New Horizons Transforms Pluto from a Speck to a Sphere [Slide Show]
We get a whole new appreciation for New Horizons’ Pluto close-ups when we compare them with pics taken by even the best Earthbound telescopes
By Maria Temming
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This week the Internet is flush with photos of Pluto from the New Horizons mission. To someone who is not necessarily a Plutophile, it might be kind of difficult to see what all the hype is about. After all, the Hubble Space Telescope has shown us galaxies near the edge of the observable universe. What’s so exciting about seeing a dwarf planet in our own solar system?
Setting aside the fact that New Horizons’ safe arrival means that scientists successfully guided a piano-size robot across the solar system for nearly a decade, the New Horizons flyby is momentous because the spacecraft is churning out photos that show Pluto in unprecedented detail. To really appreciate how striking our new views of Pluto are, let’s take a look back at photos of the former ninth planet, now Kuiper Belt object, from the earliest glimpses to the New Horizons pictures.
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