New Horizons on its approach to Pluto

Image taken on th 8th May 2015 by the Lorrri telescopic camera on-board the New Horizon space probe which is nearing its closest approach in July2015 to the minor planet Pluto Credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre, the Southwest Research Institute and
the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

The New Horizons space-craft is hurtling towards Pluto at a staggering speed, covering 750,000 miles per day.  It is a breathtaking 2.95 billion miles from home!  As time passes and the space probe nears Pluto, the resolution of the images will improve and by the 14th of July, images obtained should have a resolution 5000 times of that shown in these photographs.

I find it very exciting to have lived long enough to see such detailed images of this small and distant world at,  what for most of my life, was the edge of our known solar system.  Its a bit like when I crack open a rock and find a fossil that last saw the light of day 150 million years ago!

Image taken on th 12th May 2015 by the Lorrri telescopic camera on-board the New Horizon space probe which is nearing its closest approach in July2015 to the minor planet Pluto Credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre, the Southwest Research Institute and
the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

The first of the above images was taken when New Horizons was 49,700,000 miles distant from Pluto
and the second when it was 46,600,000 miles.

Pluto revolves every 6.4 earth days and differences in surface detail due to rotation can be seen clearly in the two images taken 4 days apart.  Scientists having analysed these images, believe that Pluto may have a polar cap.

Please note that the original images from the spacecraft were subject to deconvolution - digital manipulation and that I further applied sharpening processes both of which can cause the introduction of false features at levels of finer detail.