New Horizons Pluto Mission update thread

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

That's what I love about space. One question answered, 100 more revealed.

its exactly the same with Mrs Jones......shame shes only in the other room and not billions of miles away, i could easily avoided her with a slight mathematical computation years ago

 

[Drone]

bigger version

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Smilier Version

 

[Drone]

Patterns and pits on Pluto

Charon close-ups

 

[Drone]

Charon close-up

http://www.nasa.gov/nh/pluto-moon-charon-up-close

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Why has a huge part of Pluto never been hit by asteroids?

FRESHLY beamed back close-up images of Pluto have baffled scientists as to why a huge area of the dwarf planet appears to have never been struck by an asteroid, meteor or comet.

The latest image, from the centre of Pluto’s "heart feature", show the plains’ enigmatic cellular pattern as well as unusual clusters of small pits and troughs (from lower left to upper right in the picture).

But the high-resolution image has shown no evidence of even any small impact craters, which riddle the surface of the rest of Pluto.

Scientists believe this area, informally known as Sputnik Planum, is composed of volatile ices such as solid nitrogen.

They theorize the pits and troughs, which are typically hundreds of meters across and tens of meters deep, are possibly formed by sublimation or evaporation of these ices.

However, the reasons for the striking shapes and alignments of these features are a mystery.

A Nasa spokesman said: "Adding to the intrigue is that even at this resolution, no impact craters are seen, testifying to the extreme geologic youth of Sputnik Planum."

Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, said: "Pluto is weird, in a good way.

“The pits, and the way they’re aligned, provide clues about the ice flow and the exchange of volatiles between the surface and atmosphere, and the science team is working hard to

understand what physical processes are at play here.”





Pluto could hold life...with still more to come
THIS is the latest close up image of a strange crater on Pluto which means the dwarf planet could still potentially be active, increasing the chance of it housing microscopic life.

NASA'S latest images of Pluto show the best yet glimpses of a deep crater on its surface which one of its scientists said could mean it is still an active planet…and therefore potentially capable of supporting life.

The striking feature is a large crater that appears to have a peak in the middle, which gives it the appearance of a letter C around it.

It also has two long scars or fault lines running away from it

This would mean it would still have a warm core with earthquakes or volcanoes possible on the surface.

Impact craters are usually eroded through geological processes such as earthquakes, meaning the planet is or was recently "active".

A warm centre would mean more chance of water - the trigger for early life - being beneath Pluto's frozen surface, which Nasa had previously speculated may be the case.

Mr Grinspoon told us: "The C looks to me like an eroded impact crater."

Due to Pluto's -229C average temperature, he said the lines were extremely unlikely to have been caused by water.

He said: "I don’t see anything that looks like signs of fluid flow. If there was it wouldn’t be water because it is far too cold there."

However, he believed the lines could be further signs of former activity, adding: "There are some linear looking features which might be some kind of tectonic boundaries. But we really don’t know.

 

[Drone]

PlutoTime Mosaic

PlutoTime Charon Mosaic

PlutoTime Pluto and Charon Mosaic

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Harvard-Smithsonian Center debate comes to conclusion that Pluto IS a planet

Recently the Harvard-Smithsonian Center did something about it: It held a debate — pro and con — and let the audience vote. The result: “Pluto IS a planet.”

The debate centered around the IAU’s demands of a planet — that it must:

• be in orbit around the Sun,
• be round or nearly round, and
• be shown to have “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit, be gravitationally dominant in its area

Pluto was originally kicked out because it did not “clear the neighborhood.” It is indeed small. It has a radius of about 750 miles — less than 20 per cent of the Earth’s radius. Its circumference is about 4,500 miles, which makes it smaller than the moon. You could fly around its equator faster than flying from Washington, DC, to Hawaii.

The vote doesn’t bind anyone. But, for Pluto enthusiasts, it’s a start.

The changing landscape of the Solar System

https://www.iau.org/public/themes/pluto/

 

[dorsetknob]

its always been a planet (now with 5 moons )
and by the IAU definition

be shown to have “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit, be gravitationally dominant in its area

Jupiter does not Qualify
Jupiter has not Cleared its orbit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_trojan

• Earth trojans (1)
• Mars trojans (7)
• Jupiter trojans (6000+)
• Uranus trojans (1)
• Neptune trojans (13)

Shows how STUPID the IAU definition of a Planet is

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Nasa's New Horizons Probe Reveals Last of Pluto's Moons

Interplanetary space probe New Horizons has sent the images of Pluto's moon Kerberos, which appears to be smaller than scientists expected and has a highly-reflective surface.

Kerberos appears to have a double-lobed shape, around 12 km in its long dimension and 4.5 km in its shortest dimension, US space agency Nasa said in a statement.

"Once again, the Pluto system has surprised us," said New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

An image of Kerberos was created by combining four Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) pictures taken on July 14. The new data was downlinked from the New Horizons spacecraft on October 20.



Scientists speculate from its unusual shape that Kerberos could have been formed by the merger of two smaller objects.

The reflectivity of Kerberos' surface is similar to that of Pluto's other small moons (approximately 50 percent) and strongly suggests Kerberos, like the others, is coated with relatively clean water ice.

Earlier, scientists theorised Kerberos was relatively large and massive, appearing faint only because its surface was covered in dark material.

But the small, bright-surfaced Kerberos now revealed in new images shows that the idea was incorrect, for reasons that are not yet understood.

"Our predictions were nearly spot-on for other small moons, but not for Kerberos," said New Horizons co-investigator Mark Showalter, of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

The new results are expected to lead to a better understanding of Pluto's fascinating satellite system.

The images of Kerberos taken by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft complete the family portrait of Pluto's moons - Styx, Nix, Kerberos, Hydra and Charon.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Kuiper Belt explorer will have next rendezvous in 2019

(New Horizons is approximately 74 million miles beyond Pluto and 3.16 billion miles from Earth.)


On Thursday the spacecraft's hydrazine-fueled thrusters

(not one but similar)

were fired for 16 minutes at 1050 PT (1850 UTC) in the first of four maneuvers that will aim the Earth-built lab at its next target. Its goal is 2014 MU69, a distant speck that's 6.4 billion kilometres from Earth, far out in the Kuiper Belt that encircles our solar system.

"Even as the New Horizon's spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer," said John Grunsfeld, chief of the NASA Science Mission Directorate.

2014 MU69 was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of the Kuiper Belt for additional targets. Only Hubble could find the planetoid, which is between 30 and 45 km across, and it was picked because it's the most economical target that will preserve the maximum amount of thruster fuel.

Thursday's burn changed the probe's speed by about 10 meters per second, and by the time the fourth is finished the probe will be going an extra 57 meters per second in the right direction.

That's not much, considering the probe is travelling at 52,304 kilometers per hour, Even so, its next trip will take four years and the probe will flash past 2014 MU69 on New Year's Day 2019, about the time most of us are getting over our hangovers.

Scientists are still poring over the data being sent back after the probe's successful flyby of Pluto and more information is yet to come, since the spacecraft can only send back its files at around 1kb per second.

Propulsion
The propulsion system on New Horizons is used for course corrections and for pointing the spacecraft. It is not needed to speed the spacecraft to Pluto; that was done entirely by the launch vehicle, with a boost from Jupiter’s gravity.

The New Horizons propulsion system includes 16 small hydrazine-propellant thrusters mounted across the spacecraft in eight locations, a fuel tank, and associated distribution plumbing. Four thrusters that each provide 4.4 newtons of force (1 pound) are used mostly for course corrections. Operators also employ 12 smaller thrusters – providing 0.8 newtons (about 3 ounces) of thrust each – to point, spin up and spin down the spacecraft. Eight of the 16 thrusters aboard New Horizons are considered the primary set; the other eight comprise the backup (redundant) set.

(not it but similar)

At launch, the spacecraft carried 77 kilograms (170 pounds) of hydrazine, stored in a lightweight titanium tank. Helium gas pushes fuel through the system to the thrusters. Using a Jupiter gravity assist, along with the fact that New Horizons does not slow down or go into orbit around Pluto, reduced the amount of propellant needed for the mission.

We're a step closer to powering rockets with bacteria

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151021083529.htm

 

[Drone]

Pluto in 3D

Seasonal comparison Earth vs Pluto

Axial tilt 119.5 woooooooooooooooow!

 

[Drone]

craters on Charon

New full view of Pluto's crescent

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

@Drone

some people dont click on links and they miss the best bits of your posts, i'm not being critical mate, you know i love your stuff.................
I just wanted to highlight some relevant and interesting info.


NASA says the image was taken just 15 minutes after New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto on July 14, earlier this year, "as the spacecraft looked back at Pluto toward the sun."

It essentially completes the image that the space agency released back in September, showcasing what the Pluto looks like at sunset.

The image shows the layers of the dwarf planet's atmosphere, which "highlights more than a dozen high-altitude layers of haze in Pluto's tenuous atmosphere," according to NASA.

The icy Sputnik Planun plateau can be seen on the brighter, sunlit side of the planet in the image, while the image also profiles of some of the planet's rugged terrain, including mountains that rise up to 11,000 feet.

New Horizons took the image, which has a resolution of 700 meters, from a distance of 11,000 miles from Pluto.

 

[Drone]

some people dont click on links and they miss the best bits of your posts, i'm not being critical mate, you know i love your stuff.................
I just wanted to highlight some relevant and interesting info.

I just thought that those who don't care won't read stuff even if it's right in front of their noses (I mean come on, I've made so many threads with zero responses) and those who care will click and read anyway.

Anyways thanks for highlights.

This image was taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on the morning of July 13, 2015, from a range of 1.7 million km and has a resolution of 8.3 km per pixel. It provides fascinating new details to help the science team map the informally named Krun Macula (the prominent dark spot at the bottom of the image) and the complex terrain east and northeast of Pluto's “heart” (Tombaugh Regio). Pluto's north pole is on the planet's disk at the 12 o'clock position of this image.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I read 'em all Pal.

 

[dorsetknob]

I read 'em all Pal.

As do i and sometimes i also contribute where i can

 

[Drone]

New Horizons Yields Wealth of Discovery

1) New Horizons geologists combined images of Pluto's surface to make 3D maps that indicate two of Pluto's most distinctive mountains (named Wright Mons and Piccard Mons measuring tens of miles across and several miles high) could be cryovolcanoes. While their appearance is similar to volcanoes on Earth that spew molten rock, ice volcanoes on Pluto are expected to emit a somewhat melted slurry of substances such as water ice, nitrogen, ammonia, or methane.

2) Pluto's surface varies in age - from ancient, to intermediate, to relatively young.

Locations of > 1000 craters mapped on Pluto.

3) The absence of small craters on Pluto and Charon implies that many Kuiper Belt objects could have been “born large”.

4) Most inner moons in the solar system keep one face pointed toward their central planet; this animation shows that certainly isn't the case with moons of Pluto (Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra), which behave like spinning tops.

5) Data from New Horizons indicates that at least two - and possibly all four - of Pluto's small moons may be the result of mergers between still smaller moons.

 

[R-T-B]

its always been a planet (now with 5 moons )
and by the IAU definition


Jupiter does not Qualify
Jupiter has not Cleared its orbit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_trojan

• Earth trojans (1)
• Mars trojans (7)
• Jupiter trojans (6000+)
• Uranus trojans (1)
• Neptune trojans (13)

Shows how STUPID the IAU definition of a Planet is

gravitationally dominant

I take this to mean it's the "big fish" in the sea of it's orbit. Trojans don't count because they aren't dominant and merely tag along for the ride. Pluto is not gravitationally dominant in it's orbit, Neptune traverses it's orbit, and is far more influential gravitationally.

 

[RCoon]

those who care will click and read anyway

I click and read all your threads. UK news doesn't cover much about space, and I imagine a lot of country's general news channels don't either. I personally find it fascinating, and pop on here to learn cool stuff.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Scientists have also learned that Pluto’s surface developed in at least three stages, varying in age from ancient and intermediate, to relatively young. Pluto’s surface shows that it could be over 4 billion years old. NASA researchers determined this by counting crater impacts: The more crater impacts, the older a region is likely to be.

Icy Volcanoes May Erupt on Pluto

A possible ice volcano on Pluto (visible at center) is seen in this NASA image, captured by the New Horizons spacecraft, released on Nov. 9, 2015. The feature, called Wright Mons, is a strange feature 100 miles wide and 13,000 feet high with a summit depression at its center. New Horizons scientists suspect Wright Mons and another mountain may be signs of cryovolcanic eruptions on Pluto.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

The locations of two mountains on Pluto that may actually be icy volcanoes are shown in this montage of images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured during its July 2015 flyby. The new images were unveiled Nov. 9.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

 

[Drone]

New Horizons scientists made this false color image of Pluto using a technique called principal component analysis to highlight the many subtle color differences between Pluto's distinct regions.

 

[Drone]

Pluto’s day is 6.4 Earth days long. The images were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera as the distance between New Horizons and Pluto decreased from 8 million km on July 7 to ~ 645000 km on July 13. The more distant images contribute to the view at the 3 o’clock position, with the top of the heart-shaped, informally named Tombaugh Regio slipping out of view, giving way to the side of Pluto that was facing away from New Horizons during closest approach on July 14. The side New Horizons saw in most detail – what the mission team calls the “encounter hemisphere” – is at the 6 o’clock position.

Charon – like Pluto – rotates once every 6.4 Earth days. The photos were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera from July 7-13, as New Horizons closed in over a range of 10.2 million km. The more distant images contribute to the view at the 9 o’clock position, with few of the signature surface features visible, such as the cratered uplands, canyons, or rolling plains of the informally named Vulcan Planum. The side New Horizons saw in most detail, during closest approach on July 14, 2015, is at the 12 o’clock position.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Dear Pluto




Thankyou for my new desktop background




Love

CAPS

 

[Drone]

Today’s post is from Veronica Bray, a planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. She specializes in comparing the surfaces of planetary bodies across the solar system.

I love looking at New Horizons’ images of Pluto! But I spend most of my time looking elsewhere. Why? Because comparing Pluto with other planetary bodies helps me to understand what processes could be operating on Pluto’s surface and beneath its icy crust. Although a full understanding of planetary processes is a more complicated matter, the initial steps that I take as a comparative planetologist are simple: compare what the features look like on the different bodies.

Pluto’s surface is comprised of water ice and other exotic types of ice (e.g. methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen). This makes comparison to the icy moons of the outer solar system a logical place for me to look for analogous landforms. However, as the close-up images of Pluto came back from New Horizons, I was reminded of places closer to home. This blog post presents two examples of features on Pluto that remind me of landforms on Earth and Mars.

Polygons: Polygons on a planetary surface typically have five or more sides and can form in several different ways. When the New Horizons team first saw the polygons of the icy plain on Pluto that we informally call Sputnik Planum (Figure 1B), a number of questions arose: Were these patterns due to the heating up and cooling of the surface, leading to expansion and contraction cracking like the polygons seen on Mars (Figure 1A)? Was sub-surface convection of warmer ices creating a cracked surface above the convection ‘cells’ as can be seen in the surface ice of frozen lakes on Earth (Figure 1C)? Or were they similar to ‘dessication’ mud cracks (Figure 1D) formed by the drying out of the surface material? We each had our own theory and the team buzzed with discussion about what might be going on. We showed one another pictures taken by spacecraft in other places it the solar system; we even shared photos that we ourselves had taken from business trips and fieldwork! All so that we could take the next step in understanding these features: to compare the morphology.

The polygons on Pluto’s Sputnik Planum have edges that are smoother and more curved than the linear sides of the mud cracks or Martian freeze-thaw polygons. Instead, the polygons of Sputnik Planum most closely resemble those formed by sub-surface convection (although on a MUCH larger scale than the example used in Figure 1C.) Our current understanding of the polygons of Sputnik Planum is that they mark the top of convection cells within a slowly churning mass of nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices. So, although I was initially reminded of processes on the Earth and Mars, this process on Pluto is far more exotic and has never been seen anywhere else in the solar system!

Figure 1: Examples of polygons on the Earth, Mars and Pluto. A) Freeze-thaw polygons in the periglacial terrain of Mars. In this image from NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, frost is highlighting the cracks at the edges of each polygon. Looking closely we can see smaller polygons within the larger polygons. The image is approximately 12 miles (20 kilometers) across. Credit: NASA B) New Horizons’ image of a ~ 120 mile (200 kilometer) wide section of ‘Sputnik Planum’ on Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI C) Fracture polygons on a frozen lake on Earth. The image is approximately 13 feet (4 meters) across. Credit: Paul Schenk D) Mud crack polygons on Earth. This image shows large polygons (~ 33 feet or 10 meters across), and the smaller mud cracks within them, created as a muddy surface dries out. See it for yourself at Red Lake Playa in Death Valley. Credit: Jason Barnes

Impact Craters:

I can usually count on impact craters to be present to assist me with comparing planetary surfaces. All but a few surfaces in the solar system are scarred by hypervelocity impacts that penetrate down into the crust. I compare the shapes of impact craters on Pluto and other bodies to investigate the crustal and sub-surface properties.

Figure 2 shows examples of ‘central pit’ craters – large complex craters with a pit at or near their center. The diameter of the pit compared to the diameter of the crater for the Pluto example (Figure 2B) is similar to the Martian example (Figure 2A), which might suggest a similar formation mechanism. Although various types of pits or pitted-peaks can be found in craters across the solar system, this type of central pit crater has a particularly large pit relative to the crater size and is only found on ice-rich bodies. Their formation has consequently been linked to the presence of water ice in the crust. It is not surprising then that we found this central pit on Pluto in the informally-named Cthulu Regio, in an area of noted water-ice content. But of course, the story is never that simple. The presence of sub-surface layering has also been suggested as a reason for the formation of central pits.

I am currently measuring and comparing the central pit craters across the solar system to determine why and how central pits form, and consequently, whether their presence on a planetary surface can be used as a prospecting tool for water ice or target layering. The new observation of a central pit crater on Pluto from New Horizons provides another important data point to add to my quest to understand how these craters form.

Figure 2: Examples of central floor pit craters on A) Mars and B) Pluto. Scale bars are approximately 20 km across. The Mars image is from ESA’s High Resolution Stereo Camera and features a crater in the Thaumasia Planum region. Credit: ESA. The Pluto example shows an as yet unnamed crater in the dark terrain of Cthulu Regio. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI