New Horizons flyby of Pluto [updated for Ultima Thule]

[Lord Crc]

What is the reason for the pause until September before the bulk of data gets transmitted?

From http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/06240556-what-to-expect-new-horizons-pluto.html

The transmission of the High Priority data set will be complete on July 20, and then image transmission will pause. For nearly two months, until September 14, New Horizons will switch to near-real-time downlinking of data from other, so-called "low-speed" instruments while it transmits just housekeeping information for all of the rest of the data. No new images will arrive on the ground during this time.

The blog post has some more details about why they've done this. So it's just not transmitting images.

 

[Dotini]

Is it too bold to say the northern hemisphere looks very dissimilar to the southern hemisphere?

Perhaps the southern hemisphere faces Charon?

 

[DennisN]

Is it too bold to say the northern hemisphere looks very dissimilar to the southern hemisphere?

That is something I've been thinking about too, since I saw the image.

Perhaps the southern hemisphere faces Charon?

Quote from the NASA article:

This image views the side of Pluto that always faces its largest moon, Charon, and includes the so-called “tail” of the dark whale-shaped feature along its equator.

Edit: I also post the additional image that includes a reference globe at the bottom right:

 

[D H]

Their article claims this photo was taken from a distance of 3.7 miles. Intuitively this seems way off. Can anyone help me prove or disprove the purported distance?

A link to that article: http://www.popsci.com/space-waves-birth-control-and-other-amazing-images-week?image=9.

Fact checking and fixing typos has never been Pop Sci's strong suit. As far as disproving that distance, it's nonsense. Closest approach won't happen for a couple of days and even then the distance to Pluto will be 7800 miles. Look at the link nsaspook posted.

 

[DaveC426913]

As far as disproving that distance, it's nonsense. Closest approach won't happen for a couple of days and even then the distance to Pluto will be 7800 miles.

Not to mention that fact that 3.7 miles is well within Pluto's atmosphere. The only way it could be 3.7 miles above the surface is if impacts Pluto one-third of a second later (moving at 36,000 mph).BTW, they get the number right in the longer article:

http://www.popsci.com/new-horizons- spacecraft -sends-back-more-pluto-eye-candy

which means they're not even consistent.

 

[|Glitch|]

Is it possible that Pluto is actually part of a "collisional family?" I realize that the label "collisional family" has only been used for asteroids and/or comets in the past, but considering the number and relative size of the moons orbiting Pluto, a "dwarf planet" does not seem to be an adequate description. I suppose a better question would be, what defines a "collisional family?"

 

[Garth]

Is it possible that Pluto is actually part of a "collisional family?" I realize that the label "collisional family" has only been used for asteroids and/or comets in the past, but considering the number and relative size of the moons orbiting Pluto, a "dwarf planet" does not seem to be an adequate description. I suppose a better question would be, what defines a "collisional family?"

Families of asteroids, believed to be fragments from a collisional breakup of a larger parent body, are defined as those sharing similar orbital elements.

Garth

 

[|Glitch|]

Families of asteroids, believed to be fragments from a collisional breakup of a larger parent body, are defined as those sharing similar orbital elements.

Garth

In other words, very much like Pluto and its moons, except that Pluto is a dwarf planet and not an asteroid Assuming all of Pluto's moons are chemically similar to Pluto, and therefore most likely originated from Pluto, and are not captured bodies. According to the above definition, the Earth and moon could also be considered a "collisional family." Is there any reason why the label "collisional family" should only be applied to asteroids and/or comets?

 

[Dotini]

Charon and Pluto appear to have very dissimilar colors.

 

[DennisN]

Today is the flyby!

Here is a cropped version of this image, 12 July 2015 (image information: 2015-07-12 08:46:45 UTC, Exp: 100 msec, Target: PLUTO, Range: 2.5M km). It was too large to post here, so I cropped it.
Source: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php

Edit: Another one from 13 July 2015 (cropped by me, source image is here):

Edit 2:
And an image of Charon from 12 July 2015... (also cropped by me)
(source image, image info: 2015-07-12 08:51:25 UTC, Exp: 100 msec, Target: CHARON, Range: 2.5M km)

 

[DennisN]

Space.com has a "live stream" here (courtesy of NASA TV; contents according to the schedule: Media briefing, image release, interview opportunities, panel discussions, broadcast from APL Mission Control):
http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

 

[Borg]

Space.com has a "live stream" here (courtesy of NASA TV; contents according to the schedule: Media briefing, image release, interview opportunities, panel discussions, broadcast from APL Mission Control):
http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

I didn't realize that it was passing this morning. I turned on your link just in time for the last 8 seconds before closest approach.

 

[DennisN]

A new color image :
"This stunning image of the dwarf planet was captured from New Horizons at about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13, about 16 hours before the moment of closest approach."
Source: NASA (Instagram)

Bonus picture (I could not resist):

 

[Borg]

Google has a tribute to the flyby today - doodle link.

 

[Dotini]

A new color image :
"This stunning image of the dwarf planet was captured from New Horizons at about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13, about 16 hours before the moment of closest approach."
Source: NASA (Instagram)

Does the relative lack of craters in the light area imply this area is active?

Could the dark areas be hydrocarbons?

 

[Orodruin]

With some good will, the "heart" does looks a bit like a dog ...

 

[|Glitch|]

I hope New Horizons was able to collect more information on Pluto's other moons (other than Charon) as well. Could Pluto have more than 5 moons? When New Horizons was launched we only knew about the moons Charon, Nix, and Hydra. The moons Kerberos and Styx were not discovered until after New Horizons had been launched..

 

[DaveC426913]

More detailed images of Pluto reveal startling new features!

(You saw it here first, folks.)

 

[websterling]

The spacecraft phoned home- reported that it was in great health and no anomalies occurred during the fly-by!

 

[Astronuc]

Hello, Pluto! NASA Spacecraft Makes Historic Dwarf Planet Flyby
http://news.yahoo.com/hello-pluto-nasa- spacecraft -makes-historic-dwarf-planet-115557846.html

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

A pluto fly by recap would make a great Insight :)

 

[OmCheeto]

Chris Hadfield just mentioned that http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tom0bio-1 's ashes are on the NH spacecraft .

I thought that was very cool.

 

[Drakkith]

Chris Hadfield just mentioned that http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tom0bio-1 's ashes are on the NH spacecraft .

I thought that was very cool.

Geez, you'd think they would have wiped the spacecraft off prior to launch...

 

[Borg]

More detailed images of Pluto reveal startling new features!
View attachment 85953
(You saw it here first, folks.)

I'm sure it won't be the last.

 

[Dotini]

Just as we are getting used to the idea that Pluto is a lovable, laughable Disney cartoon, some other mythologists throw underworld demons from Lovecraft and Tolkien into the punchbowl! Lost Carcosa is how I'd like to name that crater with the central peak, located in NE Cthulhu not far from the peach-colored area. Maybe it's ruled by the Yellow King?

http://space.io9.com/places-on-pluto-are-being-named-for-your-darkest-imagin-1717825166

 

[Imager]

Quote from the article below, "New Horizons is collecting so much data it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth." The good news, by then I will have paid off the mortgage on my house.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150714-4

 

[OmCheeto]

Just as we are getting used to the idea that Pluto is a lovable, laughable Disney cartoon, some other mythologists throw underworld demons from Lovecraft and Tolkien into the punchbowl! Lost Carcosa is how I'd like to name that crater with the central peak, located in NE Cthulhu not far from the peach-colored area. Maybe it's ruled by the Yellow King?

http://space.io9.com/places-on-pluto-are-being-named-for-your-darkest-imagin-1717825166

That "Vucub-Came" face looks just like something I saw last night on the Outer Limits.

Ahh!

http://www.hulu.com/watch/69739#i0,p104,d0

 

[Dotini]

New pix of Pluto and friends.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/...nasa_n_7803364.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Map of methane on Pluto.

Most detailed map yet of Pluto's biggest moon, Charon.

Close-up view of mountains on Pluto. There are no visible impact craters, NASA said, suggesting that the dwarf planet may be relatively young.

 

[Drakkith]

Wow, stunning pictures! And I'm sure the best is yet to come!

 

[|Glitch|]

The latest images from New Horizons:

New close-up images of a region near Pluto's equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago -- mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar system -- and may still be in the process of building. That suggests the close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto's surface, may still be geologically active today.

The youthful age estimate is based on the lack of craters in this scene. Like the rest of Pluto, this region would presumably have been pummeled by space debris for billions of years and would have once been heavily cratered -- unless recent activity had given the region a facelift, erasing those pockmarks.

Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other process must be generating the mountainous landscape.

The mountains are probably composed of Pluto's water-ice "bedrock." Although methane and nitrogen ice covers much of the surface of Pluto, these materials are not strong enough to build the mountains. Instead, a stiffer material, most likely water-ice, created the peaks.

The close-up image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (770,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet. The image easily resolves structures smaller than a mile across.

Charon:

Remarkable new details of Pluto's largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 289,000 miles (466,000 kilometers).

A swath of cliffs and troughs stretches about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from left to right, suggesting widespread fracturing of Charon's crust, likely a result of internal processes. At upper right, along the moon's curving edge, is a canyon estimated to be 4 to 6 miles (7 to 9 kilometers) deep.

Mission scientists are surprised by the apparent lack of craters on Charon. South of the moon's equator, at the bottom of this image, terrain is lit by the slanting rays of the sun, creating shadows that make it easier to distinguish topography. Even here, however, relatively few craters are visible, indicating a relatively young surface that has been reshaped by geologic activity.

In Charon's north polar region, a dark marking prominent in New Horizons' approach images is now seen to have a diffuse boundary, suggesting it is a thin deposit of dark material. Underlying it is a distinct, sharply bounded, angular feature; higher resolution images still to come are expected to shed more light on this enigmatic region.

The image has been compressed to reduce its file size for transmission to Earth. In high-contrast areas of the image, features as small as 3 miles (5 kilometers) across can be seen. Some lower-contrast detail is obscured by the compression of the image, which may make some areas appear smoother than they really are. The uncompressed version still resides in New Horizons' computer memory and is scheduled to be transmitted at a later date.

 

[Dotini]

The observations were made at three wavelengths of infrared light, which are invisible to the human eye. In this picture, blue corresponds to light of wavelengths 1.62 to 1.70 micrometers, a channel covering a medium-strong absorption band of methane ice, green (1.97 to 2.05 micrometers) represents a channel where methane ice does not absorb light, and red (2.30 to 2.33 micrometers) is a channel where the light is very heavily absorbed by methane ice. The two areas outlined on Pluto show where Ralph observations obtained the spectral traces at the right. Note that the methane absorptions (notable dips) in the spectrum from the northern region are much deeper than the dips in the spectrum from the dark patch.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/pluto-the-ice-plot-thickens

 

[Astronuc]

Mission scientists are surprised by the apparent lack of craters on Charon.

Nevertheless, I see craters on Charon, but not on Pluto. Could it be that having a surface of mostly water (H₂O), nitrogen (ammonia?), methane and CO/CO₂, that the kinetic energy of a collision would melt the surface and the liquid phase would then flow back into any cavity and then refreeze, so no craters. It would be interesting to simulate the collision process.

Perhaps Charon is more rocky, so craters are preserved.

http://news.yahoo.com/us- spacecraft -survives-close-encounter-pluto-010017319.html

Fascinating!

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Could it's smooth surface be explained by millions of years of it's atmosphere sublimating and resolidifying each orbit? Wouldn't the atmosphere would fall like snow and it wouldn't do so evenly across the surface. Could nitrogen/methane glaciers moving about every 250 years polish the surface like that?

My first impression of the pic of Charon was how much I thought it resembled a giant snowball.

Gorgeous little dwarf planet.

 

[OmCheeto]

I know I'm cross-threading, but today I learned what "pareidolla" means.

xkcd's explanation of what we are seeing on Pluto

 

[Astronuc]

Interesting story and insights
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-.../nasa-zooms-in-on-pluto-for-closest-views-yet

I heard an interview with a scientist, Alan Stern, from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) today on NPR. We're changing our understanding of planets based on our closeup observations of Pluto. It was previously understood that there would be no activity on the frozen planets, yet there is. Nitrogen is a weak material, unable to form a solid like water.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-new-horizons-mission-leader-explains-plutos-ice-mountains-and-more/
On the team’s biggest discovery about Pluto (so far)

“Let me emphasize that we have very little data back, so I don’t know that this will be the biggest discovery. But it is a big discovery. We discovered that Pluto and its moon Charon are still geologically active after all this time, after 4-plus billion years since they were born. That really changes some very deep-seated concepts in planetary science, because the small planets are expected to cool off in much less time than that, so they shouldn’t have an energy budget that allows them to drive active geology after so much time. So our discovery, which flies in the face of that, will cause a big rethink of how planetary engines work.”

Discoveries about Pluto’s surface

“When we look at Pluto’s surface, and measure it’s composition, which we’ve been able to do from the Earth and from Earth orbit with instruments like the Hubble [Space Telescope], we know that the surface composition is dominated by snows of nitrogen. And it’s the same stuff we’re breathing right now in the air, but on Pluto, it’s frozen as a snow on the surface. And the thing about nitrogen is that it’s a very weak material, so just like sand or other things that we could think of as examples of weak, if you try to pile it up in a big mountain, it’ll just collapse or slump under its own weight. So you can’t have nitrogen mountains.

So perhaps, a planet can have a relatively smooth, craterless surface.

With New Horizons, all that has changed. Scientists can now see craters and regions of dark-reddish ground. A large, white, heart-shaped feature on the equator is made of ice, though Pluto is so cold it's probably an ice of nitrogen or methane, rather than water.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...e-of-our-solar-system-finally-come-into-focus

http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2015/pluto-discoveries-mountains-moons.htm