The Official Space Exploration Thread

[DSJ™]

Bezos’ Blue Origin completes first test flight of ‘New Shepard’ spacecraft

[Nicklab]

Messenger spacecraft mission comes to an end.  The probe has given us an amazing level of insight into the planet Mercury.  But the spacecraft has run out of propellant, so NASA has crashed it into the surface of Mercury.

[DSJ™]

The little lander that could... 

Lost comet lander awakes, sends 'hello' from space

[Matt_Fury]

Finally had a mostly clear night here tonight, so I was able to point my telescope at Venus, Jupiter and Saturn!

My wife hadn't seen Saturn yet through the telescope...it'll be fun when my kids are a little older.

[Rob]

Nice!

I bought my first telescope this week, my inlaws, brother in law, and I went thirds on a relatively big one and I'm hauling it up to the woods of northern Wisconsin for the 4th of July weekend. 

We went with the Orion XT-10.

[DSJ™]

New Horizons Probe Finds Out Pluto's Bigger (and Icier) Than We Thoughtt

New Horizons Mission Site

[Matt_Fury]

I always liked that meme of Pluto writing a letter to NASA saying "Your mom thought I was big enough".

I've been fascinated by New Horizons.  If you have an iPad, I highly recommend the Sky View app.  They recently added a feature that is tracking the progress of New Horizons when you search for Pluto.  Very exciting stuff!

[DSJ™]

I love that app Matt, one of the best one's out. 

Break out the snowboards! 

NASA's New Horizons probe finds snow and so much more


Picture credit pluto.jhuapl.edu

[P-Siddy]

Wow!  Stunning!

[Matt_Fury]

To put this into perspective, the entire history of the United States from the revolution to today, all happened in one orbit of Pluto.

[Phrubruh]

True, that is why this whole project was a big rush job. They only had four years from approval to launch date to build the space craft. They usually have ten years. It's amazing that the project worked at all.

[Nicklab]

The mathematical computations, orbital mechanics and astrophysics involved in this mission are impressive all on their own.  Especially since it took close to a decade for the spacecraft to travel from Earth to Pluto, and at a measly speed of 30,800 mph.  And in spite of that the imagery is really impressive!

[DSJ™]

What New Horizons reveals about Pluto


New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise -- a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body. Credits: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI

Charon’s Surprising, Youthful and Varied Terrain


Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI

[Matt_Fury]

True, that is why this whole project was a big rush job. They only had four years from approval to launch date to build the space craft. They usually have ten years. It's amazing that the project worked at all.

Pluto will be moving further away from the sun and the atmosphere will actually freeze and fall to the surface.  They had to move quickly with this mission to be able to analyze it.  Hopefully the next time Pluto moves toward "summer", we will be able to send people that far.

[Diddly]

Pluto looks nothing like what The Magic School Bus said it looks like!

I read that it's going to take something like 2 more years to get all of the data/pictures because it's being transmitted at speeds slower than mid-90's dial-up. Crazy!