lajoswinkler

NASA press conference today in like three hours. False color, high resolution here.

Calm down. One hour before aerobraking. Faint system of rings is visible.

No, stars are literally points to our optical devices. Point like sources of light. That's one of the reasons why they shimmer when their light gets through our atmosphere.

Thanks. And we're swinging over Polta at some 600 km give or take, more than one hour before aerobraking. Wal and Priax in the distance.

Then what did you expect?

Oh, the vicissitudes of English language, how happy I am I don't have to deal with those. Apoapsis and periapsis for me. Also, aluminij.

Pluto and Charon are tidally locked. There is no squeezing in action. It used to be the case, now it's not. Such body would have to be pretty enormous, so it would perturb Neptune itself pretty badly, IMHO.

Can we please drop the RTG decay discussion? This is not the topic of the thread. Topic is failure to produce power in hot environment. Decay has been suggested numerous times and we even have a great mod that simulates it. The same would happen on Kerbin if it was sunset. Use your rover when Kerbol is higher, and position the panels differently.

We have no means of detecting little ones and there isn't a reason to believe they are a rare occurence. My opinion about this announcement: YAWN. Utterly boring. I've seen this kind of news like ten times or more. Nothing special. Obviously one departments needs more monies so they're doing some spin.

4 hours before atmospheric contact. Priax and Polta doing their dance.

Less than one day is left before Kron 4 starts ablating. From left to right, there is Wal, then Priax, and Polta is visible transiting Urlum.

Their dumb faces crack me up.

Oh, I'm using KSP 1.0.2. and not the latest OPM (although not much has changed). 5 days before aerobraking. Urlum is clearly visible as a crescent in the void of space. Kron 4 has turned prograde. Most of ship's systems are still offline. Ionizing radiation is growing in intensity.

Trajectory has been set. Additional Urlum periapsis corrections will be done if needed. Inclination corrected. 8 m/s of delta v has been spent on these corrections, using only the central engine at half thrust. Series of snapshots will be taken as the ship falls towards Polta and Urlum.

The atmospheric tail isn't anything new. Every time there's an atmosphere and a star, tail will be made. Eeloo should've been made into second gas giant's satellite long time ago, but it seems Squad has abandoned the development of the planetary system. That's where Outer Planets Mod steps in: resembling the real Solar system, but kerbalized.

Now I've got it. You have to use parallel viewing, not cross-eyeing. Now it works.

Let's focus on the failure in hot environments; decay already has its mod and it's working perfectly. Signo, what do you mean solar panels don't work on the sea level? They work for me...

I don't get a bulge, I get a dimple. One moment. Are you sure it is applicable for stereo viewing? I see it rotated. Not really a translation.

Oh, I've missed the crosshairs. LOL Yes, now I see it. Spectacular, if it indeed is that. Every "cell" has one. I'm telling you, those are baby cryovolcanos. The actual mountains that look kind of like barnacles are in exact centers of those cells. There must be a connection.

I just found out about this mod. Finally! Well done! Finally we get this! \o/

I'm trying, but I can't see anything.

RTGs have their own radiators and their heat output is very small compared to reactors and engines, so they are fine. This would only mean they would stop working in certain environments. So far they're the ultimate lifesaver. This plus decay is what KSP's RTGs need.

As most of us know, I hope, RTGs are just as any other heat engine, working because there's a temperature gradient between the radioisotope lump inside and vacuum of space outside. I propose the following failure mechanism: 1) Establish a fixed temperature of the RTG's core and decrease its electrical power output in accordance with the heat gradient across its skin. Exponential decrease with a certain equation, corrected to actually reach zero when the temperature of atmosphere is identical to the core temperature of the unit. 2) Core temperature well below Eve's minimal atmospheric temperature (360 K @ sea level) so that RTGs are completely useless on its surface. This would leave the player with two options for probe landings - fuel cells or solar panels. (It would be interesting if Eve gets shrouded in clouds one day so that even the panels themselves aren't very useful. This combination would indeed turn every probe into a ticking failure, just like it is in reality.)

Those indeed look similar to Ceres' mountain. Noice, LordFerret. Briny ocean would have to transfer heat to the surface. It is not a question of yes or no. That must happen as it's how things work, just like stuff falls on the ground when it's thrown out of the window. What's so special about it, regarding the conservation of heat, is that the heat removal needed to solidify that ocean would be tremendous, and surface crust does not help with irradiating that heat into space as ice is very good thermal insulator. These worlds are mostly made out of ices, so even relatively small amounts of heat, compared to terrestrial planets, is sufficient. Heat and activity analogy with magma simply does not stand. Heat involved at terrestrial planets is obviously much less powerful as a tectonic activity factor. Edit: Something just occured to me. What if some volatiles were "sweated" by some areas? Namely those that look like glacial upwellings locked in motion or just moving very slow? That could explain the distribution patterns. - - - Updated - - - Another thing. Look at how closely mountain ground shapes match to the brain-like shapes. Are we looking at the mountain evolution here? Are those shapes mountain "embryos"?

The new image confirms the hypothesis that there are very old surfaces being covered with fluffy material. Dark probably because it's full of tholins and cratered because it hasn't seen activity since primordial times. This proves global tectonics on Pluto is dead. Only localized icy crust recycling is possible, although not yet proven. I've colorized the image (not monochrome anymore) and located its position on the global map. Open the image in a new tab.