8 ms·

If this is not astro picture of the year, I don't know what is: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-apluto-wide-9-17-15-final_0.png http

by dvh 11y ago

If this is not astro picture of the year, I don't know what is: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-apluto-wide-9-17-15-final_0.png http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-...

mooogs 11y ago
Absolutely stunning view.
coryfklein 11y ago
I scaled it to fit 2560x1440 for my Apple Cinema Displays and used content-aware fill in the black space in the margins on the top and bottom. It works as an amazing wallpaper. http://i.imgur.com/GykjvD7.png http://i.imgur.com/GykjvD7.png
- effie 11y ago
  Does anybody know if it is possible to remove the artifact dashing from the picture?
  - tripzilch 11y ago
    They appear to be parallel lines at an angle of about 12 degrees off horizontal. In a quick check it doesn't appear they are noticeably curved. So in that case, a specific (small) region of the Fourier spectrum of that image should correspond to just those lines. So convert your image to Fourier space, locate the region (.. yeah, best to calculate where it should be, cause it won't really stand out enough to spot as the dashing is quite subtle), and then blur, or content-aware heal, or even just blacken the area. Convert back. Dashes gone. Easy as pi! cough
anon4 11y ago
If you don't think this is the tightest shit ever, then get out of my face! -- Bill Nye
psygong2 11y ago
It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?
- ckarmann 11y ago
  While other have insisted on how that photo is a technology feast, taken from billions of miles away, from something we have never seen before, it's also breathtaking from what it shows: a multilayered atmosphere, completely unique in the Solar System; mountains of water ice next to vast plains of what may be ice nitrogen, also features never seen before on any other body of the Solar System. Before July, many people thought that maybe we would see just another round rock full of craters, ala Mercury, nobody expected what we see now. How many times in your adult life a photo has shown you something that you could never have imagined before? On top of that, the backlit quality of the photo makes the relief jump at you in a staggering way. It's not like the pictures taken from above, where you can see the same features from very high, in a detached way. Here the landscape just feel real, like if you were there looking at it. Also it gives a sense of the size of the mountains, especially compared to the curvature of the horizon.
  - bad-joke 11y ago
    Weirdly, the light is what surprises me the most. I always thought the surface of Pluto was cloaked in eternal night because the sun is so far away. Turns out high noon on Pluto is more or less as bright as twilight on Earth! Check your local "Pluto time" here: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime/ http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime/
- jameshart 11y ago
  Except, it's in a temperature regime so alien to us that your assumptions on seeing those 'rocks and ice' are very wrong. The 'rocks' are water ice. The 'ice' is frozen nitrogen. Nobody thought Pluto would have a dynamic weather system - a climate. And yet it seems to have a glacial nitrogen precipitation cycle. The geological forms look familiar. The mechanisms are not. That's pretty incredible.
- 11y ago
oska 11y ago
I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe.
toxican 11y ago
For all the awe that the Martian and Lunar photos instill in me, this is just the most amazing thing ever. For the entirety of my life up until recently, Pluto was this impossibly distant planet that we knew very little about. We didn't even hardly know what it really looked like. I think the most we had was the blurry Hubble shots. And now? Now I'm looking up close and personal at this impossibly distant object and can make out land structures. Just wow.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Before this year, I believe this was the best image of Pluto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_animiert_200px.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_animie...
  - asmithmd1 11y ago
    Here is our best image of Pluto just 3 months ago: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-lorri-pluto-1.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-... The image above is from the same camera as the images released today. Taking great pictures is not about the camera but about getting in the right spot at the right time
    - jonknee 11y ago
      > Taking great pictures is not about the camera but about getting in the right spot at the right time Exactly. It's an amusingly low res camera too, just 1 megapixel. But it's a workhorse!
xlm1717 11y ago
Simply breathtaking.

by dvh 11y ago

mooogs 11y ago

Absolutely stunning view.

coryfklein 11y ago

I scaled it to fit 2560x1440 for my Apple Cinema Displays and used content-aware fill in the black space in the margins on the top and bottom. It works as an amazing wallpaper. http://i.imgur.com/GykjvD7.png http://i.imgur.com/GykjvD7.png

effie 11y ago
Does anybody know if it is possible to remove the artifact dashing from the picture?
- tripzilch 11y ago
  They appear to be parallel lines at an angle of about 12 degrees off horizontal. In a quick check it doesn't appear they are noticeably curved. So in that case, a specific (small) region of the Fourier spectrum of that image should correspond to just those lines. So convert your image to Fourier space, locate the region (.. yeah, best to calculate where it should be, cause it won't really stand out enough to spot as the dashing is quite subtle), and then blur, or content-aware heal, or even just blacken the area. Convert back. Dashes gone. Easy as pi! cough

anon4 11y ago

If you don't think this is the tightest shit ever, then get out of my face! -- Bill Nye

psygong2 11y ago

It's a black and white photo of rocks and ice. It's interesting that it is Pluto, but photo of the year? Why?

ckarmann 11y ago
While other have insisted on how that photo is a technology feast, taken from billions of miles away, from something we have never seen before, it's also breathtaking from what it shows: a multilayered atmosphere, completely unique in the Solar System; mountains of water ice next to vast plains of what may be ice nitrogen, also features never seen before on any other body of the Solar System. Before July, many people thought that maybe we would see just another round rock full of craters, ala Mercury, nobody expected what we see now. How many times in your adult life a photo has shown you something that you could never have imagined before? On top of that, the backlit quality of the photo makes the relief jump at you in a staggering way. It's not like the pictures taken from above, where you can see the same features from very high, in a detached way. Here the landscape just feel real, like if you were there looking at it. Also it gives a sense of the size of the mountains, especially compared to the curvature of the horizon.
- bad-joke 11y ago
  Weirdly, the light is what surprises me the most. I always thought the surface of Pluto was cloaked in eternal night because the sun is so far away. Turns out high noon on Pluto is more or less as bright as twilight on Earth! Check your local "Pluto time" here: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime/ http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime/
jameshart 11y ago
Except, it's in a temperature regime so alien to us that your assumptions on seeing those 'rocks and ice' are very wrong. The 'rocks' are water ice. The 'ice' is frozen nitrogen. Nobody thought Pluto would have a dynamic weather system - a climate. And yet it seems to have a glacial nitrogen precipitation cycle. The geological forms look familiar. The mechanisms are not. That's pretty incredible.
11y ago

oska 11y ago

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe.

toxican 11y ago

For all the awe that the Martian and Lunar photos instill in me, this is just the most amazing thing ever. For the entirety of my life up until recently, Pluto was this impossibly distant planet that we knew very little about. We didn't even hardly know what it really looked like. I think the most we had was the blurry Hubble shots. And now? Now I'm looking up close and personal at this impossibly distant object and can make out land structures. Just wow.

mikeash 11y ago
Before this year, I believe this was the best image of Pluto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_animiert_200px.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_animie...
- asmithmd1 11y ago
  Here is our best image of Pluto just 3 months ago: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-lorri-pluto-1.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-... The image above is from the same camera as the images released today. Taking great pictures is not about the camera but about getting in the right spot at the right time
  - jonknee 11y ago
    > Taking great pictures is not about the camera but about getting in the right spot at the right time Exactly. It's an amusingly low res camera too, just 1 megapixel. But it's a workhorse!

xlm1717 11y ago

Simply breathtaking.