New Horizons Pluto System Final Approach, 28 Jun-13 Jul 15 |
New Horizons Pluto System Final Approach, 28 Jun-13 Jul 15 |
Jun 28 2015, 08:08 AM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
More than nine years in flight, many more years before that in the making--this is the time. Please post all comments related to New Horizon's passage through the Pluto system here.
What to expect Reminder that despite the rather brief duration of the actual encounter, it will be literally months before all acquired data is returned so this thread will be active for an equivalent time. Intrepid TPS space journalist and UMSF admin Emily Lakdawalla has written an excellent guide to planned imagery activities. EDIT: Updated version of guide. Emily has also produced a simulation of the kinds of images that are anticipated. FAQs Most Forum members are advanced spaceflight enthusiasts; many are in fact professionals in space-related disciplines. Accordingly, there are no plans to post answers to questions that can be easily answered via a Google search, and we ask that everyone please attempt to do so before posting a question. EDIT (4 Jul 15): Admin Astro0 has produced an extensive New Horizons FAQ thread. EDIT: Review rule 1.9 and keep it firmly in mind before posting. Posts violating that rule will be deleted without notice. ____ With all that said, the most important thing by far is to witness the marvel of discovery, of exploration, of New Horizons on worlds never before seen. This is the best seat in the house for doing so, right in the comfort of our own homes. As with previous major events in planetary exploration over the past decade it is likely that not only professionals but also the press may be watching the Forum during the coming days due to its hard-earned reputation as a place for noise-free commentary and stunning contributions by amateur image processors, so please bear this in mind... ...and I can't stop smiling with anticipation and excitement. What marvelous things we will soon see. Enjoy the ride!!! -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Jul 1 2015, 09:52 AM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 65 Joined: 19-November 14 From: Milan, Italy Member No.: 7340 |
I was wondering, just how old could the surface of Pluto be? I mean, it is tidally locked with Charon, so the lack of tidal heating should make it a pretty inactive world, right? That would make me think its surface should be pretty old. But on the other side, with all that sublimation action going on between atmosphere and surface (I even read something about "sublimation winds") and material exchange between Pluto and its moons (I recently read a paper about that), Pluto would seem a pretty dynamic world. So, do we expect its surface to be young, old or whatever in between?
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Jul 1 2015, 08:06 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
I was wondering, just how old could the surface of Pluto be? I mean, it is tidally locked with Charon, so the lack of tidal heating should make it a pretty inactive world, right? Pinning down the history of tidal heating/interaction for an unknown world is totally impossible. Variables describing how the internal structure reacts to tidal stresses are not only unknown for Pluto and Charon, we don't even know those things for Venus and Mars. What was the initial state of the system: Was Charon in a highly elliptical orbit that required tremendous energy to circularize, or was it pretty circular in the first place? We have no idea. (Well, we have some idea, but not very precisely.) So we have no idea how much energy was converted to heat, or at what rate it was converted to heat. Nor have we seen any close analogues to this system. It's not yet understood exactly why Enceladus has thermal heating altering its surface into recent times and, say, Dione, does not, nor why the southern hemisphere of Enceladus monopolizes all the activity while the northern hemisphere is ancient. So when we don't understand worlds that we've imaged very well, forget about predicting the internal history of un-seen worlds with any accuracy. Some things about Pluto's atmosphere are a bit clearer, but only a bit. Certainly seasonal changes have the ability to deposit/remove thin layers which are optically observable, and there's been data to that effect for many years now. |
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