Animated Flyover of Pluto’s Icy Mountain and Plains

Here is the animated flyover of New Horizons

This simulated flyover of Pluto’s Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) and Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) was created from New Horizons closest-approach images. Norgay Montes have been informally named for Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Sputnik Planum is informally named for Earth’s first artificial satellite. The images were acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

as much as i am happy to see this much of pluto.......

i am also very frustrated that New Horizons has already flown past neptune, possibly even its moons. why the hurry. why could it not have lingered a bit and explored a bit more.

i understand that Nasa will receive further images and keep plublishing them. one picture a day or so a day. over the next 16 months.

I am wondering when they are gonna start generating 3d environments for "avatars" to virtually explore. I know you can generate height maps from imagery like this and then translate that through to form the basis of a virtual world.

a reply to: Sanssouci

It's not like they could just stop and hang around the area. Even slowing down near Neptune would have required fuel, which would have required a bigger vehicle, or reduced payload.

a reply to: Thorneblood

wouldn't that be the way to go.

so we share a bit of similar resentment in this regard. shall we blame the biased distribution of taxpayer's money?

a reply to: Sanssouci

Pause the video at 0:49. On the left hand side of the picture there's an area that looks like ice, but look around it...

Use full screen.

originally posted by: Sanssouci


as much as i am happy to see this much of pluto.......

i am also very frustrated that New Horizons has already flown past neptune, possibly even its moons. why the hurry. why could it not have lingered a bit and explored a bit more.

i understand that Nasa will receive further images and keep plublishing them. one picture a day or so a day. over the next 16 months.

Okay, realize that all the planets orbit about our sun and are not static. They also orbit at different speeds. The further out you go, the slower the are moving around the sun.

Take a look at this image that shows New Horizons current position:



Neptune was not on the way. Yes, New Horizons crossed the orbit of Neptune, but when it did so, Neptune was no where near there.

I too would love to have more up to date images of both Uranus and Neptune from probes, but we'll have to send a probe to each, as Uranus is getting further and further away from Neptune, just as Neptune is getting further and further away from Pluto.

originally posted by: Thorneblood
I am wondering when they are gonna start generating 3d environments for "avatars" to virtually explore. I know you can generate height maps from imagery like this and then translate that through to form the basis of a virtual world.

Let's skip that and go straight to Project Morpheus! I wanna do this VR style. Or maybe even augmented reality so we can have shootouts on Pluto with our friends.

Baby steps, I know, I know.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Sanssouci

It's not like they could just stop and hang around the area. Even slowing down near Neptune would have required fuel, which would have required a bigger vehicle, or reduced payload.

it would have been worth it in my opinion

where is it heading to anyway? just further through the kuiper belt where it might or might not encounter something else of interest ?

originally posted by: EA006
a reply to: Sanssouci

Pause the video at 0:49. On the left hand side of the picture there's an area that looks like ice, but look around it...

Use full screen.

do i see more of Cere's lights reflecting?

a reply to: Sanssouci

Again: there was no way to do that. Neptune was not on the way to Pluto. It's position right now is way too far for them to have gone there.

At best, they could have gone to Neptune and put it in orbit around it, but there it would stay with no way to get to Pluto. And while that might have been cool too as you said so we could explore it more, New Horizons was designed specifically for Pluto.

What we need is a new propulsion system so we can get probes to these far off places much faster.

a reply to: Sanssouci

Why involve taxpayers? It can be done for free and easily released via Reddit/Steam as a game or mod.

originally posted by: Sanssouci
where is it heading to anyway? just further through the kuiper belt where it might or might not encounter something else of interest ?

What 'eriktheawful' said.

Plus, I'd like to add that New Horizons didn't zoom past Pluto without stopping to linger because they necessarily wanted it to zoom past Pluto. It zoomed past Pluto because it is not able to stop.

To get there relatively quickly (in nine years), it needed to be going very fast, and to go very fast it needed to be (among other things) designed to be very low in mass. And to be low in Mass means it cannot carry enough fuel to slow down enough to achieve orbit around Pluto.

It could have travel at a much slower speed, taking 25 or 30 years to get there, an going slow enough once it got there to be able to achieve orbit, but that's a long time to hope a spaceship could survive with all of its instruments still intact.

originally posted by: Thorneblood
I am wondering when they are gonna start generating 3d environments for "avatars" to virtually explore. I know you can generate height maps from imagery like this and then translate that through to form the basis of a virtual world.

Been done.

photos.google.com...

www.youtube.com...


Which is why I was a bit disappointed to see a "flat" NASA flyby.

Maybe im a idiot for asking but why are we seeing animated pics and not the real deal? Is there not enough light from the sun or something? Im not a huge space nut but this is pretty interesting.

originally posted by: xXGriMe
Maybe im a idiot for asking but why are we seeing animated pics and not the real deal? Is there not enough light from the sun or something? Im not a huge space nut but this is pretty interesting.

Those are the real photos. Animation is how they "placed" those images on a virtual surface and moved the virtual camera across, to make it look like a flyby. You can do the same in Google Earth, it uses real photos stretched over the terrain, and you can view it from any angle or do a "flyby".