It tells you on this page the current images are raw images. On July 20th, after the encounter a full set of thumbnails will be downloaded, then the full res pics according the the download plan.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/

Testament to the Hubble designers, people who repaired Hubble and the people who use Hubble in their research.

Whoever said Pluto was a dead world ? We have know for decades it has a atmosphere that contracts during the long Plutonian winter, a dwarf planet with an active atmosphere like that must have a lot of dynamics occurring, all be it at much lower temps than on Earth of course.

Dr. Stern mentioned an image release after 4pm, not sure which time zone, but the image taken on 7/7 has not been released, assuming it was taken ok. I don't think he meant the "whale" release as that's from images before 7/7.

Might have something to do with the fact that the flyby is only 6 days away.

In some ways that will be an unexpected treat.

July 1 pics down :

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/

Rosetta mission extended.

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/23/ro...ssion-extended/

"In the meantime, new commands have been uploaded to Rosetta to further adjust its trajectory and distance from the comet to improve the radio visibility between the two spacecraft, with the first sets of thruster burns having taken place this past Wednesday and the next set planned for Saturday morning. The goal is to bring Rosetta to about 177 km from the comet nucleus and keep it in a range of latitudes that maximise opportunities for lander communication."

rosetta-and-philae-in-contact-again

More detail. The camera for instance will have up to 100 times more resolution. Also GALILEO only flew by Europa two times, I believe, 45 flyby's are planned for the new mission.

I had the same problem in 2014. Likely a new version of Firefox made it go away.

I think they concluded no solid sample got into the oven, and it was gas that was analyzed.

It's a perfect way to represent speed for the general public.

My impression was the flyby sequence was loaded way back in 2009, and won't be changed, except to fill in gaps that were deliberately left to accommodate imaging new moons.

No, it means the right edge of Pluto could be on the right of the ellipse, so you'd still get the data, the downside is the extra images take up space on the data recorder, but it's a trade off to make sure you get the data needed. Also it accommodates any slight errors in pointing by the spacecraft, but the spacecraft pointing has as far as I know been excellent, as you'd expect with such a good team.

Obviously these papers are not for the general public consumption, because I hardly understood any of it, and all those equations !

The Mars sunset was just on The Weather Channel .

They already had one listening period, but nothing was heard, as expected. This next one might have a better chance as Philae warms up.

Reminds me of Spirit in Eagle Crater .

Messenger is flying very low and very fast. It was not really designed to take images in this mode. The image is only 560 meters across. Messenger is taking a few last images before it crashes into Mercury, it has ran out of fuel.

New Horizons is now less than 100 million kilometers away from Pluto.

From http://www.yaohua2000.org website.

That just gives me a headache

They won't put the craft on an orbit that collides with the comet, so loss of science would have been the problem if it went into safe mode.

The LORRI image release for today is up at :

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-A...p?page=20150204

Latest report from ESA seems to indicate they won't be doing a flyby to look for Philae, but going ahead with the close flyby at 6 km with the Sun directly behind them to get shadow free pics, as originally planned. Presumably they are going to wait to see if and when Philae will wake up, then try spot him.