New Horizons Pluto Mission update thread

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Nasa's New Horizon's probe may have passed Pluto, but it is still surprising scientists.

It recently took the closest images ever of a distant Kuiper Belt object, capturing a mysterious object passing 3.3 billion miles from the sun.

Scientists say the object, named 1994 JR1, is a 90-mile (150-kilometer)-wide ancient body.

Nasa says the video demonstrates its ability to observe numerous such bodies over the next several years if NASA approves an extended mission into the Kuiper Belt.

When these images were made, 1994 JR1 was 3.3 billion miles (5.3 billion miles) from the sun, but only 170 million miles (280 million kilometers) away from New Horizons.

This sets a record, by a factor of at least 15, for the closest-ever picture of a small body in the Kuiper Belt, the solar system's 'third zone' beyond the inner, rocky planets and outer, icy gas giants.

Mission scientists plan to use images like these to study many more ancient Kuiper Belt objects from New Horizons if an extended mission is approved.

WHAT IS THE KUIPER BELT?
The Kuiper Belt is a freezing ring of debris orbiting more than 4 billion miles from the sun.

It is thought to be the remains of the violent and chaotic collisions that led to the formation of the planets.

There are an estimated 33,000 objects more than 60 metres across in the belt and three dwarf planets.

Astronomer Mike Brown, from Caltech in Pasadena California, has likened the Kuiper belt to the 'blood splatter' left behind by the formation of the solar system.

Although now relatively calm and stable, it is likely to be a dangerous place for New Horizons as it may be filled with unseen debris and space rocks.

 

[Ahhzz]

Nasa's New Horizon's probe may have passed Pluto, but it is still surprising scientists.

It recently took the closest images ever of a distant Kuiper Belt object, capturing a mysterious object passing 3.3 billion miles from the sun.

Scientists say the object, named 1994 JR1, is a 90-mile (150-kilometer)-wide ancient body.

Nasa says the video demonstrates its ability to observe numerous such bodies over the next several years if NASA approves an extended mission into the Kuiper Belt.

When these images were made, 1994 JR1 was 3.3 billion miles (5.3 billion miles) from the sun, but only 170 million miles (280 million kilometers) away from New Horizons.

This sets a record, by a factor of at least 15, for the closest-ever picture of a small body in the Kuiper Belt, the solar system's 'third zone' beyond the inner, rocky planets and outer, icy gas giants.

Mission scientists plan to use images like these to study many more ancient Kuiper Belt objects from New Horizons if an extended mission is approved.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The sharpest ever images of Pluto have just been sent back by New Horizons, and they could be the best close-ups of the dwarf Planet that humans will see for decades.

From its rugged 'badlands' to its mountainous shorelines, the latest pictures are part of a sequence taken 15 minutes before New Horizons' closest approach on July 14.

The resolution is stunning. At around 80 metres per pixel, incredible details can be picked out, such as huge ice blocks, dramatic craters and crumpled ridges - all less than half the size of a city block on Pluto's diverse surface.

Pictured here is the mountainous shoreline of Sputnik Planum. In this highest-resolution image from New Horizons, great blocks of Pluto's water-ice crust appear jammed together in the informally named al-Idrisi mountains. 'The mountains bordering Sputnik Planum are absolutely stunning at this resolution,' said New Horizons science team member John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute

These latest pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto showing a wide variety of cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains. Combined, the pictures form a strip (shown in grey) that shows cratered plains to the jagged water ice mountains that ring a vast expanse of nitrogen ice called Sputnik Planum

This image reveals new details of Pluto’s rugged, icy cratered plains, including layering in the interior walls of many craters. "Impact craters are nature's drill rigs, and the new, highest-resolution pictures of the bigger craters seem to show that Pluto's icy crust, at least in places, is distinctly layered,” said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team

'These new images give us a breathtaking, super-high resolution window into Pluto's geology,' said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado.

'Nothing of this quality was available for Venus or Mars until decades after their first flybys; yet at Pluto we're there already – down among the craters, mountains and ice fields – less than five months after flyby. The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable.'

The images were captured with the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard New Horizons, about 15 minutes before New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto – from a range of just 10,000 miles (17,000 km).

They were obtained with an unusual observing mode; instead of working in the usual 'point and shoot,' LORRI snapped pictures every three seconds while the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) aboard New Horizons was scanning the surface.

This mode requires unusually short exposures to avoid blurring the images.

These new images are six times better than the resolution of the global Pluto map New Horizons obtained, and five times better than the best images of Pluto's cousin Triton, Neptune's large moon, obtained by Voyager 2 in 1989.

Mission scientists expect more imagery from this set over the next several days, showing even more terrain at this highest resolution.

It follows an image released by Nasa last month showing 10 close-ups of the frosty, faraway world today, representing one Pluto day, which is equivalent to 6.4 Earth days.

Nasa's latest Pluto pictures depict an entire day on the dwarf planet. The space agency released a series of 10 close-ups of the frosty, faraway world today, representing one Pluto day, which is equivalent to 6.4 Earth days. The New Horizons spacecraft took the pictures as it zoomed past Pluto in an unprecedented flyby in July. Pluto was between 400,000 and 5 million miles from the camera for these photos

@dorsetknob

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I am saying nothing..............

The top of the image shows simple cratered plains, unchanged by time, but the picture quickly grows more complex. Further down, the image reveals jagged faults, suggesting large-scale processes at work within the dwarf planet. Then, the photo reaches the dark (informally named) Cthulhu Regio and its strange overlap with the bright, active ices at the edge of the flat Sputnik Planum. Finally, the strange, 2.5-mile-high (4 kilometers) potential ice volcano Wright Mons appears with an oblong shadow just before the darkness, while the rest of the world is in the shadow of night.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

New Horizons' infrared filter is casting the dwarf planet in a new light

NASA has posted both a photo and a video showing how the spacecraft can produce vibrant colours from the seemingly drab-looking dwarf planet. The key is New Horizons' infrared spectrometer. Its linearly-varying filter produces a stained glass window effect as it looks for reflected chemicals, like in the clip you see below -- the dark bands come when Pluto's methane ice absorbs those materials.

Infrared scans were crucial to confirming the presence of water ice on Pluto, and further research using this data should help understand how both Pluto and its main moon Charon have evolved over time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iixo6Ongj8c

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

New Horizons has sent back one of its most intriguing images of the surface of Pluto.

It shows a mysterious object appearing to 'slide' through the surface.

Nasa experts believe the object may be a 'dirty block of water ice'.

They say it is 'floating' in denser solid nitrogen, and which has been dragged to the edge of a convection cell.

Also visible are thousands of pits in the surface, which scientists believe may form by sublimation.

Transmitted to Earth on Dec. 24, this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) extends New Horizons' highest-resolution views of Pluto to the very center of Sputnik Planum, the informally named icy plain that forms the left side of Pluto's 'heart' feature.

Sputnik Planum is at a lower elevation than most of the surrounding area by a couple of miles, but is not completely flat.

Its surface is separated into cells or polygons 10 to 25 miles (16 to 40 kilometers) wide, and when viewed at low sun angles (with visible shadows), the cells are seen to have slightly raised centers and ridged margins, with about 100 yards (100 meters) of overall height variation.

Mission scientists believe the pattern of the cells stems from the slow thermal convection of the nitrogen-dominated ices that fill Sputnik Planum.

A reservoir that's likely several miles or kilometers deep in some places, the solid nitrogen is warmed at depth by Pluto's modest internal heat, becomes buoyant and rises up in great blobs, and then cools off and sinks again to renew the cycle.

'This part of Pluto is acting like a lava lamp,' said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team, from Washington University in St. Louis, 'if you can imagine a lava lamp as wide as, and even deeper than, the Hudson Bay.'

Computer models by the New Horizons team show that these blobs of overturning solid nitrogen can slowly evolve and merge over millions of years. The ridged margins, which mark where cooled nitrogen ice sinks back down, can be pinched off and abandoned.

The 'X' feature is likely one of these—a former quadruple junction where four convection cells meet. Numerous, active triple junctions can be seen elsewhere in the LORRI mosaic.

On July 14 the telescopic camera on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft took the highest resolution images ever obtained of the intricate pattern of 'pits' across a section of Pluto's prominent heart-shaped region, informally named Tombaugh Regio. The image is part of a sequence taken by New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft passed within 9,550 miles (15,400 kilometers) of Pluto's surface, just 13 minutes before the time of closest approach.

Pictured here is the mountainous shoreline of Sputnik Planum. In this highest-resolution image from New Horizons, great blocks of Pluto's water-ice crust appear jammed together in the informally named al-Idrisi mountains. 'The mountains bordering Sputnik Planum are absolutely stunning at this resolution,' said New Horizons science team member John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute

This image reveals new details of Pluto's rugged, icy cratered plains, including layering in the interior walls of many craters. 'Impact craters are nature's drill rigs, and the new, highest-resolution pictures of the bigger craters seem to show that Pluto's icy crust, at least in places, is distinctly layered,' said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team

Pictured are Pluto's 'Badlands'. This highest-resolution image from Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft shows how erosion and faulting have sculpted this portion of Pluto's icy crust into rugged badlands topography


http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Images/index.php

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Scientists from NASA’s New Horizons mission have combined data from two instruments to create this composite image of Pluto’s informally named Viking Terra area.

The combination includes pictures taken by the spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14, 2015, from a range of about 31,000 miles (49,000 kilometers), showing features as small as 1,600 feet (480 meters) across. Draped over the LORRI mosaic is enhanced color data from the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) gathered about 20 minutes after the LORRI snapshots were taken, from a range of 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers) and at a resolution of about 2,100 feet (650 meters) per pixel. The entire scene is 160 miles (250 kilometers) across.
Among the features scientists find particularly interesting are the bright methane ices that condensed on many crater rims; the collection of dark red tholins (small soot-like particles generated from reactions involving methane and nitrogen in the atmosphere) in low areas, like the bottoms of craters; and the layering on the faces of steep cliffs and on crater walls.
In areas where the reddish material is thickest and the surface appears smooth, the material seems to have flowed into some channels and craters. Scientists say tholin deposits of that thickness aren’t usually mobile on large scales, suggesting that they might be riding along with ice flowing underneath, or being blown around by Pluto’s winds.

http://www.space.com/topics/pluto-the-ninth-planet-that-was-a-dwarf/

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The most detailed image yet of a giant mountain on Pluto, which is suspected to be an ice volcano, has been released by Nasa.
It is one of two potential cryovolcanoes spotted on the surface of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015.
At about 90 miles (150km) across and 2.5 miles (4km) high, this feature is enormous.
The feature, known as Wright Mons, was informally named by the New Horizons team in honor of the Wright brothers.

Mission scientists are baffled by the sparse distribution of red material in the image and wonder why it is not more widespread
Also perplexing is that there is only one identified impact crater on Wright Mons itself, telling scientists that the surface - as well as some of the crust underneath - was created relatively recently.
This is turn may indicate that Wright Mons was volcanically active late in Pluto's history.
The other potential ice volcano on Pluto has been named Piccard Mons, is up to 3.5 miles (6 km) high. Both ice volcanoes are located near Pluto's South Pole

'We're not yet ready to announce we have found volcanic constructs at Pluto, but these sure look suspicious and we're looking at them very closely,' said Jeff Moore, a planetary scientist at Nasa said in an earlier release.
Nasa says that if Pluto does have cryovolcanoes, it may be an indication that there is volatile ice that coats its surface.
These volatile ices may be driven by an internal heat source. According to a report in Nature, the most likely the radioactive decay of elements left over from Pluto's birth, 4.5 billion years ago.
'These are big mountains with a large hole in their summit, and on Earth that generally means one thing - a volcano,' said Oliver White, New Horizons researcher.
'If they are volcanic, then the summit depression would likely have formed via collapse as material is erupted from underneath.
'The strange hummocky texture of the mountain flanks may represent volcanic flows of some sort that have travelled down from the summit region and onto the plains beyond, but why they are hummocky, and what they are made of, we don't yet know.'



Ice volcanoes on Pluto are expected to emit a somewhat melted slurry of substances such as water ice, nitrogen, ammonia, or methane.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

NASA has released an incredible image of the haze layers in Pluto’s atmosphere taken by the New Horizons spacecraft.

The processed image is the highest-resolution color look yet at the haze layers, according to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which engineered New Horizons with the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The image, which was acquired on July 14, 2015, was taken by the spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), “splashed” with Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) four-color filter data.
Related: NASA’s Pluto mission in pictures

The image resolution is 0.6 miles per pixel, with the sun illuminating the scene from the right.
“Scientists believe the haze is a photochemical smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules in Pluto’s atmosphere, producing a complex mixture of hydrocarbons such as acetylene and ethylene,” explained the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in a statement. “These hydrocarbons accumulate into small particles, a fraction of a micrometer in size, and scatter sunlight to make the bright blue haze seen in this image.”
Related: Cool NASA images reveal day in the life of Pluto

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

I realize that given the timescale it shouldn't surprise me but it still seems surprising / perplexing that there are that many objects (meteors and maybe asteroids kicked out by Jupiter) that impact Pluto. Given the enormity of its orbit (compared to the inner planets), I can only imagine the chances of an object falling into Pluto's gravity well is miniscule.

Edit: This thread and the discoveries it highlights make me glad to be alive at this point in history.

 

[R-T-B]

I realize that given the timescale it shouldn't surprise me but it still seems surprising / perplexing that there are that many objects (meteors and maybe asteroids kicked out by Jupiter) that impact Pluto. Given the enormity of its orbit (compared to the inner planets), I can only imagine the chances of an object falling into Pluto's gravity well is miniscule.

NASA actually expected more if i recall, being it's in a known crowded region (the Kuiper belt).

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

Good point but isn't it like comparing the population densities of two places... Country A (Pluto's orbit) being 12 times larger than Country B (any of the inner planets orbits). Even if Country A has 5 times the population of Country B you're still more likely to run into someone in B. (Currently working abroad so that's about the only analogy I could come up with).

And to think that not too long ago we really didn't think there was too much past Pluto. The Oort cloud was some icy unknown that would kick a comet our way once in a while.

 

[R-T-B]

Good point but isn't it like comparing the population densities of two places... Country A (Pluto's orbit) being 12 times larger than Country B (any of the inner planets orbits). Even if Country A has 5 times the population of Country B you're still more likely to run into someone in B. (Currently working abroad so that's about the only analogy I could come up with).

While this is true, my understanding is that the relative density out there is surprisingly high compared to the number of impact craters. Enough for NASA to ask "why aren't there more craters?" in one of their posts.

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

Does anyone else get a stupid smile on their face while sifting through all the pictures and data about Pluto? As quoted from Futurama, "All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer!"

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I think the surface evolves and "lives" and as a consequence the frequent craters are obscured, unlike on our Moon.

@Beertintedgoggles you summed up my grin perfectly, myself and many other members have looked forward for years to actually seeing these results.

NASA should be recognised for providing the pics and info so promptly for us all to enjoy.

 

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Pluto's Ice Only 10 Million Years Old

Pictures are still filtering back from NASA’s New Horizons close-up of Pluto last year and one of the biggest surprises so far comes from the region informally known as Sputnik Planum. There’s a lack of craters on its surface, making it a unique area on Pluto and a rare spot in the solar system — it turns out it could be very young terrain indeed.

What I did was take the pictures that we have seen — the amazing pictures! — and calculate, based on Pluto’s orbital environment, what the impact rate and therefore the surface age of Sputnik Planum must be,” wrote planetary scientist David Trilling in an email to Discovery News.
“There have been lots of press releases describing various aspects of Sputnik Planum, but, as far as I know, this is the first time that the age estimate of 10 million years or younger appears in the peer-reviewed literature,” added Trilling, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northern Arizona University.


Trilling’s study, which is in press at PLOS One, mentions three ways the resurfacing could take place:

1. Nitrogen ice on the surface could be “relaxing” if it is viscous, getting rid of any craters created by meteroids.
2. Ice on the bottom could be rising up and replacing ice at the top, somewhat like how a lava lamp works.
3. The ice could be partially melted at its bottom and from time to time, erupt on to the surface as cryo-lava.

As for where the meteorites are coming from, Trilling points out that Pluto is in a zone filled with smaller Kuiper Belt objects. From time to time, these small bodies crash into Pluto. Trilling’s math shows that this happens roughly every 10 million years, which would explain why Sputnik Planum appears so young.




USPS new postage stamp.

 

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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.
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

 

[Drone]

Only an imager on the far side of Pluto could catch such a view, with a bright, thin sliver of Charon near the lower left illuminated by the sun. Night has fallen over the rest of this side of Charon, yet despite the lack of sunlight over most of the surface, Charon's nighttime landscapes are still faintly visible by light softly reflected off Pluto, just as “Earthshine” lights up a new moon each month.

This image from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is the first look at Pluto's atmosphere in infrared wavelengths

New data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft point to more prevalent water ice on Pluto's surface than previously thought.

 

[Drone]

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Hills of water ice could be ‘floating’ in a sea of frozen nitrogen on Pluto, moving over time like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean
These hills, which can be seen in the latest images studied by the New Horizons team, are believed to measure one to several miles across.
They are found in the vast ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum within Pluto’s ‘heart' and are likely miniature versions of the larger, jumbled mountains on the region’s western border.
Their discovery follows news last week that Pluto may be covered in a lot more water ice than astronomers previously thought, which could boost the chances for finding a liquid sea and alien life

This shows the inset in context next to a larger view. The resolution is about 1050ft (320 meters) per pixel and 300 miles (almost 500km) long and 210 miles (340km) wide. It was taken 9,950 miles (16,000km) from Pluto, 12 minutes before New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto on July 14



Nasa describes the feature as ‘yet another example of Pluto’s fascinating and abundant geological activity.’
Because water ice is less dense than nitrogen-dominated ice, scientists believe these water ice hills are floating in a sea of frozen nitrogen and move over time like icebergs on Earth.
The hills may be fragments of the rugged uplands that have broken away and are being carried by the nitrogen glaciers into Sputnik Planum.


‘Chains’ of the drifting hills are formed along the flow paths of the glaciers.
When the hills enter the cellular terrain of central Sputnik Planum, they become subject to the motions of the nitrogen ice, and are pushed to the edges of the cells, where the hills cluster in groups reaching up to 12 miles (20km) across.
At the northern end of the image, the feature informally named Challenger Colles – honouring the crew of the lost space shuttle Challenger – appears to be an especially large accumulation of these hills, measuring 37 by 22 miles (60 by 35km).
This feature is located near the boundary with the uplands, away from the cellular terrain, and may represent a location where hills have been ‘beached’ due to the nitrogen ice being especially shallow.

 

[Drone]

"Slightly" bigger inset image of Floating Hills posted above and big ass image of Sputnik Planum

 

[Drone]

Putting Pluto’s Geology on the Map

 

[Drone]

From left to right, the central sub-observer longitudes are ~180, 240, 360 and 60 degrees East Longitude. The Pluto “Encounter Hemisphere” (indicated by the white box) is most recognizable by the “heart” feature of the informally-named Tombaugh Regio. This is also the hemisphere that never faces Charon, as Charon is “tidally locked” to Pluto. Pluto's “Charon-facing” side is the second column from the right. Pluto's north pole is up in all these images. New Horizons was only millions of miles from Pluto.

Six faces of Charon. The side that faces Pluto is highlighted by the inset box. Charon remains a mainly neutral greyish color all around, with a distinct red northern polar cap appearing from all sides.

 

[Drone]

New Horizons team processed raw data and uploaded videos:

That was NIX

Cool Pluto 4K video. I like how they removed artifacts, added contrast and made a great combined image showing Pluto and its tenuous atmosphere. Really sexy video. It's a little different than the real trajectory of New Horizons.

Charon looks really great in this video, much better than it looked in images. Now it's so sharp, with enhanced colors and it's so 3D!

Tombaugh Regio

 

[Drone]

Part 2: