Eyes has been updated, if you watch the flyby preview, Pluto shows an earlier image. They can't really be expected to update it almost 2 times per day now, as more and more observations are taken.

Now five views of Pluto - one more and we have pretty much a full rotation sequence.

Phil

It's still very difficult judging from the images to get a sense of topography. Although it would seem that the dark areas are topographic lows, the straight lines presumed to represent ice movement remain unclear whether the direction of movement is towards the north or towards the equator which we assume is the latter.

There is an interesting curvy line visible on the left limb of the Pluto disc over where the bright region is starting to come into view. That would be an interesting feature to view at the higher resolution.

My attempt to process the images from 11 Jul 4:05-4:10. Factor x3, north is up.

Pluto:


Charon:

Can't get over how much the complex regions rotating out of view superficially resemble aspects of the pull-apart wedge terrains of Europa and Ganymede at these long ranges. Perhaps a bit of Triton, a bit of Iapetus, a bit of the Galileans, and a whole lot of things we've never seen before...it's easy to imagine this system making geology across the rest of the outer solar system much easier to understand. Utterly fantastic images, and such an incredible privilege to witness this.

Charon really looks like our Moon with craters and basins. It therefore may have been formed the same way, from a huge impact between a body and the proto-pluto dwarf planet. As the Earth, Pluto kept all "wet" materials and Charon would be a dry satellite.

It is also possible that the body that impacted Pluto was Charon itself. Charon was a separate body orbiting the Sun and hitting Pluto slowed it down enough to be captured. The tidal stresses created would have resurfaced both objects.

It is difficult for a giant impact to create body as large as Charon in relation to Pluto. Charon has an eighth Pluto's mass. Our moon is an eightieth the mass of Earth.

I updated the video to basically match the NASA EYES flyby map.

https://youtu.be/ZyooFO8osVU

I tried to align Bjorn's map with the beginning of the clip as well as I could. It tracked well up until closest approach and Bjorn's video has a different rotation than shown in EYES. I tried to get the rotation after closest approach to closely match that shown by eyes and the position of the Sun matches at the end. Also added an update to the map in the instrument view... I know all of this is going to be old news in two days, but hey, maybe someone is interested

Using one of Phil's old tricks to turn a circular planetary limb into a straight line, we can see more clearly the various lumps and bumps on Pluto and Charon seen edge-on:

Hoping that this (in the west)



turns into something similar to this (in the east)



rather than this



or something else.

Basically that more of those long linear things near the crescent-shape turn up a place which will be imaged at higher resolution. Otherwise, it may be a unique terrain type that we don't get to figure out completely. Though of course, it could just be a variant of not-that dissimilar terrain nearby.

I see bits-and-pieces of other planetary bodies (processes) turning up on Pluto-- it's almost as though when Mother Nature made Pluto, she was running out of ideas. But I think that Pluto will have plenty of surprises.

I'm hoping that the light heart-shaped area on Pluto does not turn out to be a big snowfield or dunefield-- that might make for a b o r i n g primary target area.

This is so much like the 1989 Neptune encounter, but much better since we only has commercial television access to the views.

--Bill

From the flyby simulation high res picks of the heart area's interface with the other terrain will in itself be scientifically interesting, let alone anything else.

While we are waiting for more images to play with, this old BBC Horizon documentary might keep you entertained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvvv8Cw1jCE

Thanks Explorer1 and JohnVV for advice on the tidal effects at present being insignificant. That leads me to believe the lake-like basins were formed before Pluto and Charon's rotations became synchronised. There must have been a long period when the equatorial region was heated enough by the tidal forces to potentially melt the ice, form a thick atmosphere and instigate a hydrological cycle. With Charon's proximity, tides could have been so extreme that fluid sloshed back and forth to gouge immense cliffs at lake margins. When the energy source ran out, Pluto began to lose its atmosphere and the lakes dried up and froze.

If that interpretation is correct, Pluto will be amazing when we see it in high resolution. I wonder if any sample images or subframes thereof are scheduled to be sent to Earth in the early stages of the data transmission?

"Not available in your country." A video from BBCWorldwide. Ok then.

By the way, exactly 1 day until CA now.