New Horizons - Closing in on Pluto

[pinochadeac]

Yeah, I get your point, but it looks like a low res picture of a rocky planet. Where is the HD shit?

 

[Baconwfu]

Neil deGrasse Tyson was dropping some major Pluto knowledge on Twitter yesterday. I had no idea that Pluto is only 1/6 the size of our Moon.

That's because it's not....it's 1/6 the size of earth

 

[TWDeac]

Yeah, I get your point, but it looks like a low res picture of a rocky planet. Where is the HD shit?

It's coming!

 

[Kory]

Yeah, I get your point, but it looks like a low res picture of a rocky planet. Where is the HD shit?

 

[marquee moon]

Neil deGrasse Tyson was dropping some major Pluto knowledge on Twitter yesterday. I had no idea that Pluto is only 1/6 the size of our Moon.

It's a DWARF planet!

 

[Justicebork]

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

 

[Kory]

 

[DeacInVermont]

Photos in sepia are soooooo 2006.

 

[RacerDeac]

NOT A DEATH STAR!!! Crisis averted! Unless they just designed it to not look like a death star...

 

[marquee moon]

I SEE GOD'S FOOTPRINT!!!!!!!!!!

#wrangor

 

[pinochadeac]

Now we are talking!!

 

[KickballDeac]

Is there enough light from the sun that far out to produce a true color pic, or is it necessary to enhance them somehow?

 

[lbE08]

 

[Biff Tannen]

 

[wfudkn]

 

[Kory]

whoa. new closeups of Pluto show a lack of impact craters. could be active processes at work?

 

[marquee moon]

What NASA says about this amazing image:

New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago — mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar system — and may still be in the process of building, says Jeff Moore of New Horizons’ Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI). That suggests the close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today.

Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate on the lack of craters in this scene. Like the rest of Pluto, this region would presumably have been pummeled by space debris for billions of years and would have once been heavily cratered — unless recent activity had given the region a facelift, erasing those pockmarks.

“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Moore.

 

[dot com]

“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Moore.

 

[TWDeac]

Image of Charon. They said that canyon in the lower left is 4-6 miles deep.

Also, no craters. I can't wait to see the explanation for the lack of them on both Pluto and Charon.

 

[Liquid Karma]

When I was a youngster I went to the Astronomy camp at the university of Arizona every summer for a couple weeks. Got to meet James Christy, who discovered Charon, and hear his stories of how he found it. Very cool stuff.