[X] My Assistant

[fred_76]

As Pluto has some atmosphere since a very long time, tiny but still there, the gas had time to condense and very slowly build up large structures.

I will not be surprised to see huge N2, CH4 & co. crystals or piles/mounds of smaller/broken/partly molten crystals on the surface of Pluto. The cauliflower zone would be the best candidate for that kind of structures.

This would also explain why there is almost no impact craters on Pluto. An impact would disappear quite rapidly (some thousands/millions of years) under layers and piles of new crystals.


Fred

[alan]

I remember seeing a time lapsed image of video of the growth of the new dome in the crater of Mt. St. Helens. At times it reached the surface as a solid mass. You can see some of the masses in these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIc_lgaa_Bg
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2013/02/0...lens-2004-2012/

Substitute water ice for rock and nitrogen for the dissolved H20 and CO2 and you may get explosive volcanism as the nitrogen expands as pressure is released while glaciers are pushed to the surface from a pocket of water that is expanding parts of it freeze.

[lars_J]

Dr. Stern gave a great overview of the New Horizons mission today. Not anything folks on this forum do not know.
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-lear...chive/?id=18028

Except 50 minutes into the presentation during the QA period he mentions they will release images later this week that show terrain unlike any ever seen before on any other world.

Is there supposed to be a video at that URL? I don't see anything. I tried Chrome and IE, still nothing.

[Dan Delany]

Looks like that URL is on "HTTPS", but it's trying to embed a video from a "HTTP" domain, which is disallowed by the "mixed content" security policy, causing the video to be blocked by the browser. To see it, you can remove the "s" from "https" at the beginning of the URL, or it is available here as well: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/73896073 - hopefully Smithsonian will fix this issue soon as it affects several videos on their site.

[JohnVV]

https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-lear...chive/?id=18028
the video plays for me , even with "No-Script" and "Ad block plus" and "Ghostery" running on Seamonky 2.35

[Explorer1]

I had the same issue, thanks Dan! What a tease...

[Dan Delany]

Sorry for going OT, but a quick PSA: @John (or anyone else) - Seamonkey 2.35, like the other modern browsers, blocks mixed content by default - just tried it myself to confirm. If the video *is* currently working for you on the airandspace URL that starts with "httpS" (not http), it's likely because you have set your browser security settings to be more lenient than the default, which I do not recommend, for security reasons! In Seamonkey, the setting is in Settings > Privacy & Security > SSL > Mixed Content > "Don't load insecure content on encrypted pages" (should be checked).

[Mongo]

Here is a transcript I just wrote of the relevant question and answer:

Question: Hi, Shaun here, I work at the museum. You mentioned during your talk about comparing Pluto to features seen on Europa, are there any other Solar System analogues that you have been looking at, say in terms of Triton?

Answer: We do see similarities to Neptune's large moon Triton which itself used to be a planet orbiting -- and was since captured into orbit -- around Neptune, but we also see similarities to the Earth in the glacial fields. We see many similarities, geomorphologicaly to Mars -- really blowing our minds that this is another Mars, we call it the other red planet -- and to other icy satellites of some of the giant planets as well, and on our geology team -- and I'm not a geologist -- but the geologists, you know, they work a lot by analogy, where they're looking for examples of similar morphologies that have been modeled and understood in previous explorations, from missions like Cassini and Galileo and Voyager, and we're finding many examples on Pluto and its satellites of other places, but also completely new phenomena. In fact, we're going to be releasing some images later this week of a completely unique type of terrain -- it's just mind-blowing and makes my head hurt to think about how it may have formed -- that we see on Pluto that we don't see anywhere else in the Solar System.

[lars_J]

Looks like that URL is on "HTTPS", but it's trying to embed a video from a "HTTP" domain, which is disallowed by the "mixed content" security policy, causing the video to be blocked by the browser. To see it, you can remove the "s" from "https" at the beginning of the URL, or it is available here as well: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/73896073 - hopefully Smithsonian will fix this issue soon as it affects several videos on their site.

Many thanks!

[belleraphon1]

Sorry about that everyone. It had worked fine for me.

[Gladstoner]

NewHorizons2015 Twitter:

"Boy there's going to be some WAY COOL new science with what we release tomorrow! Science in technicolor!"

https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015?ref_src...7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[Gladstoner]

Besides the "mind-blowing" unique terrain, Dr. Stern also said this week's data will include (if I'm remembering everything correctly):

- (Some) surface composition data
- Color variations within the Cthulhu grabens/valleys
- Color imagery of the haze layers

[alan]

I re-watched the encounter using NASA's eyes on Pluto, some notes on images taken:

06:11 EDT 50500 mi LORRI 15 down, MVIC (P_LORRI_STEREO_MOSAIC)
06:49 EDT 30950 mi LORRI 23, MVIC (P_LEISA_HIRES)
07:10 EDT 20730 mi MVIC 3500 px (P_COLOR_2) down
07:23 EDT 15100 mi LORRI 70, MVIC (P_MPAN_1)
07:30 EDT 11900 mi LORRI, MVIC Charon?
07:36 EDT 10100 mi LORRI, MVIC (P MVIC LORRI CA)
07:51 EDT 7900 mi MVIC (P PHOTOSCAN)
08:04 EDT CA +15m 10900 mi LORRI 60, MVIC down (P HIPHASE HIRES)
08:07 EDT 12240 mi MVIC
08:11 EDT 13430 mi MVIC (P CHARONLIGHT)

Number of images from an encounter timeline which has different times and appears to be missing a LORRI pass.

From the previous posts it sounds like the MVIC color data from 7:10 is down.

EDIT: added names from machi list

[lars_J]

New images! http://www.nasa.gov/feature/perplexing-plu...om-new-horizons

Here is a cool crop:

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Gladstoner]

It's time:

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/perplexing-plu...om-new-horizons

Edit: Late by seconds.