What Does Pluto Really Look Like?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the appearance of Pluto as captured by the New Horizons probe, focusing on the first color images released and the implications of these findings. Participants express excitement about the mission and share observations about the visual characteristics of Pluto and its moon, Charon.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express enthusiasm about the New Horizons mission and the data it will provide, noting the significance of this event in space exploration.
  • One participant highlights the unexpected reddish color of Pluto, contrasting it with their prior mental image of the planet as darkish-grey.
  • Another participant cautions against overinterpreting the features visible in the published image of Pluto, noting that it has been significantly enlarged from its original resolution, which may affect the clarity and accuracy of the details observed.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the excitement surrounding the New Horizons mission and the new images of Pluto, but there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the image details due to the enlargement factor mentioned.

Contextual Notes

The discussion acknowledges limitations regarding the resolution of the images and the potential impact of enlargement on the interpretation of surface features.

diogenesNY
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As reported by the BBC:

By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent

The New Horizons probe, which is bearing down on Pluto, has captured its first colour image of the distant dwarf planet.

The picture, just released by the US space agency, shows a reddish world accompanied by its biggest moon, Charon.

New Horizons is set to barrel past Pluto on 14 July.

It will acquire a mass of data that it will then return to Earth very slowly over the course of the next 16 months.

[article continues...] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32311907

diogenesNY
 
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Just what I need, another 3 months of being glued to my computer monitor...
Thank god it's not going into orbit.

The New Horizons craft is at the moment in communication with two Deep Space Network dishes:
Goldstone #14
Data reception rate: 1.26 kb/sec​
Canberra #43
Data reception rate: 1.26 kb/sec
Data transmission rate: not specified​

The BBC article mentioned above said:
"Nothing like this has been done in a quarter of a century and nothing like this is being planned again by any space agency.
"This is a real moment in time for you to watch us turn a point of light into a planet."

Sweet!
 
Man, this is so cool. Who'd have thought Pluto was red? I'd always pictured it as being darkish-grey and drab looking.
 
Emily Lakdawalla, Planetary Evangelist, made an interesting observation about the "published" image of Pluto and Charon:

New views of three worlds: Ceres, Pluto, and Charon
2015/04/16 20:17 UTC

20150416_20150414_First_Color_Image_Ralph.png


Before you get too excited about interpreting features on the surface of Pluto from this image, you need to realize that it has been enlarged by quite a lot from the original resolution of the camera. If I've done my math right, it's been enlarged by a factor of six. Just for fun, I've "de-enlarged" the image by reducing its size by a factor of six -- these don't show you the data's actual original pixels, but it should illustrate the size of the original pixels.

20150416_20150414_First_Color_Image_Ralph_de-enlarged.png
 

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