The View from New Horizons: A Full Day on Pluto-Charon

RevAnarchist · Apr 17, 2015

New Horizons spacecraft closes on Pluto. It’s on course for a close encounter with dwarf planet Pluto and it’s newly discovered small moons on July 14 2015. Read more and see movie of Pluto and its largest moon Charon @;

http://www.nasa.gov/content/the-view-from-new-horizons-a-full-day-on-pluto-charon/

[video]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh_stars_bary_03-final.gif[/video]
reva

RevAnarchist · Apr 18, 2015

Hmm' there doesn't seem to be too much interest here at PF in one of our most important deep (planetary) space science achievements eh? I don't blame the disinterest of the generation Xboxrot generation, or even those of my near nursing home inmate generation. NASA just doesn't know how to do PR these days compared to the heady days of the moon shot. One thing that does fully baffle me is the interest in what color Justin Bever craps over. It seemed to begin when Paris Hilton personal life trumped major news stories of the day.

Its a good to be alive now if you are just mildly interested in science. CERN and the worlds competing but far weaker 'atom smashers' are doing some exciting, scary even work. Some say a earth devouring black hole might be created at CERN if it ever powers up to 100%. However even I, who loves to speculate would guess that according to current theory even the mighty CERN can't even get 1 planck length close to the energy needed to produce a black hole! Btw 1 planck length = 1.61619926 × 10-35 meters, in other words a hydrogen atom is about 10 trillion trillion Planck lengths across! lol ~

But...but, but what if we miscalculated or there is an unknown quantity in the mega energies that CERN can generate? Hey what is that sucking noise, no its not my ex wife ....quaffing a beer.. (get yer minds out of the gutter!) comments on the Pluto mission or our sorry state of pure science research and development anyone ?

reva

waltky · Nov 11, 2015

Mebbe it's a mini-planet...

Scientists Believe Mountains on Pluto are Ice Volcanoes
November 10, 2015 Scientists have discovered what appear to be ice-spewing volcanoes on the surface of Pluto, raising questions about how the tiny, distant world has been so geologically active, according to research presented on Monday.

The findings, released at an American Astronomical Society meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, paint a far more complicated picture of Pluto and its moons than scientists imagined. "The Pluto system is baffling us," planetary scientist Alan Stern, with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told reporters during a webcast news conference. Stern heads the team working on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which made an unprecedented pass by Pluto on July 14. Pictures and measurements taken during the encounter are still being transmitted back to Earth.

Among 50 reports that New Horizons scientists will present this week is a startling look at two mountains on the surface of Pluto, each measuring more than 100 miles (161 km) in diameter and several miles (km) in height. The tops of the mountains have depressions similar to volcanoes found on Mars and Earth. "Nothing like this has ever been seen in the outer solar system," said New Horizons scientist Oliver White, with NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

An image of Pluto's surface captured by NASAs New Horizons spacecraft. The new thinking about volcanoes raises questions about how the tiny, distant world has been so geologically active.

Rather than spewing molten rock, volcanoes on Pluto would have released frozen water, and other ices such as nitrogen, ammonia or methane. White admits the idea of volcanoes on Pluto, which is about 30 times farther away from the sun than Earth, sounds crazy, "but it's the least crazy thing we can [think] of" to explain the mountains. "Whatever they are, they're definitely weird," White said.

New Horizons also found several deep fractures in Pluto's surface, the largest of which spans more than 200 miles (322 km)in length. The top of the fracture is about 2.5 miles (4 km)higher than the base - more than twice as high as walls of the Grand Canyon. "The fact that there are so many large faults in this part of Pluto indicates that the crust has experienced a major extension at some point in its history," White said. Scientists suspect the decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements in Pluto's core was the heat source for its transformation. New Horizons is on track for a possible January 2019 pass by another frozen mini world in the Kuiper Belt region of the solar system, which is home to Pluto, its moons and thousands of other icy bodies.

http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-...tains-on-pluto-are-ice-volcanoes/3051228.html
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MrNick · Nov 11, 2015

Got to love these pictures.... It totally changes everything..

All "facts" go out the window...

AboveAlpha · Nov 11, 2015

RevAnarchist said: ↑

New Horizons spacecraft closes on Pluto. It’s on course for a close encounter with dwarf planet Pluto and it’s newly discovered small moons on July 14 2015. Read more and see movie of Pluto and its largest moon Charon @;

http://www.nasa.gov/content/the-view-from-new-horizons-a-full-day-on-pluto-charon/

View attachment 34791

[video]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh_stars_bary_03-final.gif[/video]
reva
Click to expand...

Cool pics!!

AboveAlpha

waltky · Feb 22, 2017

NASA Push For Pluto to Regain Planet Status...

NASA Scientists Urge For Pluto to Regain Planet Status
February 21, 2017 - We may soon be able to once again call Pluto a planet, rather than a dwarf planet if some NASA scientists proposal gains traction.

Pluto was called a planet from 1930 to 2006, when it was demoted because there appeared to be other bodies similar to Pluto orbiting beyond it, making Neptune the outermost planet. Plutos demotion angered some scientists who are still fighting for Pluto to be reinstated as a planet, including Alan Stern, the lead scientist with NASAs New Horizons mission to Pluto.

A journey to Pluto reveals a close-up view of mountains of water in frozen fields of nitrogen and methane.

Stern recently submitted a proposal to the International Astronomical Union to make Pluto a full-fledged planet. In the mind of the public, the word 'planet' carries a significance lacking in other words used to describe planetary bodies, according to the proposal. In the decade following the supposed 'demotion' of Pluto by the International Astronomical Union, many members of the public, in our experience, assume that alleged 'non-planets' cease to be interesting enough to warrant scientific exploration.

They also say planets should be round objects in space that are smaller than stars except for white dwarfs and neutron stars. "A planet is a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters," the proposal continued. Its unclear if the IAU will rule on the proposal.

http://www.voanews.com/a/mht-nasa-scientists-urge-for-pluto-to-regain-planet-status/3733582.html
Click to expand...

waltky · Mar 23, 2017

Pluto may soon be restored to planet status...

Scientists Launch Campaign to Restore Pluto to Planet Club
Wednesday 22nd March, 2017 - A team of scientists seeking to restore Pluto to planethood launched a campaign on Tuesday to broaden the astronomical classifications which led to its demotion to a 'dwarf planet' a decade ago.

Six scientists from institutions across the United States argued that Pluto deserves to be a full planet, along with some 110 other bodies in the solar system, including Earth's moon. In a paper presented at an international planetary science conference at The Woodlands, Texas, the scientists explained that geological properties, such as shape and surface features, should determine what constitutes a planet. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union, struggling with how to classify a newly discovered icy body beyond Pluto, adopted a definition for a planet based on characteristics that include clearing other objects from its orbital path.

Pluto and its newfound kin in the solar system's distant Kuiper Belt region were reclassified as dwarf planets, along with Ceres, the biggest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The decision left the solar system with eight planets. But this definition sidelines the research interests of most planetary scientists, said the paper's lead author, Kirby Runyon, a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins University.

Runyon said he and other planetary scientists are more interested in a planet's physical characteristics, such as its shape and whether it has mountains, oceans and an atmosphere. 'If you're interested in the actual intrinsic properties of a world, then the IAU definition is worthless,' he said by phone. Runyon and colleagues argue that the IAU does not have the authority to set the definition of a planet. 'There's a teachable moment here for the public in terms of scientific literacy and in terms of how scientists do science,' Runyon added. 'And that is not by saying, 'Let's agree on one thing.' That's not science at all.'

Runyon's group advocates for a sub-classification system, similar to biology's hierarchal method. This approach would categorize Earth's moon as a type of planet. That idea irks California Institute of Technology astronomer Mike Brown, who discovered the Kuiper Belt object that cast Pluto out of the planet club. 'It really takes blinders to not look at the solar system and see the profound differences between the eight planets in their stately circular orbits and then the millions and millions of tiny bodies flitting in and out between the planets and being tossed around by them,' he wrote in an email.

http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/...unch-campaign-to-restore-pluto-to-planet-club
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The View from New Horizons: A Full Day on Pluto-Charon

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