The plans for the Near Encounter Phase of the New Horizons mission have been set in stone since 2009. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/The-Path-to-Pluto/NH_Obs_Playbook_LORRI-MVIC.pdf -- not only the timing and geometry, but also when it is going to be played back. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/03101637-pluto-image-expectations.html. Some of the things I learned while writing that article that are of interest to this forum:
- Not a lot of data is being returned right away (in fact, only 1% gets returned within a week of the flyby).
- After July 20, there will be a long dry spell of no images being returned until the browse data set starts coming down on September 16.
- There will not be much scope for image processing on the data that is being returned near the flyby. There are one or two pairs of images that you can use to make stereo; there are two mosaics; there is one MVIC image for which there is LORRI data returned near enough in time to do colorization.
So it's going to be awesome, but we're also going to have to be patient!
Here is my simulation, using Voyager data, of the LORRI data set that we can expect to have on the ground as of July 20.
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/charts/simulation-of-nh-lorri-data-set.html
Thanks so much for this very informative chart. Is the entire New-Horizons-facing Pluto hemisphere expected to be documented at 0.4km/pix resolution?
Not all of it; there is a 15-footprint mosaic that covers maybe 30% of the visible disk. It's on page 20 of the Playbook I linked to in my post.
Thank you! - Your chart is an excellent overview of the visuals to expect. The playbook has all the info, but your graphic is more digestible for those of us with limited time due to real life constraits (i.e. job and toddlers :-)
That's interesting.....
So, what happens between the time of the 15 highest-rez photos from 77,298km range (p.20) and the time when lower-rez photos are taken before (254,072km range, p.17) and after (359,895km range, p.22) ?
I realize it's all done on July 14, but just how long does it take to get each of the 15 hi-rez photos? ....one might be tempted to think that a more complete hemispheric coverage could be had. Why not ? (Thnx)
Primarily because NH's downlink bit-rate at that distance will be around 1kb/sec. Also, imagery obviously won't be the only data coming down and the DSN is a finite resource set that can't be dedicated to NH alone.
Excellent (as always) relevant blog article by Emily http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/01300800-talking-to-pluto-is-hard.html.
The scarcest resource during the close approach period is time rather than data volume. The spacecraft is designed to do fast turns (up to 1.25 degree/sec) to observe as many targets as possible during the close approach period, but still, each mosaic repointing takes time to settle before we can be sure of a sharp image, time is needed to allocate the memory for recording each set of data, and so on. To answer the specific question, that 15-image Pluto mosaic takes about 20 minutes, and is preceded by Nix observations (hi-res imaging and our best infrared compositional map), and followed by our best infrared compositional map of Charon.
We do get most of the visible disk of Pluto at 0.3 km/pixel with our wide-angle camera MVIC near closest approach, and the whole disk at 0.46 km/pixel with MVIC ten minutes earlier- part of the purpose of that 15-image LORRI mosaic is to provide stereo coverage with the closer MVIC scans.
There were indeed many lively meetings to figure all this out, but they were almost never acrimonious- the entire science team understands the importance of the holistic view of the system that will be provided by all these wonderful overlapping data sets.
John
Jaro where did you get that image from?
Page 20 of the http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/The-Path-to-Pluto/NH_Obs_Playbook_LORRI-MVIC.pdf.
Seconded!
Thirded! I haven't been this excited since Voyager 2 encountered Neptune back in 1989!
Thank you for letting us get an insight via your "Observation Playbook".
I can only echo what already been said, that this will indeed be one interesting encounter.
Now I hope you give NH another good workout so she wont sprain a muscle during that intense cosmic ballet performance. =)
I will chime in and say that a major part in New Horizons success thus far has been its team dynamic. I have been amazed, given the competing priorities, at the cooperative spirit with which things are dealt with.
Good morning from Los Angeles! Today marks the beginning of the near encounter phase. http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-pluto-new-horizons-july-13-media-briefing-time-change-media-center-open will air the pre-flyby briefing at 1430 GMT today (13 Jul). Note that all times are subject to change as events unfold.
Please utilize this thread for all New Horizons commentary for the next several days. Here we go!!!
One thing that was being discussed in the last thread, about all of the features that look like "rivers" or "lakes" and the criticism that Pluto's pressure is too low for, say, liquid nitrogen to flow:
Given a triple point pressure of around 12kPa and a solid density of 1027 kg/m^3, 3,2kPa surface pressure, and 0,655m/s^2 pluto surface gravity, Pluto's triple point could be hit underneath as little as 13 meters of nitrogen ice (a bit more, as it would have to have at least a tiny bit of "fluff" to it to float, but that's to be expected). Other ices floating on it such as methane ice could have the same effect. And note that this ice wouldn't be heavily packed due to Pluto's weak gravity, it's the equivalent of less than one meter of nitrogen ice under Earth's gravity. Picture how much a meter of water snow (roughly the same density) packs down on Earth; I'd expect something roughly in the same ballpark - perhaps a situation like arctic sea ice.
Basically, even if there's not liquids flowing on the surface (eutectics or whatnot), there could still be liquids at a shallow depth with a weak ice pack on top of them. And iced-over rivers still flow and move things around.
Thanks for the analysis and the calculations Nafnlaus. That's the relevant problem. I was intersted in peforming that kind of simulations. No need to dig deep for the future lander if you're right.
An interesting thing is that there's a lot of potential liquids and mixtures of liquids / slushes / etc at different (shallow) depths that could be involved here, going through a wide range of dynamic changes as Pluto moves through its seasons. There could be some very complex processes involved in shaping this landscape. I'm sure whatever data comes back, it's going to lead to some very interesting papers down the road
Briefing placard now up on NASA TV.
Starting now....
I have been attempting to measure Pluto's radius from the images that have been obtained in the past few days. I have consistently been getting a values of 1190-1195 km in most cases (1194 km for the latest image). This is close to the radius that SPICE uses (1195 km) but I have seen smaller values elsewhere. Wikipedia gives two values, 1184 km and "1161 km (solid)". The PDS Rings Node Pluto Viewer seems to use a value of 1153 km (selectable in "Field of View" but I'm not completely sure this is the value used to render the Pluto diagrams - I suspect that value may be bigger).
I haven't measured Charon as thoroughly and not in the latest images but I have usually gotten values of 590-600 km. This isn't very far from the SPICE value (605 km).
Pluto's polar cap confirmed as N2 & CH4 ices.
Alan states radius as 1185 km +/- 10.
By my count, we now have three different pronunciations of "Charon".
given how it's written in Greek, "kharon" is the correct one
This is absolutely a case where space nerds win out over linguist nerds. The name is only pretending to be Greek. The moon is actually named after the discoverer's wife and is just modified slightly to look like it's mythological, to pass IAU inspection.
Phil
excellent and informative briefing so far I must say
The early, distant detection of ionized nitrogen seems to be the most unexpected thing thus far.
Presser wrapping up.
Does anyone have an estimate of how much of Pluto will not be imaged at all? Either because it's in the dark or just due to the geometry of the encounter?
Best would be a contour map showing resolution in different regions, but just a measure of the invisible amount would be interesting. Same for Charon.
yep, though I expected to see the few LORRI images from yesterday
If I followed Dr. Stern correctly, molecular nitrogen was found five days out of closest approach. Actually at that distance it was ionized nitrogen and is believed to have come from Pluto. The detection was significantly further out than had been expected which *implies* some type of more energetic release mechanism on Pluto. However, the data resolution is too low to really tell at this point.
Also, the methane signature of Pluto's dark regions is significantly lower than that of the polar region.
We all get to add this new information to our image interpretations...
Andy
New version of my Pluto map where I have added the 2015-07-11 22:23 image that was released by the NH team last night if I remember correctly (things are happening fast now!). Longitude 0 is at the left edge of the map.
1 million km.
Next media event will be tomorrow 14 Jul/1130 GMT for closest approach, followed by a presser/image release.
Is the media conference going to be uploaded to youtube? I missed it.
Björn's map illustrates how the bright areas to the west in the last image release is probably (at the least) a half-decent preview of the rest of heart feature. The bright stuff here is probably similar to the bright stuff in the rest of it. Judging by lower-resolution maps, there were already solid hints that this part would not be some sort of uniform white, however.
The fact that our closest approach view will include the brightest region and part of the dark region together with other parts in between albedos ,should give us a good representation of all terrain types visualized so far on pluto.
New briefing is up here:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9504:nasa-news-briefing-on-new-horizon-mission-status-and-what-to-expect&catid=1:latest
Just updated the New Horizons image database: http://nchazarra.duckdns.org/db/
Now you can also download the whole records in .csv.
Omnibus New Horizons info post now up at the http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/pluto/exploring-pluto.html
It's fun to combine Bjorn's maps into an animation showing how the resolution is increasing, from east to west:
Jim Christie has a good account of the naming of Charon in this interview:
http://www.astronomy.com/year-of-pluto/2015/06/an-interview-with-jim-christy-how-defective-images-revealed-the-first-double-planet
Phil
NASA has blocked the access to the root of the directories where images and metadata is stored, so the database won't be updating until I find a way to parse the web code.
New images of Pluto and Charon just released:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-big-is-pluto-new-horizons-settles-decades-long-debate
And that same webpage provide a new diameter value for Pluto, bringing Pluto back at the top of the list in the KBO family.
(The statement for the diameter of Pluto is 2,370 kilometers, Charon get 1208 km, for Nix there's an estimate of 35 kilometers, and Hydra at 45 kilometers.)
Much more details here! This looks like giant dark sand dunes.
My processing of 11 of July, 22:22. Factor x3, north is up.
Pluto:
I had completely forgotten about the observation playbook! In that case, I can update my P_LORRI_STEREO_MOSAIC preview to show which frames will be played back this month (using the colors Emily used in her graphic earlier). So the Yellow frames are supposed to be played back Wednesday evening UTC, while the purple frames are supposed to be played back on the afternoon of July 20 UTC.
Just playing with contrast in the brighter areas of Pluto and the terminators to make details easier to see.
Phil
To my eye, the dark blotches on the Whale hemisphere seem to have smoothly curving boundaries, while the dark areas on the anti-Whale hemisphere seem to have more irregular boundaries. I'm curious now if that's because they're categorically different or if it's the same materials but differences in topography. (Such as the difference between the jagged coastline of Greece vs. the smooth coastlines of Florida.)
The vaguely hexagonal feature above the bullseye appears even more crater-like now at the limb.
That must be a crater on Charon at the 5 o'clock position. You can even see radial impact ejecta.
The crater on Pluto at the 4 o'clock doesn't show ejecta.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=36814
If they are dunes on Pluto, what would cause them and what would they be made of?
still seeing evidence of fluid having flowed across the surface in the far gone past but we need closer pictures
The dark center and bright ejecta around the 'crater' on Charon reminds me of the craters on some of Uranus's moons.
There seems to be a bump on the limb at 8 o'clock on this image:
http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pluto-s-north-pole-equator-and-central-meridian
If it's a mountain, it could correspond to an irregular, bumpy grey area somewhere between the large black
uniform area and smaller black patch at around 7 o clock position on the latest images
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/nh-7-13-15_pluto_image_nasa-jhuapl-swri.png
Not seeing any evidence of fluid movement in my view, Steve. That topography looks more sublimation-carved than anything else.
If those are dunes, how tall could they get considering the surface gravity? Bigger than any on Earth?
@JRehling, thanks for the response. I forgot to think of these bodies using large geological time scales.
Will Grundy, a planetary scientist and mission team member pretty much agrees with you and mentions the role UV light and cosmic rays could have played.
He also told Forbes early this year that:
Hmm. Diffidently, I must point out the dunes on 67P C-G. I suppose that the extent of a putative dune field may provide a discriminator between a formerly denser global atmosphere and the effects of local outgassing.
Here's a different view of the fly-by event information from APL's website. It visualizes all those events, instrument by instrument, overlaying DSN communication periods and NASA TV schedule. Filter by instrument in the legend, or search for keywords
http://utprosim.com/newhorizons/index.html
Less than 500,000 miles to closest approach, according to Eyes on the Solar System.
I am struck by how similar the topology is within the dark areas to that in the bright basin further north. They look "dunish", but the scale suggests, hills and ridges. The majority of the surface seems to be a series of ridges and valleys looping around and the diagram posted sometime back for super volatile deposition matches this terrain. This leads me to think the colour is organics/dust deposited on the surface, maybe as suggested above in only a thin layer of millimetres.
On the latest Pluto image down at 5 O'clock there are three huge mountains, just to the left we can see the beginnings of another dark area which is surrounded by cliffs many kilometres high. On the left rim at the start of the heart plateau we can see a huge elevation change up to the bright plateau. On the edges of the heart plateau as it runs down into the basin again a sharp cliff marks the edge of the bright heart material and the lighter grey of a second step down to the flatter expanse of the temperate latitude basin. [admin edit]
To Charon, the craters hinted at before are quite clear now. Also clear now is how much of a Plateau the Polar ice cap is. That big nick on the limb at about 1 O'Clock continues as a deep valley all the way around the polar cap and its far cliff can be seen at 11 to 12 O'Clock. More wildly it might be speculated that nick is evidence of a subduction zone around the polar cap. I still can't explain why the cap is so dark, how organics and dust could be preferentially deposited at the poles, other than they would be a "cold spot" for concentrating any freezing volatiles. This implies Charon has or once had a significant atmosphere, either its own or what it has pulled off Pluto. It may not have large numbers of craters, but it appears to be a gnarly and very rugged world.
So exciting...!
Curious about something: I'm looking at Bill Harris' post on the hi-res coverage http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8047&view=findpost&p=223020
(quick link to image here: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=36806 ).
The long diagonal path of the highest resolution pictures (which I believe we won't see until the Fall) appears to run "off" the illuminated portion of Pluto just as it gets to the dark southeast edge of the "heart" (see the map at the top of the image). Does that mean that that part of the surface will be in darkness when the images are taken? If so, what is the anticipated result? Or is that just a byproduct of the available rough Pluto image with the correct orientation?
I've seen the discussions of resolution constraints on the Charon-shine pictures to be taken after closest approach, but this would be a different beast, yes?
The New Horizon team was quoted in a tweet as saying that there are signs of "frost transport" in the images coming down. Something like this is probably responsible for the various surface features we now see on Pluto, as predicted earlier: "Occultation studies have shown that there has been a steady increase in Pluto's atmospheric pressure over the past two decades, so concomitant sublimation and recondensation of frost has likely occurred, as predicted by volatile transport models." http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16.4595B
I am starting to wonder if Charon has some Triton-esque terrain, too. Take a look..
Not much solid evidence for many well-preserved impact craters, which is interesting.
[admin edit]
Agree. Only evidence for a few really big ones. That may be resolution or the smaller ones have been covered over or changed by resurfacing events.
Charon does look like a Uranian moon from this resolution. We already know it's similar in size and density as well. It would be wonderful if closeup images of Charon tell us more about them.
Just looked at the latest Charon image again and that "crater" at 6-7 O'Clock appears to me to have a plume of darker material in the direction of the limb and a generous observer might say a smoke trail similar to a volcano can be seen. Impact crater or Caldera, the old question when looking at lower resolution images, even higher ones from Ceres are not conclusive. While in such an extravagantly, unfounded, speculative vein, the vast long Chasm running from 4 to 6 O'Clock, a rift valley? Are there, or were there, continents of Water Ice moving on a mantle of slush made up of super volatiles. At this point Charon is turning out to be a real conundrum. Pluto seems to fit the favoured theoretical models quite nicely, nobody seems to have a good handle on what's going on at Charon.
I think Charon's going to be the biggest surprise from this flyby. I may be wrong, but perhaps we're looking at an icy version of Io here.
Charon looks somewhat similar to Uranus' moons, at least at this resolution. The chasm seems comparable to features seen on Ariel and Titania.
Its amazing what you can do when if you write scripts (and get out of work early!)
Here are the 2nd set of images from July 11, 2015
Here is yet another version of my map of Pluto, this time incorporating the recently released image that was obtained at a range of 2.5 million km (the one that can be found http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150713 at the NH website). Apparently it was obtained on 2015-07-12 at 08:46. As usual, longitude 0 is at the left edge of the map.
Thanks for that map. The bright terrains near the equator definitely look like the patchy ice cap margins we saw at Triton.
Given that big and uneroded crater on Charon, I suspect it will end up being a heavily cratered body with limited to no resurfacing that looks rather similar to Oberon.
I have circled the feature on Charon in this image. It has to be speculation at these resolutions, but one also never knows. Personally, it looks very much like a textbook impact crater, but the heat generated must have resulted in some Cryovolcanic activity.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124013840@N06/19663519412/in/dateposted-public/
I wonder if Charon has a mainly-ancient surface with most of its internal heat having vented through the north polar area, just as Enceladus has a mainly-ancient surface with most of its internal heat venting near its south pole.
It seems like too much of a coincidence for Charon's biggest impact basin to have hit its north pole so squarely, so I would guess that the dark spot is volcanic. Another possibility is that it is impact-related and some sort of tidal dynamic moved the rotational pole from another place to that location. Or, it could be purely the result of volatile transport.
Obviously there must have been some local melting after the impact, but impossible to say if cryovolcanic activity would result. Much better imagery will be required to determine that.
I would prefer to bet on a climate origin of the dark spot. As Charon rotates at the current season, the dark spot occupies most of the area that is permanently illuminated and therefore a bit warmer than lower latitudes. Any ice (whatever its composition) which can sublime off that region and condense further south will be removed. As seasons change the dark spot may expand and contract, possibly leaving some of those concentric dark fringes.
Phil
I may be mistaken did I hear from today’s media briefing there a less than expected lower atmospheric density and greater ionized Nitrogen further out from Pluto? I wonder how this fits with Pluto’s seasonal atmospheric behavior as measured by past and recent star occultation data (suggesting the atmospheric density is still increasing). To expand on Mercure’s post #90, the paper of Olkin and Young http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.0841 and Emily’s nice discussion here http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/09051420-plutos-atmosphere-does-not-collapse.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/ are 2 years old but are likely to be refined, constrained or refuted in the next few weeks of observations. Also one wonders if the equator looks different because it has been facing the sun for some 40+ years during the perihelion portion of Pluto’s orbit.
Is that really a "polar cap" we're seeing on Charon, or is it a block of dark terrain that happens to be at the north pole? The edges of it look suspiciously angular to me in the highest resolution image, as if it's bounded by faults (a la Ganymede Dark Terrain, or one of those patchwork blocks on Miranda).
And yeah, as soon as I saw Charon at higher resolution I was reminded of Oberon and Titania!
Is it very egg-shaped though? Not sure what the expected tidal bulge on Charon is supposed to be.
Hi(gh)!
The cratering record may be quite different on Pluto & Charon than what we've seen on other bodies. If the massive impact that formed the Plutonian satellite system occurred after the late heavy bombardment period (Nice model), or even in the late stages, there may not have been enough impactors to saturate the surfaces. It will be interesting to see if there are relatively few craters on an otherwise ancient surface of Charon.
With Pluto, on the other hand, other processes may have altered the cratering record, so all bets are off....
NH has passed the 400,000 mile mark now. LORRI is taking pics.
Pedantic note.... whilst Ralph and Alice are not acronyms... LORRI is.
I took Bjorn Johnson's (awesome) map from http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7986&view=findpost&p=223126 and used a template based off the image in http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7970&view=findpost&p=221207 to produce a map comparison.
I have to admit I'm a bit surprised at how well it matches.
Yadgar: "The results closest to the real value should be obtained when viewing from a great distance and using a high magnification..."
So, pretty much what LORRI has in fact been doing!
But Yadgar, make a sketch of the geometry you are describing. If you project the two tangents out to the distance of the centre of the body you are measuring... the angle plus that distance give you a diameter larger than the true value, not smaller.
(Presumably, if you forget the fact that the limb is not at 90 degrees from the line of sight, you would also forget to correct for the change in distance of the apparent limb!)
Phil
Looking at the color image Pluto appears redder to my eyes from the mid-latitude gray terrain and farther north.
And taking another look at the Triton images I don't see any craters visible until around closest approach, although with it retrograde orbit which is decaying, Triton may have been geologically active more recently than Pluto.
I suspect the impact that formed or captured Charon would have happened before the instability in the Nice model when the relative velocities were smaller.
I found this interesting article regarding craters on Pluto and Charon, originally published in Icarus Jan. 2015.
Their models suggest that Kuiper Belt Objects will have a different crater pattern than moons around, say Jupiter or Saturn.
For one thing, primary craters on Pluto and Charon will have a smaller diameter. For example, starting with a 1km diameter impactor:
This image was just posted on the NH SOC site.
As you can see the perspective has changed. NH is crossing in front of the pole.
Wrote down my own ramblings on the encounter from the SOC http://planetimages.blogspot.com/2015/07/reflections-on-flyby-my-personal.html
Looking at this map: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=36806 it looks like a lot of the high res imagery will be of the "heart" which doesn't yet appear to have nearly as many surface features as other areas. There will be some good shots of the border between the heart and the whale though. Does anyone know how the flyby was planned? Is it just based best logistics for the trajectory, or were the Hubble maps used? It makes sense that they would target the high albedo areas, but there was an awful lot of interesting stuff on the hemisphere that is turning away from us now.
-kap
If there were an objective scale for "interestingness" and someone had posted odds on Pluto's interestingness, the people who bet high would have won.
Triton was always the comparison case, and Triton's pretty interesting in its own right, but Pluto is looking very interesting without being a Triton clone. Or, at least it's hard to tell how much the things we are seeing are like Triton. There are signs of Titan, maybe signs of Mars.
I keep seeing these images and imagining Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World saying, "We're not worthy!"
A major planning consideration was to have Charon in the right position to light up the "far" side of Pluto with Charonshine. That determines the state of rotation of Pluto at flyby time. I'm not sure about the choice of longitude to overfly, but that was in large part a blind guess, anyway.
I think the high res imaging path is just about perfect, actually. I really like that we'll get the interface between the heart and the darkest material.
"A major planning consideration was to have Charon in the right position to light up the "far" side of Pluto with Charonshine. That determines the state of rotation of Pluto at flyby time. I'm not sure about the choice of longitude to overfly, but that was in large part a blind guess, anyway. "
The desire for a double occultation would have superseded both of those considerations. Then let the Charonshine fall where it may.
Phil
Hey Phil,
In the image I post above, think of it as an analog clock, is the limb from about 1:00 to 4:00 lit up by Charonshine?
Karle
Well this is quite interesting. In the http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/view_obs.php?image=data/pluto/level2/lor/jpeg/029899/lor_0298996724_0x630_sci_1.jpg&utc_time=2015-07-12%3Cbr%3E08:46:45%20UTC&description=OpNav+Campaign+4%2C+LORRI+1X1&target=PLUTO&range=2.5M%20km&exposure=100%20msec, I think (dangerous for me, I know) we may be seeing some atmospheric effects here at the lower and right edges.
-----------------------------------
2015-7-12 (S1) Pluto blink
-----------------------------------
I don't think so. C-shine will be very faint. To see it at all we would need a long exposure, overexposing the rest of the disk.
Phil
just saw a posting of an old 1979 painting of pluto on the https://twitter.com/newhorizons2015 thats really quite amazing.
The whole image is at http://www.cosmographica.com/spaceart/pluto-predicted.html
I'm hard pressed to think of a trajectory that would provide better coverage of a greater diversity of terrain as well.
I think that we should give the mission planners that have lived and breathed this mission for years the benefit of the doubt, eh?
Ted, that's a http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7986&view=findpost&p=223158about your personal history with Pluto.
Phil, thanks for posting that http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7986&view=findpost&p=223069 I'm a fan of "fun facts to know and tell," and that one's a gem.
Ted, nice story - but I think you mean 56 years since Luna 3!
Phil
Below are the three Pluto images from 7/12/2015. They have been enlarged 2x.
There is only 30 seconds between each image, so not surprisingly there is no change between the three other than Pluto's very very slight rotation (maybe).
The 2 o'clock position circular feature continues to look to me as a crater that froze before it had a chance to fully form. Then other times it looks like a large mountain with a depression below it extending quite a ways.
Looks like some of the dark areas are elevated terrain
Release Date: July 13, 2015
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/7-13-15_Pluto_image_NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI.png
Update of "map animation" to the latest image:
July 13, 2015 11:45 pm Eastern Time Zone in the USA
250,000 miles to go (the approximate distance to our Moon)
8 hours to closest approach ( 31,000 mph closing speed)
unbelievable!
NH is now completely within the perigee of the Earth's Moon at < 225,309mi.
Just over 1 light second. EOTSS shows observations of the small moons proceeding one by one.
Pluto, 12 of July 08:45, factor x3.
Turning towards Earth now. That's gotta be the 'insurance' data coming in now, right?
I've modified a capture from the approach animation to show a gibbous-phase Pluto illuminated by Charon alone during the solar eclipse. The only other possible light source will be a ring of light scattered forward by the exosphere at the limb, so that might be the best opportunity to see the Charon-facing side again, in addition to the otherwise hidden southern hemisphere.
This page is nice for keeping up with what's going on, you can just refresh it if you don't want to scroll around to find where you are:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/The-Flyby.php
Edit:
And of course anybody who is keeping up with this thread should have this open if they can:
http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-pluto.html
Currently 7 DSN antenas pointing in NH direction
Again, the New Horizons image database has been fixed. Now you can sort correctly the images by distance. The address is http://nchazarra.duckdns.org/db/
There are around 20 fields duplicated. I will be fixing that later today. Now the script checks if there is new images every hour.
I got up at 4 am to enjoy the encounter. It's a once in a life time chance.
Fantastic images guys,
this is my precise 6 km/pixel collage (5.95 exactly) For compare Pluto-Charon and other bodies of the Solar System.
I'm enthusiastic.
I think Charlie Bolden is live on NASA TV as of a couple minutes ago, not sure.
http://www.ustream.tv/NASAHDTV
Charles Bolden: "Pluto is rich in reds". Maybe he has already seen a certain color picture?
My take on LORRI pictures of 11 July, 22h23 UTC:
https://flic.kr/p/vXa8Xu
https://flic.kr/p/v3CBNk
1 hour to CA.
If you were on New Horizons right now, Pluto would appear 7 times the size of a Full Moon, and you'd be frozen and dead in airless space. Thank you, New Horizons, for making the trip for us!
Youtube link for NASA TV incase the ustream link I posted a few posts up cuts out. I've found it's wise to have 2 or 3 open(and mute all but 1), at least for rocket launches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9I1KyNa8M
And then the actual NASA TV link, for a third source - I've found this is usually the first one to cut out:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
Crossing the orbit of Earth's geostationary satellites...well, you know what I mean.
There be craters.
But ehh, isn't that roughly as big as Pluto should appear in that image (EDIT: yes it is)? How is it a teaser?
https://instagram.com/p/5HTXKMoaFL/?taken-by=nasa, by the way.
Nice
It looks like the heart is a bleeding heart!
Well, NASA posted that on Instagram as a 'sneak peek' ahead of posting it on their official site so Teaser is a suitable title, I imagine.
NASA TV program placard now up: "New Horizons Mission Celebration Arrival At Pluto" (their italics).
How many years we've waited to see that.
Looks like a filled depression...
Charon about to be eclipsed by Pluto from NH's viewpoint.
The bright area looks remarkably smooth at this resolution but it apparently has one crater close to its center. And one thing is obvious now: Pluto is more cratered than Triton - but the craters are nevertheless relatively few.
http://s13.postimg.org/ivzqpwa7b/Pluto_Wide.png
It looks like the high res imagery will reach the feature that I've marked here as "Chasm?" but will we also get the crater looking feature in high res or is it outside our range?
-kap
Moment of closest approach: NOW!
Closest approach, looking at Charon!
Bill Nye in the front row cheering!
End of NASA TV C/A coverage. Next up: Press briefing w/image release.
Welcome to Pluto!
Looks like the Charon-shine images are being taken right now.
-kap
Edit: looks like they timed it so Pluto is about the width of Ralph's field of view for this pass.
Anyone else wish that we could have heard what the speakers were saying instead of that NASA media guy telling how exciting it was?
Great view!
At first glance, the bright heart reminds me of a frozen sea because it seems uniform and relatively smooth.
Momentanean modified compare, 6 Km/pixels
Daniele
I like the location of that prominent "bullesye" crater that looks to be near the transition of darkest to a less dark region.
ps I love the "heart" thing, you can't buy that kind of pr, Alan must be over the moon, er I mean Pluto!
Swear jar full again...
It looks a bit like there is Triton-esque terrain to the left. Did we me 'miss out' on the parts of Pluto that look the most like Triton?
Presser on now, reveal of the 'preview' image!
do not see many similarities with Triton, it seems different from any others body of the solar system..
the " white heart " resemble an antique lake basin dissolved
EOTSS says "Target Earth", so I imagine that's the radio science experiment looking at the atmosphere?
Ok, tell me I'm crazy but does it look like the large chasm right above/left of the heart opens into a huge alluvial fan? I've marked it on the image here:
History in the making, and we are greeted with a heart!
Hope that they'll talk a bit about the Pluto & Charon radio occultation experiments. Those should be received in just a few hours, well in advance of the image playbacks.
kap, I'm not seeing your alluvial fan. Q&A starting re image details.
The next step is the stars.
Emily just asked about color imagery and if any atmospheric phenomena have been captured.
Below is a close-up of the transition area near the Whale's Head. It's interesting to look at the crater types and numbers. It appears there are large areas of smooth areas without craters and then some Europa-type craters as well as what appears to be some cracks in the ice.
Ok, it would appear that Charon has https://twitter.com/rebeccamorelle/status/620935428066164736. Hope we can see the latest image soon.
Pluto atmosphere radio occultation about to begin.
This "nub" is different. There is a crater in front of it. But, with very little analysis, it seems like the nub's shadow isn't matching the solar direction or it's larger than it should be based on the surrounding terrain.
Did anyone catch what Alice Bowman said about the data recorders a few minutes ago? Something about having early data saying they were filling.. audio cut out.
New Horizons Mission Celebration – Arrival at Pluto:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9505:new-horizons-mission-celebration-arrival-at-pluto&catid=1:latest
Edit:
NASA News Briefing on New Horizon Mission:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9506:nasa-news-briefing-on-new-horizon-mission&catid=1:latest
Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Charon in 1978 by James Christy; Clyde and many others would have definitely wanted to see them, but impossible in those time ..
we are lucky, we see them today ..
we can
Daniele
Pluto-Triton 6Km/pixel
The most interesting of the craters to me in the magnified picture is the small one on the lower right. It looks like it hit right at the transition and blew the dark material across the transition boundary between the dark and light material.
Pluto and Triton from the equivalent global color shots from each flyby.
Emilly's got the full resolution image: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07140911-new-horizons-best-look-at.html?referrer=http://planetary.org/blogs/
NASA News Briefing on New Horizon Mission:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9506:nasa-news-briefing-on-new-horizon-mission&catid=1:latest
Big congratulations to the team for getting us there! Compared to (my somewhat vague memory of) the big planet flyby's, I think we're seeing things develop on a much shorter timescale with Pluto - the rate of increase of the apparent size of Jupiter, say, would've been much slower. So this makes it that much more exciting...
Back to business: Emily asked about colour - I don't recall the response. It appears this morning's release has been colourized with a single hue. Here's the extracted hue channel:
Could this be a large slightly-elongated impact basin with icy ejecta spreading toward the lower right?
The first impression I got by looking at today's release was Mars, in great part due to the colour. Looking forward to pure MVIC colour images (we should have one down with Pluto 480 pixels across on Thursday). MVIC images at similar resolution should look a lot better.
The highest resolution picture seems to show terrain carved by ice deposition and sublimation. The cratering visible even within the darkest regions seem to indicate whatever formed these must be old.
Climatic processes are at work at pluto judging from the latest picture. We need the close ups at closest approach to really be able to comment upon tectonic structures. I understand Alan Stern when he said he was not sure about tectonic structures on pluto at this point in time.
Canberra now has two antennas being configured for NH; must be preparing for the radio occultations.
A list of scheduled imaging observations with better than 1 km/pixel resolution:
Pluto (LORRI)
July 14 04:13:51 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 179248.28 km away at est. resolution 0.89 km/pix.
July 14 04:14:39 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 178588.97 km away at est. resolution 0.89 km/pix.
July 14 04:15:27 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 177929.68 km away at est. resolution 0.88 km/pix.
July 14 04:16:15 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 177270.40 km away at est. resolution 0.88 km/pix.
July 14 04:17:03 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 176611.14 km away at est. resolution 0.88 km/pix.
July 14 04:17:51 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 175951.89 km away at est. resolution 0.87 km/pix.
July 14 04:18:39 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 175292.66 km away at est. resolution 0.87 km/pix.
July 14 04:19:27 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 174633.44 km away at est. resolution 0.87 km/pix.
July 14 04:20:15 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 173974.24 km away at est. resolution 0.86 km/pix.
July 14 04:21:03 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 173315.06 km away at est. resolution 0.86 km/pix.
July 14 04:21:51 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 172655.89 km away at est. resolution 0.86 km/pix.
July 14 04:22:39 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 171996.74 km away at est. resolution 0.85 km/pix.
July 14 04:23:27 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 171337.60 km away at est. resolution 0.85 km/pix.
July 14 04:24:15 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 170678.48 km away at est. resolution 0.85 km/pix.
July 14 04:25:03 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 170019.38 km away at est. resolution 0.84 km/pix.
July 14 04:25:51 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 169360.30 km away at est. resolution 0.84 km/pix.
July 14 04:26:39 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 168701.23 km away at est. resolution 0.84 km/pix.
July 14 04:27:27 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 168042.18 km away at est. resolution 0.83 km/pix.
July 14 04:28:15 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 167383.15 km away at est. resolution 0.83 km/pix.
July 14 04:29:03 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 166724.13 km away at est. resolution 0.83 km/pix.
uly 14 06:10:15 EDT
New Horizons is taking 15 images of Pluto with LORRI from 83646.234 km away at est. resolution 0.41 km/pix.
July 14 06:43:00 EDT
New Horizons is taking 23 images of Pluto with LORRI from 56315.602 km away at est. resolution 0.28 km/pix.
July 14 07:17:48 EDT
New Horizons is taking 70 images of Pluto with LORRI from 30003.890 km away at est. resolution 0.15 km/pix.
July 14 07:26:28 EDT
New Horizons is taking 130 images of Pluto with LORRI from 23859.780 km away at est. resolution 0.12 km/pix.
July 14 07:58:30 EDT
New Horizons is taking 60 images of Pluto with LORRI from 15386.759 km away at est. resolution 0.076 km/pix.
July 14 11:04:08 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Pluto with LORRI from 160954.31 km away at est. resolution 0.80 km/pix.
July 14 11:05:01 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Pluto with LORRI from 161681.58 km away at est. resolution 0.80 km/pix.
July 14 11:05:54 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Pluto with LORRI from 162408.88 km away at est. resolution 0.81 km/pix.
July 14 11:06:47 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Pluto with LORRI from 163136.20 km away at est. resolution 0.81 km/pix.
July 14 11:07:40 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Pluto with LORRI from 163863.55 km away at est. resolution 0.81 km/pix.
July 14 11:08:33 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Pluto with LORRI from 164590.92 km away at est. resolution 0.82 km/pix.
July 14 11:41:41 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 191887.68 km away at est. resolution 0.95 km/pix.
July 14 11:42:39 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 192684.40 km away at est. resolution 0.96 km/pix.
July 14 11:43:37 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 193481.14 km away at est. resolution 0.96 km/pix.
July 14 11:44:35 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 194277.90 km away at est. resolution 0.96 km/pix.
July 14 11:45:33 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 195074.67 km away at est. resolution 0.97 km/pix.
July 14 11:46:31 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Pluto with LORRI from 195871.45 km away at est. resolution 0.97 km/pix.
Pluto (MVIC)
July 14 07:05:25 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Pluto with MVIC Color from 39384.908 km away at est. resolution 0.78 km/pix.
July 14 07:20:16 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Pluto with MVIC from 28206.280 km away at est. resolution 0.56 km/pix.
July 14 07:31:05 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Pluto with MVIC from 20854.035 km away at est. resolution 0.41 km/pix.
July 14 07:50:47 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Pluto with MVIC from 13735.372 km away at est. resolution 0.27 km/pix.
July 14 08:00:41 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Pluto with MVIC from 16282.704 km away at est. resolution 0.32 km/pix.
July 14 08:08:13 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Pluto with MVIC from 20323.226 km away at est. resolution 0.40 km/pix.
Charon (LORRI)
July 14 04:32:31 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 178279.45 km away at est. resolution 0.88 km/pix.
July 14 04:33:19 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 177623.82 km away at est. resolution 0.88 km/pix.
July 14 04:34:07 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 176968.26 km away at est. resolution 0.88 km/pix.
July 14 04:34:55 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 176312.76 km away at est. resolution 0.87 km/pix.
July 14 04:35:43 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 175657.33 km away at est. resolution 0.87 km/pix.
July 14 04:36:31 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 175001.97 km away at est. resolution 0.87 km/pix.
July 14 04:37:19 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 174346.67 km away at est. resolution 0.86 km/pix.
July 14 04:38:07 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Charon with LORRI from 173691.45 km away at est. resolution 0.86 km/pix.
July 14 05:14:42 EDT
New Horizons is taking 6 images of Charon with LORRI from 143819.25 km away at est. resolution 0.71 km/pix.
July 14 06:23:47 EDT
New Horizons is taking 12 images of Charon with LORRI from 88389.251 km away at est. resolution 0.44 km/pix.
July 14 07:43:07 EDT
New Horizons is taking 67 images of Charon with LORRI from 34200.236 km away at est. resolution 0.17 km/pix.
Charon (MVIC)
July 14 07:45:29 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Charon with MVIC from 33245.206 km away at est. resolution 0.66 km/pix.
Nix (LORRI)
July 14 04:05:11 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Nix with LORRI from 156736.78 km away at est. resolution 0.78 km/pix.
July 14 04:05:59 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Nix with LORRI from 156083.94 km away at est. resolution 0.77 km/pix.
July 14 04:06:47 EDT
New Horizons is taking 2 images of Nix with LORRI from 155431.16 km away at est. resolution 0.77 km/pix.
July 14 05:57:13 EDT
New Horizons is taking 13 images of Nix with LORRI from 66612.933 km away at est. resolution 0.33 km/pix.
July 14 10:55:27 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Nix with LORRI from 184363.28 km away at est. resolution 0.91 km/pix.
July 14 10:56:17 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Nix with LORRI from 185044.97 km away at est. resolution 0.92 km/pix.
July 14 10:57:07 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Nix with LORRI from 185726.69 km away at est. resolution 0.92 km/pix.
July 14 10:57:57 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Nix with LORRI from 186408.45 km away at est. resolution 0.92 km/pix.
Nix (MVIC)
July 14 07:14:32 EDT
New Horizons is taking an image of Nix with MVIC from 22235.744 km away at est. resolution 0.44 km/pix.
Hydra (LORRI)
July 14 10:44:55 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 156723.64 km away at est. resolution 0.78 km/pix.
July 14 10:45:45 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 157326.38 km away at est. resolution 0.78 km/pix.
July 14 10:46:35 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 157929.86 km away at est. resolution 0.78 km/pix.
July 14 10:47:25 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 158534.08 km away at est. resolution 0.79 km/pix.
July 14 10:48:15 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 159139.03 km away at est. resolution 0.79 km/pix.
July 14 10:49:05 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 159744.70 km away at est. resolution 0.79 km/pix.
July 14 10:49:55 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 160351.08 km away at est. resolution 0.80 km/pix.
July 14 10:50:45 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 160958.17 km away at est. resolution 0.80 km/pix.
July 14 10:51:35 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 161565.95 km away at est. resolution 0.80 km/pix.
July 14 10:52:25 EDT
New Horizons is taking 4 images of Hydra with LORRI from 162174.42 km away at est. resolution 0.80 km/pix.
The variations of ice deposits on pluto could be related to composition or perhaps more significant local topography that might explain the persistence of the brightest region on the equator.
The first impression I got when viewing the 'teaser' image was that it looked like it was done in 'sepia' mode. The color is very interesting. Hopefully we will get another sample planetoid thing as NH plows ahead thru the Kuiper Belt.
This is a little bit old - in the light of the new higher res amazing pics - but still maybe of interest. I had too much fun working on the image and then colourizing ......so I missed the new pics as I just lost track of time!! ……Hᴜɢʜ….ツ
Guys would we NEVER images of Cerbero and Stige?
And the south polar region of Pluto?
M ThankS.
The newest pictures are amazing!
What surprises me most is the lack of craters. I was aware that Pluto had an atmosphere that potentially precipitated snow but I expected there to be a similar amount of craters to Mars. I didn't really want to get my hopes up.
But instead it turns out Pluto has only about twenty of thirty craters on the entire approach hemisphere visible from this distance! And the love heart shaped feature is looking far smoother than I expected. I can't wait for the flyby data to come back to Earth!
Gotta remember that Mars is right next door to the asteroid belt. For that matter, the inner Solar System has a lot more junk than the outer environs, plus much higher potential relative impact velocities.
There was an interesting glint off of the terrain near the head of the whale.
Going back to the Charon side which we will never see again (except in Charon light) I find the terrain extraordinary. Not to get too technical here, but the "wrinkles" look like MC Escher lizards. What are they? More interesting, the feature at 4 o'clock looks very different in this image, compared to others where it looks more crater-like. In the blow up on the far right, I have highlighted something that reminds me of the way Europa's cracks and surface displacements often overlay one another. Is the lighter material (highlighted as yellow) volcanic flows across the dark line (highlighted as red) that extends out from the circular feature? Others have already noted the doughnut-like look of several of Pluto's presumed craters.
--Charles
Stunning and awesome.... both the sublime images of Pluto and the technological achievement.
Exactly 50 years ago on 14 July 1965 US time (15 July UTC) Mariner 4 made its own fly-by of Mars, providing our first close-up views of another planet.
Now New Horizons has completed the survey of all the planets we learned as children. What a project to witness in one lifetime!
Many congratulations to all involved.
Yes, doubtful.
Highpass will bring out ring artifacts, and create the illusion of a brightness along the limb.
On the other hand, the released image is not raw.
Certainly there was a circular selection made around the planet, to bring the lightness of the disk up, while keeping the background of the frame black.
Makes perfect sense for them to do that on an image that most people will see on TV, cellphone, etc, in well lit places.
So it's that selection that you are seeing, not the atmosphere. At least that's my interpretation.
Sorry guys, had to deal with the police coming to my house because my SWEAR JAR EXPLODED!
Congrats New Horizons team, every day of those ten years was totally worth it!
I couldn't resist working on the latest pics just out of interest to see how much I could enhance the surface features to make them a bit clearer.... no pretence at scientific accuracy although the result doesn't look too bad...
Brilliant work by Alan Stern and the team. The realization of such a huge life goal after so many years hard unrelenting effort. What will power!!! Great to see 25% are women. The sooner it is about 50/50 the better.……Hᴜɢʜ….ツ
wow..you can in black background?
This is a new version of my map incorporating the image obtained at a range of 738,000 km. It's not in color since (as fredk has shown in http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=7986&view=findpost&p=223272) the image was colorized with a single hue (i.e. clearly not with new MVIC data). Longitude 0 is at the left edge of the map.
EDIT: The color in the image is in fact from a recent MVIC image, it's just very uniform. So the image was not colorized with a single hue.
Fascinating!
The main part of the Heart looks for all the world like Greenland, with some "ground" exposed along its northern extent and glaciers covering the remainder. The whole thing looks a lot like a remnant icecap. There is definitely vertical relief to this feature. It also appears that the large, darker features to the left of the Heart (that include the head of the Whale) also form a plateau-like relief feature, in many ways reminiscent of a dark-toned remnant icecap. Maybe a lot of places on Pluto develop icecaps as time goes on, and some of them take longer to lose the deposited ices than others?
Also, throughout the northern plains, I'm seeing large-scale light-toned streaking that looks a lot like the wind streaks I was predicting in my WAG post. I also see one small, suspiciously dark streak-like feature that could be something like the black nitrogen geysers seen on Triton. If so, it's the only suggestion of one of those that I see in the entire image.
I think it will be extremely illustrative to see the surficial details of the "icecap" in the main body of the Heart, since it will likely show details of both ice/frost deposition and erosion. At this resolution it also appears to exhibit streaking or grooving, consistent with the winds that would blow from the most-highly-insolated north polar region towards the shadowed pole. I bet we see indications of different prevailing wind patterns, too, since these will change as Pluto's orientation to the Sun changes.
It'll be interesting to correlate the predominant deposition/erosion patterns to the Pluto system's orientation to the Sun over time, and to its distance from the Sun. I'm certain that, like Earth, one polar hemisphere gets higher insolation than the other due to correlations between aposol/perisol and seasonal tilt.
-the other Doug
Playing with contrast selectively across the image.
Phil
No sign yet of the ~170-pixel Charon LORRI image that should have come down in the Fail Safe D downlink yesterday according to http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/06240556-what-to-expect-new-horizons-pluto.html? Or did I miss it?
Could you post your colour measurements, Bjorn? It does look awfully uniform.
I'm also intrigued by the resolution. Here's a comparison of the 1024x1024 press image (eg, on the NH site) with the lower-resolution (640x640) "preview" image posted earlier on instagram. I've Lanczos rescaled the instagram pic to 1024x1024, and then both images by 400%, and no other processing whatsoever:
Answering to JTN: Yep, only Pluto shared-on the conference
Little fun with the new image of Pluto.
Local contrast is enhanced and jpeg artifacts partially corrected by denoising.
I've redone my preview of the P_LORRI_STEREO_MOSAIC observation using Bjorn's updated map. I've highlighted the frames that will be played back in the next few days.
The streaking looks very much like they performed a rotation on the image and then proceeded add a few sharpening techniques.
As for if the image was colorized, I was skeptical at first as well with the uniformity. However, I'm pretty sure it is actual MVIC data now.
Here is a comparison of the color channels from the released image and a colorized greyscale version of the image.
The terrain above the dark region referred to as the whale seems particularly interesting with horizontal lines and black spots.
The human eye has interesting properties. If you rotate the image 90 degrees, you can see explicitly what they have not seen before.
Crude attempt to colorize last image of Pluto with low-res exaggerated color data from the MVIC imager.
Very good! Here is the release
Very strange. Wouldn't have expected... well any of that really.
Obviously very exaggerated colors. I hope that's clearly explained to the press.
EDIT: http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pluto-and-charon-shine-in-false-color. It's false color.
The image was created by the Ralph (not an acronym) instrument. The press release didn't say if it was Ralph's MVIC or LEISA component. LEISA is an infrared imaging spectrometer but it's difficult for me to say if this is LEISA or MVIC. One report said this was an MVIC image.
Andy
Edit: Changed to unknown whether this is MVIC or LEISA.
It's almost certainly from the MVIC and it's observation PC_Multi_Map_B_18.
Images were taken yesterday at 07:38:40 UTC with resolution 27.6 km/pixel.
I think you guys are being a little hard on the poor guy playing MC. This was PR designed to emulate the current standard format for Big Happenings, modified for a major space event that was actually happening with a 4.5 hr time delay so no real-time gratification possible other than that. It was designed for a general audience, not for spaceflight aficionados such as ourselves. Many people would have just turned off the lectures.
EPO is far from the easiest thing in the world to do, as I'm sure that many of our members who do it can readily attest. In my opinion NASA TV did very well, all things considered.
So, apparently Pluto has almost no troposphere, "1-2 kms at best". And that's were 99% of the sublimation and circulation action is going on.
"Eyes on Pluto" show NH targeting Earth ... It is now 10 minutes to the scheduled PHONE HOME signal .
Fernando
Still not known whether the heart is elevation or depression.
https://twitter.com/CosmicThespian/status/621041641764335616
NASA TV schedule change:
8:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 14 (0030 GMT/15 Jul) - New Horizons Phones Home - Mission Update (all channels)
9:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 14 (0130 GMT/15 Jul) - NASA News Briefing on New Horizon Mission (all channels)
Eyes On Pluto is real time, so that means the signal will reach Earth 4.5 hrs or so later.
I don't post much - but I read avidly, and I'd like to thank all the UMSF regular posters.
I'll be glued to this thread, and NASA TV, after 8:30 tonight.
Mainly, I'm boggled at what a rich time this is for solar system exploration - we've got
Voyager probes exiting (and exiting and exiting) the solar system
A probe at Pluto
A probe at Saturn (and had a lander on Titan!!!)
Another probe arriving at Jupiter in a year
A probe at Ceres
A double probe on a comet
Two rovers on Mars, and multiple probes in orbit.
(skipping Earth)
Two active solar missions
...and recently
Other Mars missions
Orbiters and a lander on the Moon
A probe at Venus
A probe at Mercury
Its hard to keep up with UMFS these days.
ce
My crude attempt at overlaying the false colour with the LORRI pic.
Twenty years ago, when mission concepts for Pluto were being proposed, it was regarded as a small, boring lump of ice on the edge of the solar system. It didn't really seem worth doing a multi-billion dollar mission for that, so it was a good thing that Johns Hopkins trimmed the science requirements to the point where it could be done for $600 million. I think it is safe to say that Pluto is turning out to be far more interesting than expected.
The surface color reminds me of the Huygens picture of the surface of Titan, which is probably because it is made of similar stuff. Titan and Pluto both have nitrogen atmospheres with a trace of methane. Pluto adds carbon monoxide to the mix, which opens up additional chemical possibilities. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the red color is probably related to the nitrogen abundance. I can't think of any colored compounds made of just carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, but nitrogen has a number of red and brown compounds. Nitrogen dioxide is reddish-brown. Azo dyes are two six membered carbon rings linked by a pair of nitrogen atoms, and some of them are orange-red. In a molecule it is really the bonds that are involved in light absorption, and bonds involving nitrogen often absorb in the visible range.
There has been some discussion of surface liquids. Liquids requires both adequate temperature and pressure. Surface conditions on Pluto are projected to be 33-55 Kelvin and 1 Pascal of pressure. Looking at a table of triple points, the closest I can come is ethane which requires at least 90 K and 0.8 Pa of pressure. Ethane is two carbon atoms joined together, surrounded by six hydrogens. Liquids close to their boiling points are not very stable or long lived, because they tend to evaporate quickly. Mixtures can have lower boiling points than any of the pure components involved, but I would be very surprised if that made enough of a difference for liquids to be viable under current conditions. If there was any liquid ethane near the surface of Pluto the atmosphere would be very rich in ethane vapor, which it isn't, although ethane has been detected on the surface.
From emily's twiter feed:
Related link (with a map): http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/skywatch/episodes/8
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4230918.stm:
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