Using images from the New Horizons probe, NASA has released an amazing new video which allows viewers to experience a virtual landing on Pluto.
Created using over 100 photos from the spacecraft as it studied the tiny planet, the breathtaking video is perhaps a glimpse of what our descendants may see when they travel into deep space someday.
Akin to land spotted on the horizon by a sailor, Pluto appears are a mere dot at the beginning of the video, but the sight of the planet increases in size and detail as the 'landing' approaches.
The virtual spacecraft then descends closer and closer to the surface of the planet and ultimately stops at Pluto's Sputnik Planum ice plain.
Altogether, it is an incredible perspective that took 9 years, a journey of 3 billion miles, and a cost of $700 million dollars to achieve.
Considering the cost, time, and resources involved, it's safe to say that the new NASA video is the closest anyone will come to actually landing on Pluto any time soon.
Nonetheless, it just might be almost as awesome as the real thing.
Coast Insiders looking to revisit the celebrated arrival of New Horizons at Pluto last year can check out space historian Robert Zimmerman's 7/9/2015 appearance on the program.
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Source: CBS News