Gallery: Most-detailed images of Pluto revealed
by Andy Smith | February 4, 2010 11:58am PST | Image 1 of 11
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A set of photos taken by the Hubble space telescope in 2002 and 2003 show the most detailed look at the former planet Pluto. The photos show an icy and dark molasses colored surface that changes with the seasons.
NASA says the dwarf planet is so small and far away from Earth that it's like trying to examine details in a soccer ball 40 miles away. These will be the best images available of Pluto until 6 months before the New Horizons spacecraft flies by the dwarf planet in 2015.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute) (Click on the photo for greater details.)
Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)
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goyta4th Feb 2010 -
The images are so blurry
it may very well be Mickey's dog...
John Zern4th Feb 2010 -
RE: (Gallery: Most-detailed images of Pluto revealed)
looks like aplanet to me
m_oester@...4th Feb 2010 -
RE: (Gallery: Most-detailed images of Pluto revealed)
Brilliant work by NASA that shows us that the universe is more wonderful that we could ever imagine.
Really looking forward to 2015 when we can see more.
Marcwolf19604th Feb 2010 -
RE: (Gallery: Most-detailed images of Pluto revealed)
How about some raw images - i.e. without the artificial
circular shape superimposed?
Stuart21@...4th Feb 2010 -
The Chinese will send us a postcard from there one day.
It'll read "The weather's great, don't you wish you were here? You could have been, if your Buffoon-in-Chief hadn't killed your manned space program."
Hallowed are the Ori5th Feb 2010 -
Maybe
they won't need to because they can shoot us with ammo made from spent brass the BiC ordered DoD to sell them or nuked with missiles copied from us while a previous BiC was trying to figure out the meaning of "is". All with the complicity of greedy CEOs who find no issue with doing business with a country that will not respect human rights, much less property rights.
JimboNobody8th Feb 2010 -
We should have been there already.
Hmm...
It amazes me. The US Government spends over a Trillion dollars on stupid wars, when funding could be put to medicine, space exploration, energy and a whole bunch of other great things.
We have not yet evolved.
Revolution is good!
Smart_Neuron5th Feb 2010 -
And where is my rocket belt?
Smart_Neuron claims the government is holding us
back. Better move to China and Russia where all is
well. Oh yeah, what about the EU?
bobfastner5th Feb 2010 -
So, just to get this straight
Spending money fighting people who want to kill you is bad because you
could spend it on other great things instead. Like being able to do things
when you are dead.
Just trying to follow the thought process here. Oh. wait. That's my
problem. I assumed thinking was occurring.
frgough5th Feb 2010 -
WOW! This image is amazing!
What is the point of posting this blurry photo? It shows nothing, means nothing.
tricktytom6th Feb 2010 -
RE: (Gallery: Most-detailed images of Pluto revealed)
Pluto was ignored planet till now and it has been even stripped off the ranking of planet but these pics make you think that it has to be taken into consideration once again.
Hardik Upadhyay6th Feb 2010 -
RE: (Gallery: Most-detailed images of Pluto revealed)
Pluto is not a "former" planet; it is a planet. Please do not blindly accept the controversial demotion of Pluto, which was done by only four percent of the International Astronomical Union, most of whom are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA?s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Stern and like-minded scientists favor a broader planet definition that includes any non-self-luminous spheroidal body in orbit around a star. The spherical part is important because objects become spherical when they attain a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning they are large enough for their own gravity to pull them into a round shape. This is a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects. Pluto meets this criterion and is therefore a planet. At the very least, you should note that there is an ongoing debate rather than portraying one side as fact when it is only one interpretation of fact.
laurel86113th Feb 2010 -
No, it's a dwarf planet, not a full-fledged planet
The astronomical community had to come up with some definition for what makes something a planet. So why should Pluto be one, just because we've always thought it is? It isn't enormous (it's smaller than the Moon), it isn't in the plane of the other planets, and there are larger bodies than Pluto further out.
The definition you're referring to would expand our solar system's planets to a pretty large number, bringing in as "planets" a lot of big rocks that nobody intuitively thinks of as planets. Reaching hydrostatic equilibrium is a good criterion--it's something solid you can use as a definition--but bodies don't have to be what people consider planet-size to reach it. Seems to me that way of doing it causes more problems than it solves.
LeonBA18th Mar 2010
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