New Horizons Captures First Color Image of Pluto and Charon 78
192_kbps writes: NASA published today the first color image of Pluto and Charon captured by the New Horizons probe, revealing a reddish world. "The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons has traveled a longer time and farther away - more than nine years and three billion miles - than any space mission in history to reach its primary target. Its flyby of Pluto and its system of at least five moons on July 14 will complete the initial reconnaissance of the classical solar system. This mission also opens the door to an entirely new "third" zone of mysterious small planets and planetary building blocks in the Kuiper Belt, a large area with numerous objects beyond Neptune's orbit." The picture is blurry, but far better than the few pixels Hubble can resolve, the image whets the appetite for New Horizon's closest approach on July 14th."
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Urectum!!!
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You do realize methane is odorless, right? (Score:1)
They add the stinky stuff to it so you know when to run.
photo too blurry (Score:1)
Re:photo too blurry (Score:5, Interesting)
the photo is simply too blurry to be useful (to the avg person)
What use does the average person have for any photo of outer space objects? If its simply to whet the appetite for better cooler stuff to come then its done its job for you right? Me personally I always had an image of pluto being bluish gray from some artists conception I saw when i was 5 or so. To find out it may be red just blew my mind! (sorta) I'd say that was useful to me...of course it didn't make me any money so perhaps you're right after all.
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How could all the experts have gotten it wrong all these years?
Calm down. Maybe it was taken at sunset.
Re:photo too blurry (Score:5, Funny)
Is it red, though?
Besides, I'm pretty sure it's white and gold.
Re:photo too blurry (Score:5, Informative)
If you do an image search, nearly half of the artist renderings still depict Pluto as blue-grey in color. I think the reasoning was that the planet was thought to be largely covered in methane ice, which has that color. And they were right about the ice, but UV radiation can initiate reactions in methane and diatomic nitrogen to produce a mix of simple hydrocarbons and nitriles, similar to the orange-brown haze that shrouds Titan, just on a much less dramatic scale.
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Every depiction I've seen of it indicates blue. How could all the experts have gotten it wrong all these years?
Doppler shift. All the jokes about it's manhood, if it is or isn't a planet, got it down spectrum.
Re:photo too blurry (Score:4, Funny)
What use does the average person have forÂanyÂphoto of outer space objects?
Are you joking? NASA probably creates more desktop background images for our computers than any other single entity. ;)
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If you think the average person has a desktop background that differs from stock, let alone a space-themed background, then there's a good chance your sample size is far, far too small.
Far too small.
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Most non-nerds are not going to put such images on their desktop background. For one, they risk being labelled a "nerd".
But even non-nerds should be wowed by images such as this sponge-like moon (Hyperion):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
It's has that WTF look. Same with Io, the Pizza Moon. If you put the Pizza Moon on your desktop, then you can at least claim it's a specialized Italian dish if somebody accuses you of being a nerd.
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Most non-nerds are not going to put such images on their desktop background. For one, they risk being labelled a "nerd".
The 1980's are over. Being a nerd doesn't carry the same stigma it once did. I remember seeing a commercial for rice cakes, or something, ten or so years ago where the actor in it listed all of the things she was/trying to be. Mother, wife, blah, blah, and ended with "wanna be computer nerd"
The television show, The Big Bang Theory [wikipedia.org], is pulling in 15 to 20 million viewers per episode.
So, no, I don't think too many people are worried about it. Hell, back when I had enough free time to worry about what my ba
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And in Big Bang, the audience is laughing their south ends off at how socially awkward the nerds are. Clowns can be popular, but that doesn't mean you'd PERSONALLY like to hang around clowns.
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People don't just watch that show because of that. They can go to their own IT department to witness it on any given day. 20-30 years ago that show wouldn't have been green lighted, and rightly so. It would have bombed because most people would have been afraid of being caught watching it.
Clowns are creepy has hell. No one would want to hang out with them.
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Yeah, they are standing in line to visit the IT department. I believe the Clown Department would have more visitors. Clowns usually have people skills.
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What use does the average person have for photos of their trip to the Grand Canyon? For that matter, what use does the average person have for any space exploration (as distinct from the more practical application of communication satellites)?
Humans interact with our world in a very vision-centric manner. It "means" more to us to see cool high-res color photos of some distant astronomical object than "knowing" the far more use
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The first space probes were not supposed to carry cameras because it was thought that there would be little useful data returned from the visuals. Fortunately boosters and transmitters had sufficient extra capacity to add cameras, and the project scientists were quickly shown to be wrong.
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Re:photo too blurry (Score:4, Interesting)
That the photograph is color, able to distinguish the different shades of Pluto and Charon, is _wonderful_ and an exciting hint of more data to come. I'm delighted by the new theories that Pluto may have a subterranean ocean, much like Europa, in recent science essays I've read. The idea that a planet as remote and as poor in solar energy as Pluto could host life in such an ocean is even more amazing, and this new probe could reveal the pre-requisites for life as we know it to exist even on Pluto.
It's wonderful to live in times with such evolution of science and knowledge. I must applaud NASA for realizing that this mission was worth the time and effort and funding to launch it.
Re:photo too blurry (Score:4, Insightful)
What would keep an ocean on Pluto from freezing? On the icy moons of gas giants, there are tidal forces, but what is there to warm Pluto?
Re:photo too blurry (Score:4, Interesting)
Since Pluto-Charon is essentially a double planet, I'd expect the tidal forces to be significant. Of course nothing with keep anything from freezing on the surface, just deep inside.
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People around here seem to vastly overstate the physical significance of being a "double planet." You could just plug in known values into the equation for tidal acceleration: 2*G*(radius of body)*(mass of other body)/(distance between bodies)^3. You'll get that the tidal acceleration on Pluto is about ten times that of the Moon on Earth, but about one 200th of that of Jupiter on Ganymede, or one 2000th of that of Jupiter on Io.
It only indirectly cares about the relative size of the bodies, from the radi
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Tidal dissipation occurs when the tidal forces vary with time, generally due to the orbit of the secondary being eccentric. That brings it alternately closer to and farther from the primary, stretching and squeezing the interior.
However, the orbit of Charon about Pluto is circular (Buie et al., 2012 [iop.org]), so the tidal bulge is constant. There's no time-varying deformation and no dissipation.
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At first glance, it would seem that a circular orbit can still lead to varying tidal forces. The only requirement is that the planet is not tidally locked to the moon (i.e. the planet's rotation is not in sync with the moon's orbit). Or am I overlooking something?
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The other moons are also comparatively large and fairly close, adding more tidal flexing.
Re:photo too blurry (Score:5, Interesting)
It might be an ocean of liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen freezes at about -430F (around -260 C for foreigners), which sounds like it could be about in the ballpark.
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bah, just give the photos to the pros on csi and they'll have them blown up to high-res poster size before the commercial break ends.
You should have seen it... (Score:2)
Ok I'll say it (Score:1)
Oooh, Ahhh, (Score:2)
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A Planetoidary System? (Score:1)
Alex Stern quote: "This is a real moment in time for you to watch us turn a point of light into a planet."
So some now believe that Pluto is a planet? With 5 moons?? OMG! What's happening?
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
If they knew the exact position, then just send the raw pixels for just the target area rather than an entire camera image. I'd guess the two bodies take up only about 25 x 25 pixels for that image. But I don't know the details of their compression and processing. I've read elsewhere that Pluto is roughly 5 pixels across at this time.
An interesting side fact is that they'll take a few good pre-encounter images and it will be the last images sent for roughly a month because the probe is not designed to transmit while aiming its instruments (to save money; contrast with Voyagers).
It will record everything during the fly-by for later playback. But, if it smashes into something orbiting near Pluto, the pre-encounter set may be the last images we get. Being it has at least 5 moons, there may be related debris orbiting.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
Voyager has most of its instruments, including the cameras, on a movable platform. This allowed the positioning of the spacecraft and its high-gain antenna (the dish) to be decoupled from the positioning of the sensors. That made it very versatile and capable but, as you mentioned, more expensive. It also increases technical risk. What if the scanning platform jams up? (Some instruments could end up forever pointed back at the spacecraft! There are only so many multi-spectral selfies you would ever want to have.)
New Horzions is, for all intents and purposes, a single solid body. For 98% of its operational life, it's spin stabilized with its dish pointed squarely back towards Earth. That won't suffice for the intensive observations it was built for, so it will stop spinning and tilt itself this way and that to point its sensors at Pluto during its close encounter. Of course, when it is tilting this way and that, it is no longer pointing its main dish at Earth, so there can't be substantial communications. There is still the low-gain antenna, which is much less directional, which will allow for continuous commanding and telemetry, but has too little bandwidth for much science data to be beamed back. (more info here [jhuapl.edu])
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> There are only so many multi-spectral selfies you would ever want to have
No way, selfies are awesome, they should fix the sensors back at the craft and put the communications on a movable platform.... and call it the Tourist.
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Continuous commanding and telemetry with a slight delay...
rgb
Charon Relay? (Score:2)
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Just scan and probe it then get the damn eezo before the ships find you.
Darlings (Score:2)
Awww, dwarf planets are sooo cute!
Far better than Hubble? (Score:1)
Did not see the original and how have been interpolated, but according to the mission timeline the "better than hubble" event is scheduled around 5th of may.
Memory lost at NASA? (Score:1)
"New Horizons has traveled a longer time and farther away - more than nine years and three billion miles - than any space mission in history".
What about Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2?
Re:Memory lost at NASA? (Score:4, Informative)
Memory lost at NASA? How about you read the end of that sentence that you carefully pasted into your post.
"....to reach its primary target."
All the other probes primary targets were the gas giants.
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Rosetta travelled 10 years to reach its primary target, comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
(but you are right, I missed the end of the sentence)
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Your point is valid, but it's a bit like claiming that I have biked farther and for more time than any other person on the planet who lives in my apartment. It's true, but it's also sort of stupid to make such a narrowly tailored claim.
*Squint* (Score:2)
Enhance!
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They can only be summoned by human sacrifice. Preferably on a golf course or in an abandoned warehouse.