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New Horizons: Approach Phase, OpsNav - 25 January 15 to 28 June 15 |
 Feb 3 2015, 06:45 PM
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Member  Group: Members Posts: 105 Joined: 27-August 05 Member No.: 479  |
QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Feb 3 2015, 10:11 AM)  UMSFers-- New Horizons Reddit AMA tomorrow! I am in class at that hour so my question would be, after course correction maneuvers for a post Pluto encounter where will New Horizons and its third stage motor be hundreds of thousands of years or more from now? |
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Feb 4 2015, 09:22 PM
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 Forum Contributor Group: Members Posts: 1374 Joined: 8-February 04 From: North East Florida, USA. Member No.: 11 |
The LORRI image release for today is up at :
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-A...p?page=20150204 |
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May 5 2015, 03:56 AM
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
While there does appear to be a bright albedo feature at the visible rotational pole, it's good to recall that this pole has also been pointing at Sol for, what, decades? Instead of being a cold trap that causes ice deposition, this would be the spot of highest insolation (such as it is, out in Pluto space) on this dwarf planet.
Maybe dark ices absorb more solar heating than higher-albedo ices at this sol-pointing pole and are selectively driven off, to re-accumulate on the shadowed side. Leaving the higher-albedo ices behind, and thus showing what looks like a "polar ice cap," even though it's a net deflational, not depositional, feature. I don't insist on this interpretation, but it fits the observed facts... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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