The stamp itself is a circular, "Global Forever" issue, costing $1.20, that can be used to mail a 1-ounce letter to any country to which the USPS offers First-Class Mail International service. The final new release involves a rising full Moon, captured by Florida stock photographer Beth Swanson, and it's a winner. The USPS's new Moon stamp can be used to mail a 1-ounce letter as international First Class. This is not the way to show Jupiter to the American public. Heck, the USPS version doesn't even include the Great Red Spot. Why not show Jupiter as the beautiful orb that it really is? Surely there are better-suited Hubble, Voyager, or Cassini views available. The three infrared filters used yield a pink-and-turquoise planet. But, honestly, what were they thinking when choosing the Jupiter image? It's an absolutely garish and unnatural version of a Hubble Space Telescope composite from 2004. Most of them are false-color portrayals to make the image stand out better. The full sheet of 16 stamps includes two of each planet. The new USPS stamps for the planets from Mercury to Neptune are colorful - but not necessarily optimal. The commemorative sheet of "Forever" stamps, also being unveiled at the World Stamp Show, includes each planet twice (no spacecraft this time). They've created a new set of stamps with images of the eight planets from Mercury to Neptune. "Now that NASA’s New Horizons has accomplished that goal, it’s a wonderful feeling to see these new stamps join others commemorating first explorations of the planets."īe patient: you won't be able to get these "Pluto Explored!" stamps until they're dedicated in late May at the World Stamp Show in New York City. "Since the early 1990s the old, 'Pluto Not Explored' stamp served as a rallying cry for many who wanted to mount this historic mission of space exploration," Stern says in a NASA statement about the stamps. After the New Horizons flyby, principal investigator Alan Stern and other team members triumphantly held up a giant reproduction of the stamp with the words "NOT YET" crossed out. No one had yet seen Pluto up close - the New Horizons mission concept wouldn't come together for another decade - so the ninth stamp showed a vague disk to represent Pluto and included the words "NOT YET EXPLORED". Postal Service in 1991, notes that distant Pluto was "not yet explored." One of these is aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.īack in 1991, two years after Voyager 2 flew past Neptune, the USPS issued a set of nine stamps, one for each planet and a NASA spacecraft that had explored it. At that time, an online petition drew only 12,000 supporters - far short of the 100,000 needed. It's sweet vindication for the mission's scientists - not only because July's flyby proved spectacularly successful but also because they've been trying to get their spacecraft on a stamp since 2012. The USPS plans to issue a sheet of four stamps, titled "Pluto - Explored," that showcase an image of the dwarf planet and of New Horizons. The ones likely to draw most interest involve Pluto and NASA's New Horizons mission. In fact, recently the USPS unveiled three sets of stamps that celebrate the solar system and NASA's exploration thereof. Postal Service will issue stamps highlighting all three. What do Pluto, Shirley Temple, and quilting have in common? This year the U.S. These stamps, to be issued in May 2016, celebrated the exploration of Pluto by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. Postal Service has unveiled new stamps, to be issued later this year, that feature 10 solar-system objects - including Pluto.
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