Humans just got our first good look at Pluto, and it's incredible

[Num7]

NASA released this incredibly clear image of Pluto just minutes before its spacecraft, New Horizons, flew by Pluto for the first time in history. The flyby marked the first time humanity has ever visited Pluto.

Here is one of the last photos that New Horizons took before its historic flyby, and it's the best view of Pluto we've ever seen:

"[It] is approximately 1,000 times better than we could do even with the biggest and baddest Hubble Space telescope at Earth," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, at a NASA briefing on Tuesday.

Scientists still are not sure what is responsible for the light and dark regions that are now clearly visible on Pluto's surface, but they hope to answer that mystery within the coming months as data from New Horizons pours in.

"You can see regions of various kinds of brightness," Stern said. "What we know is that on the surface, there is the history of impacts, and we [also] see a history of surface activity." For example, there's evidence that it snows on Pluto!

Read more:
First high-resolution image of Pluto's surface - Business Insider

 

[PoisonApple]

It snows on Pluto?? How cool! Our universe really is gorgeous...

 

[bluejay_1919]

That is just amazing and beautiful.

 

[Num7]

It's hard to believe, but it took this probe almost a decade to get there.

That's very far away for us humans, but it's an infinitely small distance in the Universe's scale. It's mind blowing how small we are.

 

[PaulaJedi]

It's hard to believe, but it took this probe almost a decade to get there.

That's very far away for us humans, but it's an infinitely small distance in the Universe's scale. It's mind blowing how small we are.

Technology will get faster. I think it takes about 2 years (correct me if I'm wrong) to get to Mars and it used to take much longer!

 

[Classicalfan626]

It's hard to believe, but it took this probe almost a decade to get there.

That's very far away for us humans, but it's an infinitely small distance in the Universe's scale. It's mind blowing how small we are.

Technology will get faster. I think it takes about 2 years (correct me if I'm wrong) to get to Mars and it used to take much longer!

It should take about 2 years to get to Mars using the technology that is in mainstream public knowledge, but using the best technology ever found/made on Earth (i.e. used by the U.S. government) in recent times, I bet it would be much, much faster!

 

[trekie4ever]

Lol. Like teleportation?

 

[Classicalfan626]

Lol. Like teleportation?

Yes, like teleportation, and flying saucers too.

 

[trekie4ever]

Yes, like teleportation, and flying saucers too.

Every space faring being knows saucers are impractical and outdated. It's all about the cube on a cube in a cube

 

[Num7]

It would seem easier to bend spacetime in order to reduce travel distances to a minimum. Much more convenient than old school travel from point A to point B.

Can you imagine what kind of propulsion engine a ship would need to travel from Andromeda to the Milky Way in a month? In a day? Or in an hour? Good luck! That is, assuming a 100 million, or a billion years old civilization would achieve intergalactic travel.