3D models from what we've received so far. Surely we could somehow algorithmically extract at least partial height information from the shadows? I gave it a quick try previously but to no avail.

Would anyone know how to start?

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#76

Post by nitrogen »

deathcakes wrote: post #58
psygong2 wrote: post #9

Earlier 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?

Because this is the furthest away from Earth that we've managed to photograph in any real detail. Because exploration. I really get depressed reading comments like yours, and I don't mean to have a go at you, I understand where you're coming from. It just upsets me that you can look at the product of an over ten year mission and dismiss it with such casual disdain, as if this isn't something that is literally at the…

Furthermore, some "rocks" may be water ice and the "ice" is probably nitrogen ice, so it's not even ordinary rocks and ice.

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#78

Post by r3bl »

gulpahum wrote: post #44
heyitskevin wrote: post #40

For a visual of how far away Pluto really is from Earth(and really how far away everything in our solar system is from eachother) I recommend checking out Riding Light https://vimeo.com/117815404 "This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective." The video is 45 minutes long and m…

Another way to understand the distances is the old scroll-through solar system. If the moon is one pixel, then Pluto is pretty far away. http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...

Man, how silly does it sound that I'm struggling to travel 40 kilometres twice a week when I passed the 1 billion kilometres mark here and still haven't reached Saturn.

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#79

Post by jameshart »

psygong2 wrote: post #9
dvh wrote: post #2

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-...

It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?

Except, it's in a temperature regime so alien to us that your assumptions on seeing those 'rocks and ice' are very wrong. The 'rocks' are water ice. The 'ice' is frozen nitrogen. Nobody thought Pluto would have a dynamic weather system - a climate. And yet it seems to have a glacial nitrogen precipitation cycle. The geological forms look familiar. The mechanisms are not. That's pretty incredible.

Re: Pluto ‘Wows’ in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama

#80

Post by samnole »

mikeash wrote: post #64
psygong2 wrote: post #9

Earlier 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?

What sort of candidate photo would you find more interesting than this one?

For example, this one looks far more interesting.

http://imgur.com/C4pU18l

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