So what happens to the readied Atlas V that they were going to launch with in this sort of case?

I also don't understand how the contractor that was supposed to deliver the SEIS instrument isn't on the hook for any costs of redesigning that instrument plus damages.

Seems to me a reasonably priced approach could be a stationary mission on a flat area below one of these sites. Have a fixed super wide angle camera and the biggest telephoto lens possible on a fast rotation mount. Have the onboard computer continually monitor the fixed camera and slew the telephoto lens to any location that shows signs of movement. Also have some really precise environmental sensors to see what is correlated with the discharges.

You beat me by two minutes!

http://www.lujendraojha.net/band-horizon/



Dynamic Process on Contemporary mars

One of my interest is understanding the formation mechanism of Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL). RSL are active features on Mars that might require flowing water. On Mars, they form and grow during warm seasons and disappear during cold seasons. They recur over multiple years in generally the same location. I use remote sensing instruments on board various Mars orbiting space crafts to understand their geological/hydrological nature. Additionally, I use data from CRISM onboard MRO to understand its formation mechanism.

I never dreamed Pluto/Charon would be this interesting; these findings should really put impetus behind understanding the KBOs generally.

Evidence of Aeolian processes--wind streaks!

500T of N2 per hour escaping.

That's insane for a body this small. How can it possibly have an atmosphere?

Oooh, that looks like a good terrestrial analogy!

Maybe that, but the curvy nature sure seems like fluid flows to me.

High res of the Heart. Looks to me like drainage networks.

Heart is CO ice. Only CO source on globe.

Yep!

One initial thought: cratering in the Kuiper Belt represents a very different process than the rest of the Solar System.

No audio problems on the uStream stream.

Has to be tectonics of some kind.

Huge ice mountains.

No craters on high res picture.

2 minutes

No safe, good data!

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.

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.

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.

Looks like the high res imagery should be just about perfect for understanding the major areas on Pluto. Nice to see the dice some up so nicely!

I think JRehling has the right idea--archaic liquid flows from the time of Pluto's formation that are preserved due to the lack of bombardment in the outer solar system. The twist I would add is that perhaps during its formation Pluto was able to hold just enough of an atmosphere to enable a short period of weather cycles--so my Hail Mary projection is for some modest erosion features preserved from this period.

Looks like a lander of some sort is still a possibility:
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2015/05/a-eur...-to-support-it/

First week of the course and it is excellent; just got done watching a couple of lectures where Dr. Brown goes through how reflected light spectra work and how the formulas used to measure spectra can determine atmospheric composition, measure the proportion of water, and determine surface temperatures. What's really cool about it is how he works through the increasing complexity of functional form of the modelling process: e.g., how the fairly simple formula to determine surface temperature has to be modified for the angle of incidence of the Sun by a cosine term.