NASA Lets You Experience “Pluto Time”

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Want to know when it is "Pluto time" in your area? NASA is here to help.

It's always Pluto Time somewhere, and NASA wants to see your view. Take a picture during your local Pluto Time, and share it to social media with the tag #PlutoTime. We'll highlight some of the most interesting shots from around the world. NASA's New Horizons is en route to becoming the first spacecraft to make a close encounter with Pluto. After the historic flyby on 14 July 2015, we'll combine your photos into a mosaic image of Pluto and its moons.
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Wait... what?

I expected to see something related to science. This is just asking idiots to post pictures with hashtags, or have I completely missed something here?
 
My picture got rejected. I have #plutotime on my bare hairy ass. It's very monumental moment.
 
Merc1138 said:
Wait... what?

I expected to see something related to science. This is just asking idiots to post pictures with hashtags, or have I completely missed something here?
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Well my first question is, did you RTFA? because there is a bit of science there, the science that Pluto being so far away from the Sun makes it really dark, however at "Noon" (i.e. when the Sun is highest and brightest) on Pluto it's about as bright as it is on Earth at dawn/dusk. (there's the science) so take some pictures outside of what it looks like at those time to experience what it would look like on Pluto... well minus the atmosphere, houses, water, grass, etc.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well my first question is, did you RTFA? because there is a bit of science there, the science that Pluto being so far away from the Sun makes it really dark, however at "Noon" (i.e. when the Sun is highest and brightest) on Pluto it's about as bright as it is on Earth at dawn/dusk. (there's the science) so take some pictures outside of what it looks like at those time to experience what it would look like on Pluto... well minus the atmosphere, houses, water, grass, etc.
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Yes I RTFA. That still doesn't change that there's very little to it, and they're just asking for pictures with hash tags that don't actually mean a damned thing.
 
^^ This.
I teach an intro astronomy course, I try not to use numbers and what not, so here's a story that really gives you a feel for how dark it is on Pluto at Noon, sure you could say Pluto at 39 AU from the Sun will have an intensity of approximately 1/39^2 or 0.066% that at Earth, and to some that might be "wow that doesn't sound like a lot at all" or you could just say Look outside at dusk, that's what it looks like.

Now sure the whole social media thing is really not necessary but everyone is doing that shit for everything anyways so why the fuck not?
 
It seems like a cool idea. It raises awareness of the mission, it educates people that at noon on Pluto it is about as bright as it is here on earth at dusk, and those mosaic images are pretty neat sometimes. Now if we could only get more people interested in space exploration/research instead of sitting in their mom's basement typing snarky messages on some Internet forum somewhere...
 
MrCaffeineX said:
It seems like a cool idea. It raises awareness of the mission, it educates people that at noon on Pluto it is about as bright as it is here on earth at dusk, and those mosaic images are pretty neat sometimes. Now if we could only get more people interested in space exploration/research instead of sitting in their mom's basement typing snarky messages on some Internet forum somewhere...
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Yeah, but if we could do that, we'd have solved 95% of the world's problems at the same time. Doesn't seem likely.
 
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