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NASA Space

NASA Unveils Historic Pictures of Pluto 108

Posted by samzenpus from the pretty-pictures dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The New Horizons team held a press briefing today and released new data and high-resolution photographs of Pluto. Alan Stern, lead researcher of New Horizons said: "We now have an isolated, small planet that's showing activity after four and a half billion years. We've settled the fact that these very small planets can be active for a long time, and I think that's going to send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing board."
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NASA Unveils Historic Pictures of Pluto More

NASA Unveils Historic Pictures of Pluto

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  • Wait... What? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @04:22PM (#50119453) Journal
    Did he just say ... "planet"?

  • link to image (Score:5, Informative)

    by the_other_chewey ( 1119125 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @04:25PM (#50119483)
    TFS contains a link to tha NASA main page, and to a finished
    live stream on an unrelated media site, now without content.

    Way to go!

    NASA press release, with picture [nasa.gov].

  • [...] and I think that's going to send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing board.

    And they will love it, any (true) scientist like facts or even hints that question current theories.
    I bet some of them started already with a huge grin on their face.

    • Re:Fun... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @10:05PM (#50121923) Homepage

      I was talking to my son about the New Horizons mission today and explained to him that scientists LOVE it when they look at something and think "I have no clue why this is the way it is." That's one of the best moments in science. That means you have a mystery to solve. The worst thing any scientist can think is "We know everything there is to know about this thing." Science thrives on unraveling the unknown. The day when we know everything there is to know about everything is the day science dies. (Granted, I doubt that day would ever come as there's always more to learn.)

  • It could be Charon is a relatively new part of Pluto's family, and before they both settled into the current tidal lock, tidal forces baked both, accounting for the newish (non-cratered) surface and mountains.

    The other side of Pluto even appears to have an Io-style volcano. Unfortunately, I don't think that side was in range for close-ups.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ThorGod ( 456163 )

      In the feed NASA stated they both locked up early on and ruled out tidal forces as being a factor.

      • In the feed NASA stated they both locked up early on and ruled out tidal forces as being a factor.

        One of the panel-members said tidal heating was no longer a factor.

        Perhaps you and the GP are both right?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        How do they know they both locked up early?

        (I didn't hear that in the feed. Perhaps I clicked on an edited version.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ThorGod ( 456163 )

          The way they're moving together and neither is spinning on its axis relative to the other, I think

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Tablizer ( 95088 )

            Okay, I guess that makes sense. They model how long it would take to settle that way.

            But SOMETHING has been heating both bodies fairly recently. A collision is not likely to affect both at the same time and cause those valleys. A single large body is unlikely to hit both, and lots of small ones are unlikely to create the kind of rifts we see on both.

  • Young surface (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @04:45PM (#50119639) Journal

    The detailed image showing Pluto's mountains is, according to one of the NASA scientists, one the youngest looking bodies in the solar system. The surface features appear to be less than 100 million years old. Very strange. Are there even any viable theories on what is providing the energy to resurface such an old, far-out, isolated body? A major impact of some kind is the only thing I can think of. Pluto is too small for the heat to be internally generated, and there is no massive nearby body to cause tidal forces and the like.

    • What besides meteor impacts would cause the surface to look old? I doubt there is erosion caused by liquid on Pluto (?)

      • If there's enough of an atmosphere there will be erosion caused by wind. It doesn't take much air movement to create noticeable erosion when you have hundreds of millions of years for it to work.

        • Good point, I forgot that erosion is caused by wind on Mars.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rei ( 128717 )

          Pluto's atmosphere is a borderline exosphere, I don't expect it to have a relevant effect. But there's lots of potential from freeze-thaw erosion and even buried fluids.

      • Re:Young surface (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @05:54PM (#50120133) Homepage

        There's a number of potential fluids at pluto-range surface temperatures - nitrogen, neon, etc. The problem is pressure - but it doesn't take all that thick of an ice pack to get the requisite pressure - I calculate 13-18 meters minimum for nitrogen (depending on Pluto's current pressure), which is only about the weight of a meter of ice on Earth. It has to float, of course, and unlike water their ices sink... when at 100% density. But they'll have pore space in almost any realistic situation. And there's always lighter types of snow, such as methane snow, which don't require any pore space at all to float.

        More to the point, anywhere that these sorts of snow preciptate out deep enough, in the right temperature conditions, they'll melt on the bottom. If the ice is condensed on a slope, the liquids will try to flow out. If they find a way out, they'll freeze, pressure will rebuild into it bursts open, then a refreeze, and so on, like pillow lava spreading on Earth - possibly with cryogenic equivalents of lava tubes as well. Where there's no path for liquids to flow, you could have something akin to arctic sea ice.

        Note that pressure is only part of the key, temperature matters too. But these sort of conditions are quite plausible on Pluto. And more to the point, since there's a range of potential liquids at Pluto temperatures but with different properties, you could have some rather complex interactions with dramatically different properties at different depths and massive events when the temperature or pressure on the surface changes beyond a key point.

        Oh, I almost forgot about this effect [youtube.com], which could be a serious weathering agent. Freezing nitrogen can be a bit.... dramatic. ;) Here you can see some of the craziness it does when going between phases, starting around 50 seconds in [youtube.com]. Certainly looks like something with significantly more erosion potential than water ice freeze-thaw on Earth.

    • Pluto is too small for the heat to be internally generated

      Unless its core is continuing to undergo a fissile reaction...

    • A major impact of some kind is the only thing I can think of.

      Which would explain the giant, young impact crater that no one has noticed yet.

      Pluto is too small for the heat to be internally generated

      What are you basing that statement on, "currently accepted theories" that we had before flying a ship past Pluto and noticing relatively young features?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Pluto is too small for the heat to be internally generated

      Proof of cold fusion!
      /ducks

    • I wonder if Pluto's different orbit was taken into account when they estimated the age of the surface. Pluto probably has a significantly smaller chance to crash into another body.

    • Pluto is too small for the heat to be internally generated, and there is no massive nearby body to cause tidal forces and the like.

      Wait. Charon is massive enough and close enough to Pluto that the barycenter is in space, between it and Pluto. Also, Pluto's orbit is quite elliptical. Doesn't that seem sufficient to generate some extra tidal energy?

  • I am impressed at the achievement and all but I find myself saying "welp, it looks like any other rock in the solar system to me, including the moon". I'm not minimizing what they've done but I don't see why this dwarf planet is such a big deal. It's a big rock.

    Olkin said: This exceeds what we came for.

    What exactly did we came for?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We need to observe the other bodies in the solar system because they are the only ones we can, and use their surface features and composition to fine tune our models of planet formation. The more data points, the better the models will be. We can then use those models to determine what type of planets are likely to exist around other stars, since direct observation at any kind of detail level probably will not happen. That will allow us to make an educated selection of where to send our first interstella

    • Re:Umm forgive but (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ThorGod ( 456163 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @05:06PM (#50119797) Journal

      watch the feed. What they've discovered so far has already challenged and thrown out many hypotheses about planet formation/evolution. It may look like a rock to the untrained eye - but what humanity knows about planetary physics has already changed because of this probe. It's impossible to know where and how this will change our theories and even technology down the road.

    • > looks like any other rock in the solar system to me, including the moon

      Uh, what? You must not look look at the rocks up in the sky very much. It's covered in methane, nitrogen, and water ice in odd patterns. It's far less dense than the moon. It has gigantic mountains on it for its size. It's surface is very young, which is unexpected.

      So ya, why don't you go back to Facebook and post on the latest reality TV show or whatever is the big deal these days.

    • It's a rock made of water ice, with ice mountains as high as the Alps and an ice canyon that is possibly as deep as Mount Everest is high.

      I don't know, but I don't think anyone was expecting that. And those are just observations made in the first detailed picture of one small region of Pluto. There will be new discoveries before the end of the week and more to come after that.

  • Why would clicking "high-resolution photographs".. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    take me to a guardian article instead of NASA's image gallery? Oh that's right, the editors are here to collect a paycheck and maintain their morbid obesity by doing as little as possible.

  • Pluto on Pluto? (Score:3)

    by jmyers ( 208878 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @05:07PM (#50119809)

    People keep referring to a heart shaped image on the surface of Pluto but is looks like a dogs head, snout to the right and ear on the left. Very similar to this image.

    The character
    http://www.cliparthut.com/clip-arts/451/pluto-disney-451536.gif

    The celestial body
    http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2015/07/15/pluto-flyby-images/assets/150713-pluto-before-flyby.jpg

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dkman ( 863999 )
      Did you think it was a coincidence that the Disney character bears the same name?
      • Note copyright, lower left quadrant. With these new images its surprisingly clear that Pluto's copyright predates Disney's.

    • Disneyland apparently noticed this as well: https://twitter.com/Disneyland/status/621062834743607296

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @05:10PM (#50119837)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • The sun actually looks remarkably like a star from the surface of the Earth, too. And Venus looks oddly like a planet for some reason...

      The sun isn't going to just look like any other star from the surface of Pluto. The sun is many, many, many times closer to Pluto than any other star. Since the amount of light that is cast on an object is exponential with regard to distance, that means that the sun is shining a ridiculous amount of light onto Pluto compared with any other star. I would even bet that th

      • Since the amount of light that is cast on an object is exponential with regard to distance

        You mean inverse-square with respect to distance. The inverse-square law [wikipedia.org] applies when the source is a point (or uniformly-luminous sphere that is far enough away.)

        Pluto is about 40 AU away from the Sun, whereas the Earth is 1 AU away. That means sunlight on Pluto's surface is about 1/40^2 = 1/1600 as bright as on the Earth's surface. That's dim, but not hard to record with good optics, a sensitive detector, and enough exposure time.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          It's still really bright at Pluto. Sunny area would be around 60 lux, which is about 9 EV in photography exposure (ISO100 EV scale).

          Think office interiors, art gallery, stage show, indoor sports, etc.

          Not very dim at all.

          • I'm not sure about that being "really" bright, but point taken. It's within the operating range of a good smartphone camera.

      • the amount of light that is cast on an object is exponential with regard to distance, that means that the sun is shining a ridiculous amount of light onto Pluto compared with any other star. I would even bet that the sun illuminates the surface of Pluto significantly more than every other star combined.

        nitpicking: the amount of light is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

        Yes, probably most/almost all of the light reflected in the surface of Pluto into the camera comes from Sol.

    • Re:Question about deep space pictures (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @06:02PM (#50120179) Homepage

      Do realize that LORRI isn't just a camera, it's actually more of a telescope [jhuapl.edu]. And they can expose the images as long as they want, and even stack them if they want.

      If you think it's hard to get pictures on the sunlit side, that's nothing - they actually plan to try to get pictures on the side *not* lit by the sun, just by the pathetically weak light reflected by Charon. Getting images on the lit side is easy, but the dark side is going to be very difficult, involving lots of stacking.

    • Re:Question about deep space pictures (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @06:29PM (#50120341)
      The main imager (LORRI) [swri.edu] is a 208mm diameter telescope with a 2630mm focal length, or f/12.6. The spider and secondary obscure 11% of the area, so that's equivalent to f/13.4 in terms of light gathering for photographic purposes. Exposure times are 50-200 ms, or 1/20 to 1/5 sec.

      On Earth, the sunny 16 rule [wikipedia.org] says on a sunny day the proper exposure at f/16 is when your shutter speed is 1/ISO. So f/16, 100 ISO, 1/100 sec. The atmosphere absorbs roughly half the sunlight, so in earth orbit that would become f/16, 100 ISO, and 1/200 sec.

      Pluto is about 32.6 AU from from the sun right now, so the sun's brightness there is 1/32.6^2 = 1/1063 what it is at Earth.

      Going from f/16 to f/13.4 gets you about 1.43x more light.
      Increasing exposure time from 1/200 sec to 1/10 sec gets you 20x more light.
      That leaves a deficit of 37.2x, which you can get by increasing CCD sensitivity to ISO to 3,720.

      ISO 3200 was easily attainable by high-end consumer digital camera sensors 10 years ago, much less a commercial one specially designed for scientific purposes.
      • Incidentally, 1/1063 the brightness would put the sun at about magnitude -19.2, or about 400x brighter than the full moon, 2.5 million times brighter than Venus at its brightest.

    • In terms of brightness these pictures of pluto are about as bright as some backyard telescope achievements. That's how we found it to begin with. When you have a camera you have the ability to control exposure duration, then it just becomes a waiting game while your sensor is counting photons. The longer you count photons for the brighter the image providing the noise level isn't creeping up.

      It's very similar to the way people do 30+ hour photos of nebula and the like, it's able to resolve light that simply

    • To get an idea of how bright the sun is at Pluto, try Pluto Time [nasa.gov].

      Sunlight is much weaker there than it is here on Earth, yet it isn't completely dark. In fact, for just a moment near dawn and dusk each day, the illumination on Earth matches that of noon on Pluto.

      We call this Pluto Time. If you go outside at this time on a clear day, the world around you will be as bright as the surface of Pluto at noon

  • Hydra (Score:3)

    by bhcompy ( 1877290 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @05:12PM (#50119851)
    Well, Hydra could certainly use a little more jpeg [youtube.com].

  • The pic of HYdra (Score:3)

    by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @05:47PM (#50120067) Homepage Journal

    I was surprised at how low resolution the picture of Hydra was - like 10px by 5px. :-) Didn't they take any higher-res shots of it than that? You'd think they'd pick one of the higher res ones to send first if so.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The only possible explanation is that the hi-res picture looks like a space station, and they wanted to consult the president before publishing it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They say that they have taken higher-res shots of it but the pictures are still on the spacecraft, it will take MONTHS to download it to Earth...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • how do they know it didn't join in at a later time? it has a radically inclined orbit. that tells me right away that it wasn't formed in this plane.

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