Hello Pluto, Ralph Here to Take Ya Picture

I was devastated when I heard that NASA was going to have cut their budget drastically a few years ago. I wondered how far we would advance and pioneer into the cosmic heavens without a healthy budget to propel us into the future.

Luckily NASA has continued to explore and provide us with breathtaking images of the deep universe with the Hubble Space Telescope, and now, the New Horizons Probe (launched in 2006). New Horizons just flew by Pluto in the closest approach to the planet with a camera named “Ralph.” As you can see from the final picture, this is the best and final photo taken (a combination of the close up black and white and a lower resolution color photo taken by Ralph) of Pluto by New Horizons as it advances further into the great dark abyss.

The Atlantic posted a great feature yesterday about “Ralph” and its designer, Lisa Hardaway, an engineer at Ball Aerospace in Colorado who led the technical development team behind the space age camera. The camera was built to be able to handle the constraints of space travel and was almost constructed entirely from aluminum, including the mirrors that were made reflective by sharpening them with diamonds. The lens is still made of glass 🙂

Here is what NASA had to say about the images taken of Pluto:

“This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The color image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument that was acquired earlier on July 13.

This view is dominated by the large, bright feature informally named the “heart,” which measures approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across. The heart borders darker equatorial terrains, and the mottled terrain to its east (right) are complex. However, even at this resolution, much of the heart’s interior appears remarkably featureless-possibly a sign of ongoing geologic processes.”

— NASA

Here is NASA’s approach to Pluto: