Send your name to Pluto!

30 days out! - http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/bridaineparnell/files/2015/06/Complex-Terrain-Of-Pluto-Gets-Clearer-In-New-Horizons-Pics.jpg

Also: NASA’s Hubble Finds Pluto’s Moons Tumbling in Absolute Chaos

http://i.imgur.com/pXqGmQ7.gif

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/10151024-finally-new-horizons-has-a-kbo.html

What a huge relief: there is finally a place for New Horizons to visit beyond Pluto. A team of researchers led by John Spencer has discovered three possible targets, all in the Cold Classical part of the Kuiper belt. New Horizons will most likely visit one named "PT1" for "New Horizons potential target 1." PT1 has been imaged four more times by Hubble since its discovery, and those followup images have provided enough information on its orbit for four independently working teams to determine that New Horizons will be able to fly close past it in January 2019. It is probably about 30-45 kilometers in diameter and is easily reachable with New Horizons' limited fuel budget; targeting it will require only about 35% of the spacecraft's remaining fuel. New Horizons will have to fly an additional billion kilometers beyond Pluto in order to reach it where it orbits 43.4 AU away from the Sun.

This discovery has been a long time in coming. New Horizons launched toward Pluto in 2006, with plans for a further flyby of a second, likely much smaller Kuiper belt object. The Kuiper belt phase of the mission will turn New Horizons from a single flyby mission into a Kuiper belt tour. The only catch: the second target had not been discovered yet.

http://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/pluto.jpg

18 hours to go

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

And now under 8. Waiting for the all-clear tomorrow night is going to be some crazy anticipation.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/New_horizons_encounter_timeline.jpg

What Will New Horizons See — and When?

New Horizons will take about 100 times as much data during the flyby as it can send back on a typical day. Given this, and given that we have to share NASA’s Deep Space Network of communications stations with other missions, getting all of the Pluto system observations back on Earth will take the rest of 2015 and most of 2016.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/NH-7-13-15-Pluto-NewHorizons-20150712.png

ice to see u

As we wait, this is probably where New Horizons will visit in January 2019: a relatively tiny 30-45km rock:
http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2014/20141001_PT1_cycle_f537.gif

The embedded gif in this NASA tweet is pretty cool - a visual sense of how far we've come

https://twitter.com/nasa/status/621070165212549124

Flyby successful, we will get the data. Damn this is great.

Charlie Bolden just called Pluto a planet, probably inadvertently.

"That big rock there."

Ooh, he just did it again with zero ambiguity.

First closeups:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTdaOhG9wE

New Horizons Discovers Flowing Ices on Pluto

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/nh_04_mckinnon_02c.jpg

Love it.

Pluto's atmosphere!

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh_01_stern_05_pluto_hazenew.jpg

Pluto sends a breathtaking farewell to New Horizons. Backlit by the sun, Pluto’s atmosphere rings its silhouette like a luminous halo in this image taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft around midnight EDT on July 15. This global portrait of the atmosphere was captured when the spacecraft was about 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Pluto and shows structures as small as 12 miles across. The image, delivered to Earth on July 23, is displayed with north at the top of the frame.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh_04_mckinnon_03c.jpg

Fingers crossed for "Cthulhu Reggio", though "Mi-go Reggio" is more in keeping with the Mythos.

Someone who has given the issue more consideration:

A section of Pluto is now named ‘Cthulhu.’ Here’s why it should have been ‘Yuggoth.’

High-res photomosaics have been released.

Each image below is a link to the highest resolution photomosaic (very large for Pluto):

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/crop_p_color2_enhanced_release_small.png Pluto in Enhanced Color

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-charon-neutral-bright-release.jpg Charon in Enhanced Color

Non-enhanced version. Closer to what you would see from a spacecraft flying by.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQP5KDtWIAE2Ncg.jpg

so neat

Flying past. This time using real images

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHwnkEIfNgs

A warning, kids: just look at this before-and-after.

Trips to the inner solar system--not even once. pic.twitter.com/xtTr6aQPLY

— RidingWithRobots (@ridingrobots) January 2, 2019

Seriously, Ultima Thule looks like primordial glop. Love these pictures!

They're fantastic. What a wonderful extra mission.

20 years of power still left