New Horizons

[Frida Space]

No problem, Motokid. Thank you, Aethon! Brilliant video as well, I hadn't seen it. Pluto's minor moons are just nuts, especially if you also consider their axial tilt.

On a side note, this interesting discovery presented today that got lost somewhere and didn't make it into any press release or slide: Nix's rotational period (motion around its own axis) has sped up 10% since 2011 (HST). Once more, no clue as to what is going on.

[Kryten]

On a side note, this interesting discovery presented today that got lost somewhere and didn't make it into any press release or slide: Nix's rotational period (motion around its own axis) has sped up 10% since 2011 (HST). Once more, no clue as to what is going on.

Wasn't the rotation of the minor moons already predicted to be chaotic?

[Exoscientist]

Pluto has blue hazes and surface water ice.

Laurel Kornfeld

October 9th, 2015

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/pluto-has-blue-hazes-and-surface-water-ice/

The ice on the surface is interesting IF there is internal heat, then possibly you could have subsurface liquid water. The blue haze in the atmosphere is interesting because it suggests complex organics in the atmosphere. The complex organics in the atmosphere quite likely could be communicated to the subsurface. Then you could have subsurface complex organics and liquid water, IF Pluto has internal heating.

Ice volcanoes spotted on Pluto, suggest internal heat source.

By Eric Hand 9 November 2015 3:30 pm

http://news.sciencemag.org/space/2015/11/ice-volcanoes-spotted-pluto-suggest-internal-heat-source

We gotta do a lander mission there!

Bob Clark

[Aanker]

Are we sure this cryovolcanism is still present, though? For all we know, they could be ancient remnants of past, dwindling activity.

[peadar1987]

Are we sure this cryovolcanism is still present, though? For all we know, they could be ancient remnants of past, dwindling activity.

They can usually infer the age of features on (relatively) airless worlds by the density of impact craters on them. If the cryovolcanic regions are only lightly cratered, they are likely to be geologically young.

[Frida Space]

On a Kuiper-Belt-related-side-note, we have a new record for farthest object ever discovered.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28477-most-distant-solar-system-object-yet-could-hint-at-hidden-planet/

[MichaelPoole]

They can usually infer the age of features on (relatively) airless worlds by the density of impact craters on them. If the cryovolcanic regions are only lightly cratered, they are likely to be geologically young.

It gets even better than that. Glaciers are currently clearly moving on Pluto:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/new-pluto-photos-reveal-majestic-icy-mountains-glaciers-and-sweeping-plains-10507039.html

http://nineplanets.org/news/glaciers-on-pluto/

http://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2015/07/24/f63b8b44-27c6-4828-a9d5-4a1dd5e613d5/34ec7fc5e0ba8e7e9aa6e8824687a024/072415iceflowslabels.jpg

You can clearly see how the young soft ice is "eating" the older rugged terrain.

A panorama also showed glaciers flowing back into the plain from the icy region, similar to the flows seen on the edges of Earth’s polar ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica.

Honestly, I don't see why are people so surprised about this. Triton get very little tidal power from Neptune yet it has a young surface with active geysers on it. If NH was an orbiter perhaps we would see some erupting too. Remember, the close flyby took only about 14 hours. A flyby of Earth with just 1 side visible that brief might show no active volcanos at all.

[Aethon]

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. The image data were collected by the spacecraft’s Ralph/MVIC color camera on July 14 at 11:11 AM UTC, from a range of 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers). This image was presented by Will Grundy of the New Horizons’ surface composition team on Nov. 9 at the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Maryland.

Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

[Motokid600]

Such ashame we'll never get to see the other side. Not for another century at most.

[Streetwind]

Humans tend to overestimate what can be done in 5-10 years, but underestimate what can be done in a hundred years. Have some faith

[Findthepin1]

In a hundred years all of us will be dead.

In five or ten years most of us will play KSP.

[Robotengineer]

In a hundred years all of us will be dead.

In five or ten years most of us will play KSP.

In five or ten years most of us will be using the skills that we learned from playing KSP.

Since when did Pluto become a rainbow planet? (I know, I know, it's false color.)

[Motokid600]

In five or ten years most of us will be using the skills that we learned from playing KSP.

... And probably still playing KSP.

[Aethon]

[IMG]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-pluto-day_1.jpg[/IMG]



[IMG]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-charon-day_1.jpg[/IMG]




A day on Pluto (top) and Xaron (bottom).



[URL]http://www.nasa.gov/feature/a-day-on-pluto-a-day-on-charon[/URL]

[Camacha]

[quote name='Motokid600']Such ashame we'll never get to see the other side. Not for another century at most.[/QUOTE]

We have seen the other side. Just with a little less detail.

[More Boosters]

[quote name='Motokid600']... And probably still playing KSP.[/QUOTE]

Hopefully 1.1 by then.

[Mau]

Wikipedia's latest image of Nix:

Edited January 25, 2016 by Mau
Fixed broken image.

[Sanic]

On November 20, 2015 at 2:34:50 PM, More Boosters said:

[quote name='Motokid600']... And probably still playing KSP.

Hopefully 1.1 by then.

Not likely. The 1.1 part.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Sanic

[Frida Space]

Animation taken by LORRI on Nov. 2 showing a 150-km-wide KBO known as 1999 JR1, 5.3 billion km from the Sun and 280 million km from New Horizons. It's also the closest-ever picture of a minor KBO by a factor of >15.

[justidutch]

KBO = Kerbin-Bound-Object?

[Frida Space]

New Horizons Returns First, Best Images of Pluto

www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-returns-first-best-images-of-pluto

Edited December 4, 2015 by Frida Space

[lajoswinkler]

That image doesn't have the best spatial resolution parts which are at the bottom of the image stripe. I've tried to manually stitch and correct the best of the Sputnik Planum. There are some dimples probably around 20 m in diameter on the most detailed parts.

This is the preview.

And here is the 7.3 MB file with over 10 000 px.

http://www.filedropper.com/hiresnhlowerpart

Get it while it's hot.

The composite image has a gap. That's because either NASA forgot to upload one more raw image, or the probe didn't send/capture it.

I've corrected the histograms of some images, but didn't bother to make it all look the same.

[Mitchz95]

It still blows my mind that we're getting high-resolution images from a spacecraft that's 32 Astronomical Units away.

[Kryten]

Well, we're not exactly getting them instantly...

[Starwhip]

Spoiler

I wonder what causes the holes shown here. They're quite interesting, almost like raindrops, or smallish meteorites. And the stretched-out tracks are weirder. Maybe there are winds in the atmosphere pushing small clumps around? Whatever it is, the result is awesome.