New Horizon Passes Neptune On To Pluto

NASA's New Horizon has crossed Neptune's orbit on it's way to a 7-14-2015 rendezvous with Pluto.

This puts New Horizon some 2.75 billion (yep, that's billion with a B)  miles from Earth and 2.48 billion miles from Neptune proper.  This milestone has only happened once before when the mark was set by Voyager 2, which accomplished a much closer  fly-by on August 25th of 1989.

Voyager’s visit to Neptune revealed features never seen before.  Such as the Great Dark Spot, a massive storm much like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Voyager also captured clear images of the ice giant’s ring system, too faint to be clearly viewed from Earth.

Considering the historic observations of Voyager 1 and 2, New Horizons' controllers are confident that it is also on a path toward discoveries in the Kuiper Belt.   A realm of icy objects out past the orbit of Neptune.

NASA New Horizon Neptune orbit crossing article HERE + Wikipedia New Horizon 

Safe For Work Eye Candy

A cooperative venture between NASA and the Internet Archive, NASA Images is a fast, efficient resource for space and Earth science images. While all the images come with fascinating information about the photo or art, their beauty is often the highlight.

The image viewer at the site is not completely user friendly, but with all the images being downloadable, that isn't a serious issue. With tens of thousands of images available and a good search option, it's worth a look.

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