kco wrote:
Brrr is cold here 1C (33.8F) with beautiful sunshine. Cool photo.
Many of your friends here will tell you, "that ain't cold!"
A tad chilly
Sort:
I hate when it's above freezing.
"... and his women colder." Hahaha 
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IBM claims to have the superest most powerful computer chip yet, boosting performance by 50% over anything else available today.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-has-created-a-7-nanometer-computer-chip-2015-7
Winter in July seems weird. :) Though your temps aren't too bad.
Do you think you'll live there forever?
Jul 10, 2015
0
#2570
Here's an image from Thursday. Starting to get some hints of geologic features.
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That Pluto; teasing us with the blurry pictures before it finally reveals itself for what it really looks like. 
Joseph-S wrote:
That Pluto; teasing us with the blurry pictures before it finally reveals itself for what it really looks like.
An almost perfectly spherical Christmas pudding.
Jul 11, 2015
0
#2573
Aside from the sun, Pluto is now the brightest object in the sky for New Horizons.
Jul 12, 2015
0
#2574
The images taken at closest approach will have 300 times the resolution of yesterday's image (on the right).
Jul 12, 2015
0
#2575
Gotta admit. I'm getting more and more convinced that New Horizons has been going the right direction all these years. 
Agree!
Jul 13, 2015
0
#2579
As of 3 hours ago this squall line had held together for more than 18 hours!
Jul 13, 2015
0
#2580
One of the biggest surprises so far as New Horizons wraps up its approach to Pluto is that no new moons have been found. It was considered very likely, particularly when new moons were still being discovered by Hubble as late as 2011 and 2012, that as New Horizons neared Pluto it would find additional smaller moons. But so far there hasn't been any hint of another moon, and the spacecraft is close enough to be able to detect obects in Pluto orbit down to only 5% of the brightness of the smallest known moon.
No sign of any ring system has been seen yet either, but the best opportunity to look for faint rings comes after closest approach when New Horizons can look back with the sun behind Pluto.
The final opportunity to receive some data from New Horizons before closest approach is at 11:17 p.m. EDT tonight when an image of Pluto will be transmitted back. Then for 22 hours there won't be a peep from New Horizons because it will be collecting data and it doesn't have the ability to obtain and transmit at the same time.
Closest approach will be at 7:50 a.m. EDT tomorrow morning (Tuesday). If the spacecraft survives the flyby without running into any particle the size of a grain of rice or larger, controllers should hear from it at 8:53 p.m. EDT Tuesday night when New Horizons sends back telemetry confirming it has survived. This phonecall home will be after it passes through the shadows of both Pluto and Charon, because those two events will be busy data collection periods.
The highest resolution images of the flyby and other data will begin transmitting back on Wednesday. Sending all the data will take months.
EDIT: added the time of closest approach
New Horizons is now within Pluto's "Hill sphere". The Hill sphere is the region of space around a body within which that body can retain natural satellites in orbits. Any stable moon of a planet has to have an orbit inside the Hill sphere boundary.