[SmashMonkey]

That's a very short encounter for such a long time waiting.  Interplanetary travel is crazy.

Ffs we need to invent a subspace drive soon.

Also, what if we discover a Shivan base on Pluto? o.O

[watsisname]

I'd probably **** bricks and wonder what they are doing on Pluto of all things.  Then I'd phone up Jason Scott and say "I believe you have some explaining to do."

[watsisname]

NASA’s New Horizons mission is returning to normal science operations after a July 4 anomaly and remains on track for its July 14 flyby of Pluto.

The investigation into the anomaly that caused New Horizons to enter “safe mode” on July 4 has concluded that no hardware or software fault occurred on the spacecraft. The underlying cause of the incident was a hard-to-detect timing flaw in the spacecraft command sequence that occurred during an operation to prepare for the close flyby. No similar operations are planned for the remainder of the Pluto encounter.

“I’m pleased that our mission team quickly identified the problem and assured the health of the spacecraft,” said Jim Green, NASA’s Director of Planetary Science. “Now – with Pluto in our sights – we’re on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold.”

This is a big relief.  And the latest images keep getting better and better!

[Bryan See]

Pluto gets clearer this time...



And, in color form...



Don't forget, HLP is free to throw a Plutopalooza party upon New Horizon's historic flyby of Pluto! Click here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Participate/community/Plutopalooza-Toolkit.php.

By the way, a decade ago, I have my name onboard the spacecraft. Check my certificate if you are free.

[Mongoose]

It's Mars Jr.  Who knew?

[NGTM-1R]

Don't forget, HLP is free to throw a Plutopalooza party upon New Horizon's historic flyby of Pluto! Click here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Participate/community/Plutopalooza-Toolkit.php.

Glory to Mike Brown, planet-slayer! Death to the heathens!

[qwadtep]

Also, what if we discover a Shivan base on Pluto? o.O

Rejoice that there isn't a Gamilas base hurling asteroids at Earth instead.

[Bryan See]

This is the latest map of Pluto created from LORRI images taken from June 27 to July 3, combined with lower-resolution color data from the Ralph instrument.



Guess there's no Shivan base on it. Or even a GRW or Authority base.

[watsisname]

NH's still fairly far out and can't resolve things smaller than ~200km yet.  We need to get closer to be able to rule out existence of Shivan bases, and then they might still be hiding in the permanight.  Sneaky buggers.

[Phantom Hoover]

have we ruled out the existence of fwiffo yet

[AdmiralRalwood]

Given that Fwiffo isn't supposed to arrive on pluto for over a century, I'm not sure how anything New Horizons does in the near future would be able to rule out his existence.

[Bryan See]

Pluto gets closer this morning.

[Dark Hunter]

have we ruled out the existence of fwiffo yet

Dude, Fwiffo saw the probe coming and got the hell out. He always knew the sneaky hunams were going to do something tricky.

[NGTM-1R]

have we ruled out the existence of fwiffo yet

Given his habit of lurking just outside the range of our detectors, probably not.

[Flipside]

Looks a lot more varied than I thought it would be, I was expecting more or less just a monochrome dirty snowball, stuff is going on there, which makes it much more interesting

[Luis Dias]

Looks a lot more varied than I thought it would be, I was expecting more or less just a monochrome dirty snowball, stuff is going on there, which makes it much more interesting

Ditto! Although, the art that was more commonly used by NASA and other interested media outlets at portraying Pluto was something like this image:



And that seems a tad spot on.

[Bobboau]

[Scourge of Ages]

oohhhhhh

[Flipside]

When I see that picture, I hear 1950's sci-fi music...

[Bryan See]

Signs of geology are here on Pluto, and its puzzling spots were imaged in New Horizons' last portraits.





Two days to its historic close approach of Pluto!