New Horizons: Near Encounter Phase Options

[Explorer1]

Wow.
Really glad that the canyons did not rotate out of view on Charon.
And Pluto itself... good gracious!

[gpurcell]

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

[lyford]

Release full res image here.

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto

[Paolo]

Charon http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/th...e/nh-charon.jpg
Hydra http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/th...h-hydra_1_0.jpg

[lyford]

Charon is ready for her closeup...

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/charon-s...-varied-terrain

[drz1111]

I found a cool little paper on Pluto heat flow:

http://es.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/website/Guillaume_Pluto.pdf

Basically - heat comes from radiogenic decay in the silicate core, and it was within the range of possible outcomes for Pluto to be active, it just required a higher Potassium concentration (decay of 40K dominates radiogenic heat production and that's a volatile, so concentration couldn't just be assumed to be chondritic)

Of course, it follows from seeing water-ice tectonics at the surface and no equatorial bulge that there is likely a subsurface ocean. And the geophysical model is consistent with that. Amazing.

[Phil Stooke]

Contrast stretch of Charon to make subtle features show up better.

Phil

[Major Stress]

Comparisons to other planets, or moons don't hold water ether. Pluto, and Charon are truly Unique, and stand out on their own! The Mountains, Valley's, and Mesa's on Pluto are huge relative to Plutos size. What a sight it would be to stand on top of one.

I was calling the dark area on Charons pole "The Eye of Charon", because in the lower res photos that is exactly what it looked like to me. An eye. Seeing the chasms, and re-surfaced areas was just mind blowing. We expected something of this nature, but not like this. I think the Charon grazing Pluto in its early history theory will hold water.

Congrats to the NH team, and thank you for providing us this chance to see the last of the classic worlds.

[dvandorn]

A major seismic event happened across the entire globe of the Earth today.

"This event is what we would expect to see if millions of swear jars suddenly burst, all across the civilized world," a noted seismologist stated.

-the other Doug

[ZLD]

I was honestly losing hope for my experimental process. Pluto seemed to do ok-ish, but Charon was looking nothing like I was getting. Pleasantly surprised by this.

Heres my experimental process for Charon on July 9 compared to the recent release.


Nearly all visible elements in the recent image can be accounted for in the previous.

[Habukaz]

Look who's trending on Twitter.

[ermar]

One question elakdawalla asked but was not addressed at the press conference was something I'd wondered myself - assuming Charon was formed by a giant impact, might that impact have taken place more recently than the formation of the Solar System? This could have provided a more recent heat source for both Pluto and Charon, though the timescale of tidal locking and orbit circularization doubtless sets a lower bound on the age of the current Pluto system.

[lyford]

"The whale" is now informally "Cthulu Regio"

[Gsnorgathon]

Did john_s really just say "Cthulhu Regio (informally)"?!

(and Firefox's spellchecker doesn't balk at Cthulhu, but does balk at Regio!)

[ed. - I guess he did!]

[PDP8E]

Slight deconvolution to improve resolution -- The 1st released Closeup of Pluto
Congrats to the Whole NH Team and the members of this forum!