8 years ago
4
The Big Picture: NASA previews best Pluto image yet
Anxious to see the best images of Pluto ever? NASA is set to release high res photos soon, but in the meantime, the space agency has posted a
Continue Reading
http://www.engadget.com
Join the Discussion
The culmination of 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA. Take a second to think about how crazy this seemingly ordinary image is. A probe that was launched in 2006 traveled 31.90 AU (AU = Astronomical Unit | 149.6 million Kilometers or 93 million Miles) (2966.7 MILLION MILES AWAY!). It takes light 4 hours to travel that distance. It arrives at its target without any problems, executes its actions according to a plan set it motion 9 years ago, and takes a picture. We are seeing a planet so far away that light (the fastest thing in the known universe) takes 4 hours to reach, captured in a still photo. Then it beamed that information, 0's and 1's all the way back to earth. . . Just insane to me the level of accomplishment this represents.
And don't forget that the process to take, encode and send the picture was done mostly by a miniaturized zen garden. We reorganize small pieces of silica and get them to follow complex instructions. This is Clarke's Third Law at its best.
Stunning!
That is beautiful!