NEW YORK: Add another online appetizer to the Pluto party: NASA’s newly released “Pluto Time” widget calculates the time of day when the amount of sunlight you’re getting is equivalent to the noonday glare on the dwarf planet’s surface. Spoiler alert: It’s not that much.
The Web-based widget is one of several online offerings that are being served up in advance of the New Horizons spacecraft’s Pluto flyby on July 14.
The Pluto Time website lets you plug in your coordinates and gives you the “Pluto Time” for your locale. Pluto is more than 30 times farther away from the sun than Earth is (3 billion miles vs. 93 million miles). That means Pluto gets as much sunlight at noon as Earthlings get on a clear day around dusk or dawn. For example, Friday evening’s Pluto Time in Seattle doesn’t come until 9:08 p.m.
Pluto Time isn’t just a widget and a time of day; it’s also a social media campaign. NASA is encouraging users to go out and take selfies at the appointed time to share with the hashtag #PlutoTime.
“We’ll highlight some of the most interesting shots from around the world and combine your photos into a mosaic image of Pluto and its moons to be unveiled in August,” NASA says. Pictures already are popping up in the Pluto Time photostream on Flickr.
