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Pluto is always so far away, that no human glimpse can catch its eye, even with a million roses. But NASA brought home some stunning and recent pictures of Pluto, with the help the the US spacecraft New Horizons that has been sent at this particular destination.
According to NASA, the images have been taken from 203 million km away from the beautiful dwarf planet and the have been taken by New Horizons’ telescopic Long—Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).
It is not a coincidence that the amazing photographs come as a celebration to the 109th birthday of Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered this distant, cold and icy planet in the year 1930. Clyde Tombaugh’s daughter Annette is enchanted with the beautiful present that her family is going to receive in the beloved memory of her father.
“My dad would be thrilled with New Horizons. To actually see the planet that he had discovered, and find out more about it — to get to see the moons of Pluto — he would have been astounded. I am sure it would have meant so much to him if he were still alive today.”
This approach of the spacecraft towards Pluto is the first one for the year 2015; of course, there will be a next one in the 14th of July, when a flyby around the planet and its moons will take place. Until then, thousands of pictures will be taken in order to discover more details about this wonderful and unpopulated place.
New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel (Maryland), said that Pluto is finally becoming more than just a pinpoint of light.
“Pluto will continue to grow larger and larger in the images as New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward its targets. The new LORRI images also demonstrate that the camera’s performance is unchanged since it was launched more than nine years ago.”
We are taking part of a perfect and totally new event, as this is NASA’s first humanity trip to Pluto. Scientists everywhere are very excited and prepared to explore the new horizons of this so little discovered planet of our solar system. It has been named a planet right before the spacecraft has left the Earth with the intention of finding it and bringing as more information as possible back home. The value of the New Horizons is flamboyant: $700 million, but they are most certainly an impeccable investment.
Image Source: I-Space
