2-faced Pluto | Videos as Ne Horizons approaches - EarthSky

[Panich52]

DiscoverNews

Two-faced Pluto seen in new photos

As we anticipate the July 14 New Horizons Pluto flyby, new images reveal the small world has two faces.



READ MORE
http://news.discovery.com/space/new-photos-show-that-pluto-is-two-faced-150701.htm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dnewsnewsletter


EarthSky

Countdown to Pluto!

This movie, from New Horizons’ highest-resolution imager, shows Pluto and Charon as the spacecraft closes in on the Pluto system for a July 14 flyby.

(no link to copy f/ posting this vid or nextp

In the annotated version, below, Pluto’s prime meridian (the region of the planet that faces Charon) is shown in yellow and the equator is shown in pink.

This time-lapse approach movie was made from images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera aboard New Horizons spacecraft taken between May 28 and June 25, 2015. During that time the spacecraft distance to Pluto decreased almost threefold, from about 35 million miles to 14 million miles (56 million kilometers to 22 million kilometers). The images show Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, growing in apparent size as New Horizons closes in. As it rotates, Pluto displays a strongly contrasting surface dominated by a bright northern hemisphere, with a discontinuous band of darker material running along the equator. Charon has a dark polar region, and there are indications of brightness variations at lower latitudes.

New Horizons gets final ‘all clear’ from NASA

. ...

The infrared spectrometer on the New Horizons spacecraft has detected frozen methane on Pluto’s surface; Earth-based astronomers first observed the chemical compound on Pluto in 1976.

More
http://earthsky.org/space/pluto-charon-new-horizons-flyby-updates-july-2015?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=9fdf3278aa-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-9fdf3278aa-393525109

[Fred Sanders]

1. Remarkable. The two week final approach visual gif is....awesome. Should be front page stuff.

One can only imagine:

[Princess Turandot]

2. Have you ever tried the NASA 'Eyes on the Solar System' program?

It's very cool, especially in full screen mode. They've loaded all kinds of info into it, along with very nice models of the various spacecrafts.

http://eyes.nasa.gov/index.html