without words: latest NEW HORIZONS discoveries.

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ponylady
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without words: latest NEW HORIZONS discoveries.

Post by ponylady »

for the space buff's among us:
*and there are quite a few*

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/a-super-gr ... oon-charon
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/one-year-l ... s-at-pluto
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-pain ... t-moon-red
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizo ... pluto-pics

and the saga hasn't ended. new horizons is scheduled to meet up with 2014 MU69 on new years eve 2019.
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bound_jenny
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Re: without words: latest NEW HORIZONS discoveries.

Post by bound_jenny »

ponylady wrote:for the space buff's among us:
*and there are quite a few*
...hand raised... :hi:

I remember watching the launch on NASA TV back in 2006. Man, that Atlas V went up like... a rocket should. Not the majestic ascent of a Saturn V. This was damn fast.

We went there expecting something cold, frozen, and static. Though it's still bloody cold and frozen, we've found a dynamic place, with frozen nitrogen ice fields, 3 km high mountains of ice as hard as rock, giant canyons and things that made us ask "what the heck is that?". Just as with every other planetary mission, Pluto has served up just as many surprises, and made us ask more questions than were answered. Before New Horizons even got there, we found four more moons, tiny shards compared to Charon (which is half the size of Pluto itself - the largest size ratio in the solar system... imagine if our Moon were the size of Mars!).

My favorite photo? One at low altitude, looking back over Pluto's landscape, those ice mountains towering over the frozen nitrogen plains, with band of delicate haze hanging over the scene, a thin, fleeting atmosphere destined to freeze out as Pluto wanders ever farther from the Sun in its elliptical orbit. I have that as a wallpaper on my computer at work. Everyone asks, what's that? Where's that?

I just say, it's beautiful. You look at that, and you understand Buzz Aldrin's "magnificent desolation" comment as he looked at the Moon's barren landscape after climbing out of the lunar lander.

And there's more coming in a few years.

Space exploration is never boring. New Horizons' performance at Pluto is yet more proof of that.

Jenny.
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Natale
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Re: without words: latest NEW HORIZONS discoveries.

Post by Natale »

Since water ice is lighter and harder than nitrogen ice, Pluto's rock hard water ice mountains and 'glaciers' may be floating and slowly drifting in seas of softer, slushy nitrogen ice.

Reality can be stranger than science fiction. Of course no one can hear you scream in the vacuum of space, but it's certainly not quiet out there in radio wavelengths. Especially Saturn- Youtube has numerous clips of it's eerie radio static:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V_LChpv_Dc0
:shock:
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