out in Science (and in open access, thanks Alan!):
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/350/6258/aad1815.full
Thanks, alan.
These are very strange and wonderful worlds.
--Bill
Mr Stern, thank you so much for this. I just want to thank you and everyone else involved with New Horizons and I look forward in the years to come to reading all your findings. I've been totally fascinated by this since New Horizons launched in January 2006.
James Sontag
And we are absolutely giddy with excitement of being able to walk in the footsteps and to look over the shoulders of you giants at these wonders. I remember the excitement of viewing the first Mariner Mars in newspaper halftone when the were released they next day. Even though the clarity of the NH images is several orders of magnitude improved, the thrill is still so similar.
--Bill
I don't think the spin down of Pluto was recent. It wouldn't be in an almost totally circular tidal lock otherwise.
lots of papers on our beloved Pluto in tomorrow's Science. all but one in open access (come on, put all of them in open access!)
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6279/aae0030
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6279/aad8866
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6279/aad9189
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6279/aad9189
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6279/1284
Just took another look , they are all open access now.
the small bodies node has some data up
From LORRI , fits with pds lbl's
http://pds-smallbodies.astro.umd.edu/
------------
raw data
http://pds-smallbodies.astro.umd.edu/holdings/nh-p-lorri-2-pluto-v1.0/dataset.html
Calibrated data
http://pds-smallbodies.astro.umd.edu/holdings/nh-p-lorri-3-pluto-v1.0/dataset.html
I am not sure if I should post this here but having seen the Pluto system up close we have come to know better how this system ticks. Analogies have been made with the Earth particularly in terms of Planet moon size comparison and the process of formation in terms of colliding protoplanets in the early history of the solar system. Is there any possibility the protoplanet that collided with earth which led to the formation of our moon was a KBO? Would that not explain the different make up of earth's atmosphere today and the abundant presence of liquid water on the surface in contrast to the other terrestrial planets?
The relative abundance of water on Earth compared to the whole mass of Earth is very small. Kind of a water protoplanet made of the absolut amount of water on Earth would have been far too small (by orders of magnitude) to split off Earth's moon from a proto-Earth.
But KBO impacts may well have contributed to the water on Earth, possibly during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment.
Although I'm unsure, whether 4 billion years ago, the notion "KBO" did already make sense, since our solar system may have undergone significant changes since then.
Charon's http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-paints-its-largest-moon-red a result of atmospheric capture from Pluto.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-paints-its-largest-moon-red
Pluto's interacting surface and atmosphere
Dr. Leslie Young - New Horizons Science Team
SETI Talk sept. 2016 : https://youtu.be/srEmXQJoln8
Description:
Pluto's main atmospheric species, N2, is also frozen on its surface, as are its minor atmospheric species, CH4 and CO. The New Horizons spacecraft found complicated and intriguing evidence for a dynamically interacting surface and atmosphere. The REX instrument shows a planetary boundary layer that depends on whether there's N2 ice available to sublimate.
Altitude appears to be a factor in the distribution of both N2 and CH4 ice, with N2 favoring lower altitudes (higher pressures, so higher condensation temperatures), whereas some high ridges are coated in CH4 frost. Sublimation may be responsible for some of the stranger geologic forms on Pluto. Finally, preserved landforms may point to earlier ages with more widespread volatile ice coverage or higher surface pressures.
Dr. Young will talk about the evidence, and some of the ways New Horizons is influencing how we think about Pluto's atmosphere and surface.
.
Artists rendering of Sputnik Planetia
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/788392876426133505
Incredible! Thank you so much for sharing this. Also, I would like to thank you and your team again for exploring the Pluto system and Kuiper Belt.
James Sontag
short Oct 18 article in NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/science/pluto-clouds.html though apparently an ephemeral dusk/dawn phenomena
Pluto article by Emily Lakdawalla
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/10251718-dpsepsc-new-horizons-pluto.html
The first image contains some terrain that I don't remember seeing before.
And possibly another volcano.
This new mosaic includes terrain visible to LORRI via haze-illumination only and includes putative cryovolcano Piccard Mons:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20050
https://twitter.com/NewHorizonsIMG/status/791712184174862336
http://www.nature.com/articles/nature20148.epdf?shared_access_token=czL25ZArZx1SOCPbV7xdyNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PVfaL6RPl_btX8E5hsCQca7EjsICopv2EpoQSehIJM6yWkBaUgZoFBvh8mqMLtGEKjXg5hwR62J7lFzagmvUpBClY9rD1l2jC06QosN2iX9EwuGaC0lW6yqS7HUQ-OEY3F-Cc6ygNeDI33-viej0CD
http://www.nature.com/articles/nature20120.epdf?shared_access_token=QtholpAfLPG6TNZh4FoJtNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NrqVKz12YxBVsui4MmVVYjp_5HVdONky8OY1O_v9S6Je5CxMj9whYGUNe93Mph-SPW9cY9M90FbIGRqc8r5oAtrtJ_vfs17KPCMOdcXDk5sfHyYlJOxOqeTsSEv5_xQ7OYBL4BeStG4E1YunQ_Xdef
(for the record, Alan Stern's UMSF username is http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5368&view=findpost&p=122307, the above is a different alan)
Icarus
Volume 287, Pages 1-334 (1 May 2017)
Special Issue\: The Pluto System
Pay-walled
I remember and open access issue before the encounter with articles about what was 'known' up to that point.
I had hoped that this would be the same.
ADMIN NOTE: Edited topic title to broaden the scope of this section a bit.
WOW ! It's seems that it is a HUGE issue filled with 26 Pluto-Charon (& small satellites) articles !
Here is its summary :
Icarus___Vol_287__Pgs_1_334___1_May_2017____ScienceDirect.pdf ( 334.81K )
: 2049
But, at a cost of USD 35.95 per article, it makes a global budget of USD 934.00 I really can't afford
At least, there is one interesting article offered for free : its about the tectonics of Charon. See link here below :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351630834X/pdfft?md5=0b3248b7fcc6974b8767aa0d87c08cea&pid=1-s2.0-S001910351630834X-main.pdf
Enjoy
Forgive my ignorance on the subject but, who profits from the asking price to view these papers?
I was under the impression that as NASA is a taxpayer funded agency then all of its scientific/technological discoveries/advancements, also belonged to the taxpayer.
Yes, but journals are published by companies or scientific groups (e.g Elsevier, American Association for the Advancement of Science etc.), who have to pay the bills and/or make a profit. There is increasing pressure to publish in open-access journals now.
Also - NASA's data may be free but the scientists who use it for research are not necessarily NASA employees. When they are NASA or other US Government employees, that work is usually openly available.
Phil
If you happen to be within visiting distance of a university library, you should be able to do it the old way: view or copy/scan the articles there.
It's sometimes possible to obtain a preprint of an article in an expensive publication. I just tried a search on arxiv.org (a preprint server) with "pluto" in the title field and was rewarded with preprints of some (not all) of the articles from the recent special Pluto issue of Icarus. For example, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.05734.pdf
The Icarus authors' guidelines states:
Pro tip: Every article has a "corresponding author" whose email address you can find on the article's home page. If you send a brief, polite email ("Dear [DR. AUTHOR], Could you please send me a PDF of your recent [JOURNAL] article '[TITLE OF ARTICLE]'? With regards, [YOUR NAME]") to the corresponding author of an article to request a PDF, you will almost always receive one quickly.
New elevation map of Charon released: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=508
A couple of enormous impact basins are more visible now.
The Pluto System After New Horizons
https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.05669
A tip. The papers are available at sci-hub.tw. Just input the DOI-numbers.
Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates.
What Prevents Pluto’s Ocean from Freezing?
Layers of ice-like gas hydrates may insulate frigid ocean worlds across the cosmos
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-prevents-plutos-ocean-from-freezing/
Link at bottom of SA article goes to full Nature Geoscience article, no login required.
From LPSC 52 abstracts:
J.M. Moore et al. ARE THE SURFACE TEXTURES OF PLUTO’S WRIGHT MONS AND ITS SURROUNDINGS EXOGENIC?
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2021/pdf/1693.pdf
New interesting article on cryovolcanism on Pluto “Large-scale cryovolcanic resurfacing on Pluto” (open access):
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20220329
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29056-3.pdf?origin=ppub (pdf)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29056-3
For those who missed it (like me ) - two (open) articles on the origin of the red polar cap on Charon (July 5, 2022):
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20220705
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL097580
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2021GL097580 - pdf
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq5701
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.abq5701 - pdf
The PI’s Perspective: Extending Exploration and Making Distant Discoveries, August 23, 2022:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_08_23_2022
quote: "...we’ll be searching for new KBOs to study, or even to fly by if we can reach a target with our remaining fuel supply of about 11 kilograms (24 pounds). Those searches are continuing on two of the world’s largest telescopes – the Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii and the U.S. Gemini South telescope in Chile – and have collected exquisite data that our team is analyzing. The searches have been enhanced by some new machine learning data analysis tools, developed last year and refined this year, that increase the KBO detection rates considerably over what human scouring of the data has yielded in the past. Further boosting the Subaru effort is a more efficient sky filter that we provided for the telescope and will be pressed into service next year..."
Great update as usual. I am wondering, though from this:
Maybe a Pale Blue Dot image can be risked at the very end of the mission as mentioned at the end of this https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51491471.
The website https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2023/03/15/the-latest-from-new-horizons/ concerning New Horizons at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on March 14th, if anyone is interested. Covers the formation of Arrokoth, bladed terrain on Pluto's farside, and the search for KBOs that the spacecraft can observe.
How much of the remaining fuel could be allotted to make an intercept of a second KBO? I know the earlier a manouvre is made, the less delta-v is needed, but there must always be some leftover for the further extended mission (and data transmission of course). Is there any estimate of the percentage available for maneuvering, or could there be some situation where it would be better to 'stay the course' and not do a flyby?
I don't recall ever seeing this amazing close-up of Pluto's moon Nix before...
"Pluto's approximately 50-km wide moon Nix was imaged by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. The red area is likely a region of tholin deposition and/or formation. Tholins are abiotic complex organic solids possibly produced when ultraviolet light from the faraway Sun breaks down molecules of methane that escape Pluto."
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/J. Major
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=728171702691142&set=a.341460864695563
That photo has been around for a while. It's just less color saturated than most versions.
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)