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[cameron]

I'm hyped all over again. Can't wait for the rest of the data to come through and get looked at.

Same here.

And on twitter, Alan Stern is hyping up more science for next week.

https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/643140421707665409

 

[Insane Metal]

Same here.

And on twitter, Alan Stern is hyping up more science for next week.

https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/643140421707665409

Come on! I bet they saw active volcanism or something like that.

 

[TehOh]

The new pictures, taken 15 minutes after closest approach, reveal a hydrological cycle on Pluto - i.e., condensation, evaporation, and precipitation. Instead of water like on Earth, it's probably nitrogen.

BBC story on the photos

I love how excited Stern gets about these things. It's another case where the general public will go, "oh....", but for planetary science it is relatively important.

 

[cebri.one]

Woow pluto is such a beautiful planet

 

[Prez]

Those photos are stunning. Will they be available uncompressed and in much higher resolution?

edit: uncompressed images here, unfortunately not higher resolution though.

 

[Dicer]

Woow pluto is such a beautiful planet

Not a planet..

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Not a planet..

Creative reply.

 

[cameron]

The current batch of images are spectacular.

Those photos are stunning. Will they be available uncompressed and in much higher resolution?

edit: uncompressed images here, unfortunately not higher resolution though.

It appears that higher res images will be available later:

Unfortunately, we won't be seeing the full image on the New Horizons raw image site on Friday. That's because only LORRI images are being rapidly released as raw data on the New Horizons website; MVIC images are not going to be released in the same way. So we will have to wait until the proprietary period is over to see the whole thing. I've been trying to understand when that proprietary period ends by reading the New Horizons Data Management and Archiving Plan (PDF) that was approved before launch. There are two planned releases of Pluto flyby data: the highest-priority ("Group 1") data come out early, and the lower-priority (Group 2 and 3) data come later. It looks like the archiving plan requires the first release of Group 1 Pluto flyby data two months after all of it is downlinked. In the original document that was estimated to be November 2015. Data from Groups 2 and 3 are supposed to come out in a second release 13 months after the flyby or 11 months after the end of the Group 1 downlink -- which would be July or August of next year. I'll see if I can get some clarity on this schedule from the mission.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emil...71318-spectacular-new-horizons-mvic-haze.html

 

[Arcblast]

Man, Pluto is so freaking cool. Before the encounter I always thought everything would be dead/inactive because of the temperature and how small the objects are in that system. Turns out the things are far more interesting than I could have ever imagined.

I hope we can send an orbiter one day to Pluto... plus a lander. That would be cool if we can have a lander on the side of Pluto where we can see Charon all the time.

 

[cameron]

^ I do wish for a Pluto orbiter in my lifetime. There are regions of Pluto that weren't captured up-close by New Horizons.

Michele Bannister
‏@astrokiwi
On Earth, the water ice flows between rocky mountains. On Pluto, the nitrogen ice flows between water ice mountains.

 

[Ray Wonder]

Not a planet..

Well it is a dwarf planet. I wouldn't like being discriminated against if I was small planet.

 

[Arcblast]

^ I do wish for a Pluto orbiter in my lifetime. There are regions of Pluto that weren't captured up-close by New Horizons.

The nitrogen glaciers are amazing. Didn't think we'd find that on the outer edge of solar system. Yeah an orbiter would give us a huge amount of information about Pluto and its moons.

But I wonder how can we keep an oribiter stable around Pluto-Charon... given that we've seen how smaller moons orbit on top of their tumbling issues.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-hubble-finds-pluto-s-moons-tumbling-in-absolute-chaos

 

[Crispy75]

But I wonder how can we keep an oribiter stable around Pluto-Charon... given that we've seen how smaller moons orbit on top of their tumbling issues.

We'd almost certainly put it in a polar orbit to get full coverage, and would be station-keeping all the time to move that orbit around for moon fly-bys. The chaotic nature of these orbits matters on much much much longer timescales.

And yes, Nitrogen glaciers between mountains of ice, OMG. O__O

 

[cameron]

But I wonder how can we keep an oribiter stable around Pluto-Charon... given that we've seen how smaller moons orbit on top of their tumbling issues.

In 2004, ESA did a feasibility study for a Pluto orbiter. A stable circular polar orbit was doable. Deceleration and insertion was the tricky part.

Overall, starting at 1.5 million km from Pluto on approach, the whole capture orbit and spiral down process (including a close approach of Charon) to the final 1000 km altitude imaging orbit was attained after 316 days using only 11 kg of Xe propellant. This was deemed to be within the mission duration and mass budget constraints imposed.

The desired final orbit for POP was chosen according to the primary imaging requirements and optimal illumination conditions of the planets surface. In practical terms, this meant a 1000km altitude circular orbit for maximum image resolution and a solar aspect angle of 22.5° wrt. The orbit plane analogous to a 10:30 polar orbit in Earth orbit for obtaining shadow from surface topography.

http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/PRO/ACT-RPR-PRO-ISTS2004-Pluto.pdf

 

[Meciu]

Absolutely stunning footage!

 

[Arcblast]

We'd almost certainly put it in a polar orbit to get full coverage, and would be station-keeping all the time to move that orbit around for moon fly-bys. The chaotic nature of these orbits matters on much much much longer timescales.

In 2004, ESA did a feasibility study for a Pluto orbiter. A stable circular polar orbit was doable. Deceleration and insertion was the tricky part.

http://i.imgur.com/pr410fK.png[/img

[url]http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/PRO/ACT-RPR-PRO-ISTS2004-Pluto.pdf[/url][/QUOTE]

Oh, a polar oribit. Never thought of that. If it's feasible then we should totally do it.

Wow @ that ESA paper...
[QUOTE]The gravity assist will take place on 29-Jun-18 at a distance of approx 540.000 km from Jupiter, followed by an approx 15 year transfer phase until Pluto’s Sphere of influence is reached at 03-Jun-3.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]It is assumed that even a limited payload mass value of approximately 20 kg is sufficient to meet a significant part of the scientific requirements.[/QUOTE]

Please do it ESA. I don't care how budget it's going to be just give us a Pluto orbiter!!

 

[cameron]

Perplexing Pluto: New ‘Snakeskin’ Image and More from New Horizons

In this extended color image of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, rounded and bizarrely textured mountains, informally named the Tartarus Dorsa, rise up along Pluto’s day-night terminator and show intricate but puzzling patterns of blue-gray ridges and reddish material in between. This view, roughly 330 miles (530 kilometers) across, combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) on July 14, 2015, and resolves details and colors on scales as small as 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers).

High-resolution images of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just before closest approach on July 14, 2015, reveal features as small as 270 yards (250 meters) across, from craters to faulted mountain blocks, to the textured surface of the vast basin informally called Sputnik Planum. Enhanced color has been added from the global color image. This image is about 330 miles (530 kilometers) across. For optimal viewing, zoom in on the image on a larger screen.

High-resolution images of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just before closest approach on July 14, 2015, are the sharpest images to date of Pluto’s varied terrain—revealing details down to scales of 270 meters. In this 75-mile (120-kilometer) section of the taken from the larger, high-resolution mosaic above, the textured surface of the plain surrounds two isolated ice mountains.

Science pic. Methane distribution.

The Ralph/LEISA infrared spectrometer on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft mapped compositions across Pluto’s surface as it flew by on July 14. On the left, a map of methane ice abundance shows striking regional differences, with stronger methane absorption indicated by the brighter purple colors here, and lower abundances shown in black. Data have only been received so far for the left half of Pluto’s disk. At right, the methane map is merged with higher-resolution images from the spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).

Highres version (8000x8000): http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/crop_p_color2_enhanced_release.png

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. The image resolves details and colors on scales as small as 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers). The viewer is encouraged to zoom in on the image on a larger screen to fully appreciate the complexity of Pluto’s surface features.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-rich-color-variations-of-pluto

 

[spekkeh]

Those stream marks look like... roads...

 

[Guy.brush]

DAT 8000px highres image.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Those stream marks look like... roads...

And that's a crashed Klingon Bird of Prey ... surely ...

 

[GK86]

That latest photo is downright beautiful.

 

[Jedi2016]

DAT 8000px highres image.

Fucking amazing. I just want to zoom in and analyze every little nook and cranny on the surface.

 

[Chuckie]

I've asked before but my post went unnoticed I think...

Is this Pluto's real color? Because it is pretty different from those 'orange' pictures we got in the beginning.

 

[cameron]

I've asked before but my post went unnoticed I think...

Is this Pluto's real color? Because it is pretty different from those 'orange' pictures we got in the beginning.

The colour is enhanced in that image. Infrared data has been added, making it easier to observe the differences in texture and composition. The image from July is considered as "true colour".

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19857

Here's a somewhat similar comparison with a MESSENGER image of Earth:

Emily Lakdawalla
‏@elakdawalla
Here's a nice comparison of Earth in true and false color (IR in red channel) from MESSENGER http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/earth/earth_true-and-false_messenger_sideways.html

 

[Chuckie]

The colour is enhanced in that image. Infrared data has been added, making it easier to observe the differences in texture and composition. The image from July is considered as "true colour".

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19857

Here's a somewhat similar comparison with a MESSENGER image of Earth:

Thanks!

Too bad, the color was rad hehe.

 

[The Incarnation]

Lovely, can't wait until we mine that planet to oblivion.

 

[Prez]

Is there a high-res 8000px image in true color?

 

[cameron]

Is there a high-res 8000px image in true color?

Not yet. I'd assume they would release a true color version down the line.


Pics and science update for this week:

Charon in Enhanced Color

NASA's New Horizons captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Charon just before closest approach on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the spacecraft's Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC); the colors are processed to best highlight the variation of surface properties across Charon. Charon's color palette is not as diverse as Pluto's; most striking is the reddish north (top) polar region, informally named Mordor Macula. Charon is 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) across; this image resolves details as small as 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers).

Charon in Detail

High-resolution images of Charon were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, shortly before closest approach on July 14, 2015, and overlaid with enhanced color from the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). Charon's cratered uplands at the top are broken by series of canyons, and replaced on the bottom by the rolling plains of the informally named Vulcan Planum. The scene covers Charon’s width of 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) and resolves details as small as 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers).

Charon and Pluto: Strikingly Different Worlds

A composite of enhanced color images of Pluto (lower right) and Charon (upper left), taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it passed through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. This image highlights the striking differences between Pluto and Charon. The color and brightness of both Pluto and Charon have been processed identically to allow direct comparison of their surface properties, and to highlight the similarity between Charon's polar red terrain and Pluto's equatorial red terrain. Pluto and Charon are shown with approximately correct relative sizes, but their true separation is not to scale. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the spacecraft's Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging

Video: "Flying over Charon"
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrMBzJcvtt0

Images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft were used to create this flyover video of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. The "flight" starts with the informally named Mordor (dark) region near Charon's north pole. The camera then moves south to a vast chasm, descending from 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) to just 40 miles (60 kilometers) above the surface to fly through the canyon system. From there it's a turn to the south to view the plains and "moat mountain," informally named Kubrick Mons, a prominent peak surrounded by a topographic depression.

New Horizons Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) photographs showing details at up to 400 meters per pixel were used to create the basemap for this animation. Those images, along with pictures taken from a slightly different vantage point by the spacecraft's Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), were used to create a preliminary digital terrain (elevation) model. The images and model were combined and super-sampled to create this animation.

Press Release: "Pluto’s Big Moon Charon Reveals a Colorful and Violent History"

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon – and these pictures show a surprisingly complex and violent history.

At half the diameter of Pluto, Charon is the largest satellite relative to its planet in the solar system. Many New Horizons scientists expected Charon to be a monotonous, crater-battered world; instead, they’re finding a landscape covered with mountains, canyons, landslides, surface-color variations and more.

“We thought the probability of seeing such interesting features on this satellite of a world at the far edge of our solar system was low,” said Ross Beyer, an affiliate of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team from the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, “but I couldn't be more delighted with what we see."

High-resolution images of the Pluto-facing hemisphere of Charon, taken by New Horizons as the spacecraft sped through the Pluto system on July 14 and transmitted to Earth on Sept. 21, reveal details of a belt of fractures and canyons just north of the moon’s equator. This great canyon system stretches more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across the entire face of Charon and likely around onto Charon’s far side. Four times as long as the Grand Canyon, and twice as deep in places, these faults and canyons indicate a titanic geological upheaval in Charon’s past.

“It looks like the entire crust of Charon has been split open,” said John Spencer, deputy lead for GGI at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “With respect to its size relative to Charon, this feature is much like the vast Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars.”

The team has also discovered that the plains south of the Charon’s canyon -- informally referred to as Vulcan Planum -- have fewer large craters than the regions to the north, indicating that they are noticeably younger. The smoothness of the plains, as well as their grooves and faint ridges, are clear signs of wide-scale resurfacing.

One possibility for the smooth surface is a kind of cold volcanic activity, called cryovolcanism. “The team is discussing the possibility that an internal water ocean could have frozen long ago, and the resulting volume change could have led to Charon cracking open, allowing water-based lavas to reach the surface at that time,” said Paul Schenk, a New Horizons team member from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

 

[HellBlazer]

Thanks for the updates, cameron. Interesting stuff.

 

[Llyranor]

I'm a bit LTTP here, but Pluto and Charon are absolutely stunning.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Pluto’s Small Moons Nix and Hydra

We haven’t yet had a chance to download the LORRI images of Styx and Kerberos, but they are coming soon, and will be of similar resolution to this image of Hydra.

 

[cameron]

[Insert Hydra Joke Here]

Nix is looking pretty good, too. From the blog link, it says the NH team is waiting on spectra data to determine the composition of the crater and the rest of Nix.

 

[Chuck]

dem widdle moons :3

 

[KingSnake]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-amazing-announcement-pluto-alan-stern-a6684981.html

Nasa are set to reveal an "amazing" discovery on Thursday, according to one of the space agency's senior scientists.

Dr Alan Stern, a planetary scientist and Principal Investigator on Nasa's New Horizons Pluto mission, made the exciting announcement whilst speaking at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Whilst speaking about the latest images of Pluto captured by the New Horizons probe, Stern said: "Nasa won't let me tell you what we're going to tell you on Thursday. It's amazing."

NASA is on a roll lately. I wonder what is it this time?

 

[popeutlal]

Can't wait. Maybe there is martian life on Pluto.

 

[Insane Metal]

Can't wait. Maybe there is martian life on Pluto.

LOL.

I bet they captured some water vapor coming from some geysers or sth like that. We already know that pluto is geologically active, and the probe got really close to the planet, so if there's something like that there, it certainly would see the evidence.

Edit: or maybe not.

 

[Dr Zhivago]

I think we all know what it is.

 

[cameron]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-amazing-announcement-pluto-alan-stern-a6684981.html



NASA is on a roll lately. I wonder what is it this time?

Alan Stern spoke at the University of Alberta this past Monday. With the enthusiasm he's known for, Stern commented on the weekly updates they have been releasing. Some news sites may have misread it.

 

[cameron]

Press Release: "New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto"

Pluto’s Blue Sky: Pluto’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture taken by the New Horizons Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles (called tholins) that grow as they settle toward the surface. This image was generated by software that combines information from blue, red and near-infrared images to replicate the color a human eye would perceive as closely as possible.

The first color images of Pluto’s atmospheric hazes, returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft last week, reveal that the hazes are blue.

“Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? It’s gorgeous,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.

The haze particles themselves are likely gray or red, but the way they scatter blue light has gotten the attention of the New Horizons science team. “That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles,” said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI. “A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles. On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger — but still relatively small — soot-like particles we call tholins.”

Water Ice on Pluto: Regions with exposed water ice are highlighted in blue in this composite image from New Horizons' Ralph instrument, combining visible imagery from the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) with infrared spectroscopy from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA). The strongest signatures of water ice occur along Virgil Fossa, just west of Elliot crater on the left side of the inset image, and also in Viking Terra near the top of the frame. A major outcrop also occurs in Baré Montes towards the right of the image, along with numerous much smaller outcrops, mostly associated with impact craters and valleys between mountains. The scene is approximately 280 miles (450 kilometers) across. Note that all surface feature names are informal.

In a second significant finding, New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto. The discovery was made from data collected by the Ralph spectral composition mapper on New Horizons.

“Large expanses of Pluto don’t show exposed water ice,” said science team member Jason Cook, of SwRI, “because it’s apparently masked by other, more volatile ices across most of the planet. Understanding why water appears exactly where it does, and not in other places, is a challenge that we are digging into.”

A curious aspect of the detection is that the areas showing the most obvious water ice spectral signatures correspond to areas that are bright red in recently released color images. “I’m surprised that this water ice is so red,” says Silvia Protopapa, a science team member from the University of Maryland, College Park. “We don’t yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto's surface.”

 

[Ovid]

Damn!!! The first picture is beautiful.

 

[cluto]

Press Release: "New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto"

This seems like a big deal and deserving of a new thread. Or a thread title change at the very least.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Wow, Mars, Pluto...

Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

 

[fallout]

Wow, Mars, Pluto...

Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

I posted this in the other thread, but water is indeed pretty common in the solar system:

https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/the-solar-system-and-beyond-is-awash-in-water

"There are several worlds thought to possess liquid water beneath their surfaces, and many more that have water in the form of ice or vapor. Water is found in primitive bodies like comets and asteroids, and dwarf planets like Ceres."

 

[KingSnake]

So it was an interesting news after all.

 

[sphinx]

I am confused, the big news were a rumor, yet we get word of Pluto having water ice.... seems like it delivered.

 

[Insane Metal]

So there's water ice near those fractures and newer craters... hmm... geolocial processes ongoing?

 

[p_xavier]

I am confused, the big news were a rumor, yet we get word of Pluto having water ice.... seems like it delivered.

It's a bigger news than Mars IMO. Pluto was supposed to be this inactive rock, in reality it's quite the opposite.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

It's a bigger news than Mars IMO. Pluto was supposed to be this inactive rock, in reality it's quite the opposite.

It's still ice. Not liquid water.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

Wow... So, when I'd be standing on Pluto, I'd be looking at a blue sky?

Amazing thought...

That's the last thing I would have expected from Pluto.

H.P. Lovecraft must be rotating in his grave right now..

 

[Escape Goat]

Wow... So, when I'd be standing on Pluto, I'd be looking at a blue sky?

Amazing thought...

That's the last thing I would have expected from Pluto.

H.P. Lovecraft must be rotating in his grave right now..

No, it would look black because its atmosphere is so thin. Youd see a haze more during the sunrise/sunset.