Tag: images

Pluto

That flyby was far too quick.

2015-07-17: Animated Flyover

2015-07-24: Pluto’s atmosphere

Taken when New Horizons was about 2m kilometers past Pluto, when the tiny rock and ice world was very nearly between the spacecraft and the Sun. New Horizons looked over its shoulder, back at Pluto, to capture this breathtaking picture. The ring of light you are seeing? That’s Pluto’s atmosphere! Light passing through that cold, thin, nitrogen gas gets scattered, bent, and we see it as a halo surrounding the night side of Pluto.

2015-09-20: very nice Pluto picture.

New Horizons

After traveling ~5b km over the past 9.5 years, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is within hours of its rendezvous with Pluto. Back in 2006, when the space probe was launched, Pluto was classified as the 9th planet in the solar system, and was known to have 3 moons. During the long journey to this distant icy world, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet, 1 of many smaller bodies orbiting the sun, and another 2 moons were discovered. In 2007, New Horizons flew past Jupiter and its moons on the way to Pluto, capturing many spectacular images. On the morning of July 14, 2015, New Horizons will speed past the Pluto system at ~14 kilometers per second, making as many observations as possible. In the hours and days following, it will be sending the data to Earth, on its way to the Kuiper belt, with plans to target another smaller body sometime around 2018.

Scanning quantum dot microscopy

Using a single molecule attached to an atomic force microscope as a more sensitive sensor, scientists have used a new “scanning quantum dot microscopy” method to image electric potential fields of electron shells of single molecules and even atoms with high precision for the first time, providing contact-free information on the distribution of charges. The breakthrough technique is relevant for diverse scientific fields including investigations into biomolecules and semiconductor materials.