Upcomming NASA New Horzions Pluto Fly by

[Seany]

Any one else got some excitement for this?   I really love this kind of stuff, not quite as cool as witnessing the Apollo missions I'm sure (lucky bastads ), but it gives me a child like sense of awe and wonder none the less

Anyway for those who don't know, on the 14 of July we will begin capturing the first clear images of Pluto that humans have ever seen, as well as the other interesting bodies orbiting Pluto.   Pluto its self looks like it will be different to anything else we have seen up close in the Solar System, with strange dark and bright yellowish patches.

On to the main reason I made this thread....

There is this cool downloadable program (I'm not calling it an app ) from Nasa that is a realtime 3D simulation of the solar system with all the various missions and satellites visible. It also has a nice fearture where you can accelerate time and see how a mission will unfold.  You can go to the New Horizons Probe and fast forward time and watch it apporach Pluto.

http://eyes.nasa.gov/

Also, here is a nice documentary about the mission:

[Lameduck]

Thanks for that Sean, a brilliant ' program' and may I recommend the latest version of 'Hallo Northern Sky' by Han Kleijn, a FREE planetarium 'program' that I find perfect for locating heavenly bodies.
It can locate over 30,000 deep sky bodies and has a database of over 4 million stars (about 60MB).

[OldBloke]

I love this stuff too so thanks for posting, Seany :thumb:

[JonnyAppleSeed]

Planets shaped like a rugby ball :blink:

[Blunt]

I love this stuff too so thanks for posting, Seany :thumb:

^This^

[smilodon]

pluto itself looks like it will be different to anything else we have seen up close in the solar system, with strange dark and bright yellowish patches.

ALIENS

:clap:

[Seany]

ALIENS

:clap:

You never know!

[OldBloke]

ALIENS

:clap:

Oh I do so very hope so