Above, Pluto as seen from 5 million miles away by the New Horizons probe. This was taken a week ago. The nearest pass will take place on the 14th of this month when the device will come as close as 7500 miles.
This is very exciting! When I was a kid I had a special affection for Pluto because it seemed like the most mysterious and unknowable place in the Solar System. I never dreamed that I'd be able to see it close up in my lifetime.
Here's a picture of Antares, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. That's Antares in the middle of the blue haze within the orange dust cloud. The star is red but appears here as white, maybe because false color was applied. Anyway, the reason I put this up is for the dense star field that fills the picture. Isn't that incredible?
With all those closely packed stars constantly spewing high energy particles I can't even imagine how radioactive that environment must be. You have to wonder if it'll ever be possible to explore that part of the galaxy.
Have you ever wondered why we don't see giant nebulae in the sky at night? There's at least one pretty big one nearby, the clouds are just too thin to be visible to the naked eye. With long exposures cameras can see it easily. It looms over our cities at night. This bubble nebula, Sharpless 2-308 (above), covers more of the night sky than a full moon.
Here's (above) a familiar picture: The Southern Ring Nebula. But what's that straight line crossing it? Nobody knows.
