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New Horizons Probe Captures Images At Record Distance From Earth (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the galaxy-far-far-away dept.

jwhyche writes: The New Horizons probe has captured the farthermost images of Earth. The probe took images of Earth from a distance of over 3.79 billion miles on December 5th, 2017. This beats the image Voyager 1 captured 27 years ago. The Voyager image was taken at a distance of 3.75 billion miles and has become known as the "Pale Blue Dot" photo. Engadget notes that this new record is likely to be broken again within a matter of months. "The [New Horizons spacecraft] is slated to swing by another Kuiper Belt object (2014 MU69) on January 1st, 2019 and record more imagery in the process," reports Engadget. "So long as the mission goes according to plan, New Horizons could hold on to its lead for a long time."

11 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. a better link please? by swell · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Engadget page linked has 9 trackers and 21 scripts according to my sources. Slashdot often sends us to Engadget. Ever wonder why? The NASA page has the same information without the crap and far fewer trackers and scripts. But maybe NASA doesn't kick back anything to Slashdot. I don't know but I'm really getting tired of these crappy links to second class news sources. Try this site: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/n...

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    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  2. Correction by meglon · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not the farthest picture of earth, its the farthest picture from earth. The twin images the link goes to is actually a couple of KBO's (2012 HZ84 and 2012 HE85). The first image it took was of the Wishing Well open star cluster.

    The pale blue dot is still the farthest away picture of earth itself.

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    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    1. Re:Correction by StatureOfLiberty · · Score: 5, Informative

      This article is the most poorly worded article I have read in a long time. It was not at all clear what they meant. However, the NASA link is quite clear.

      https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-captures-record-breaking-images-in-the-kuiper-belt

      It is not the farthest picture from earth. It was not taken from earth, or even near earth. It is not the picture itself they are talking about. It is the space probe that took it. New Horizons was the furthest from Earth of any space probe that has taken a picture (any picture).

      Voyager 1 was 3.75 billion miles away from Earth when it took a picture. It just so happens it was a picture of Earth.
      New Horizons was 3.79 billion miles away from Earth when it took a picture. (That is the record they are talking about).

  3. Re:Shouldn't it have been a line segment, not a di by Calydor · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're seeing it from above because the turtle is shy.

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    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  4. Re:Looking back into the past by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

    What a vanity mission! We can see the influence of the Facebook indoctrinated generation here:

    We sent up an expensive space probe to take a selfie!

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    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  5. Let's enhance it! by Kiuas · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's some pretty impressive zoom, but can we enhance it?

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    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  6. Re:Looking back into the past by zifn4b · · Score: 3, Funny

    We sent up an expensive space probe to take a selfie!

    Once upon a time there was a plan to build a space elevator. Next project: Space Selfie Stick

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    We'll make great pets
  7. Re: The article is crap by Ranbot · · Score: 2

    Your links don't really prove anything, but this one does: https://www.space.com/16875-ho...

    To your point the theoretical shortest distance to Mars in ~33M miles, but the planets' orbits rarely ever get that close to each other. The average distance between Earth and Mars orbits is ~140M miles, and launches use the most fuel efficient path, which [counter-intuitively] is not the shortest path. So ShanhaiBill is correct that 40M miles doesn't get you to Mars.

  8. Farthest FROM Earth, not OF Earth by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    The New Horizons probe has captured the farthermost images of Earth. The probe took images of Earth

    No it didn't. The images are not of Earth.

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    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  9. Re:The article is crap by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    When was the last time you travelled 40 million miles? Never? I thought so.

  10. Re:Looking back into the past by meglon · · Score: 2

    On a slightly more serious note, a selfie of the entire planet at that distance probably wouldn't be a bad thing to help remind people of how pretty insignificant our species, and even our planet, is in the grand scheme of the universe. The first one seemed to help some people, although there's a lot of others it could help now if they'd only pull their heads out of their backsides.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's