New Horizons: Voyage to Pluto.

[Titch]

I'm excited !

 

[Incubus]

NASA's daily press conference starts at 2 EAT (7PM british time I think?) so we migt learn something then, although it's gotta be said there are increasing rumours that the whole thing was a hoax and that all the major press outlets have been taken on...

 

[Incubus]

Well it looks as though the whole thing was just based on Alan Stern being monstrously misquoted. And what we're actually due for today is nothing other than the "routine" weekly update of NASA's exploration program, as the man himself has condirmed in this excerpt of a conversation on his twitter account:
Hans-Olof Svensson ‏@hansolofsven 20h20 hours ago

@NewHorizons2015 So @AlanStern didn't say "“Nasa won’t let me tell you what we’re going to tell you on Thursday"? http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/06/pluto-charon-photos-nasa-new-horizons-data…

• AlanStern ‏@AlanStern 20h20 hours ago
  @hansolofsven @NewHorizons2015 This is true every week, news is embargoed until announced by NASA on Thursday. Nothing different this week.

So there you have it. I did think it was a bit odd there should be nothing about any announcement on the official NASA portal.... The whole thing originally started after a lecture Stern gave at an Alberta university so whoever started hese rumours seriously jumped the gun and everyone else just jumped on the wagon. We might get some new science data and images but nothing any more "amazing" than what we' ve been getting so far.

 

[Titch]

Oh how disappointing. So Pluto isn't an Alien star from a Galaxy far, far away. Damn.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Blue skies and water ice found on Pluto.

New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto

 

[Incubus]

Pfff typical... Even out there at the edge of the solar system they get more blue skies than us in the UK.

 

[Incubus]

Seriously though with hindsight it's mind-boggling. To think that years ago they thought of Pluto and other outer solar system objects as dead frozen lumps of rock where nothing ever happens... and today we have this:

Well as it turns out, it IS amazing after all.

 

[Titch]

Well as the Sun starts expanding, and Pluto gets warmer we can move out there for a while. All mod cons, an atmosphere and water, what more could we ask for. Although I believe the atmosphere is probably not quite like ours.

 

[Greenlantern101]

No need to worry about the sun exploding. We will of invented the Bistromathic Drive by then and be spread throughout the galaxy.

 

[Incubus]

That's a horrid thought... the Milky Way would turn to rancid milk before you can say, er, "cheese!"

 

[Incubus]

The last of Pluto'ssmall moons revealed at last, and it turns out to be the weirdest-looking too.

Now, doesn't that shape remind you of another space object that's been in the news quite a bit over the past year or so?...

 

[Greenlantern101]

Yes definitely similar shape to comet 67p but its a fair bit larger. 67P is 2.7miles across and Kerberos is around 8 miles.

I had always imagined Kuiper belt objects to be big boulders rather than massive mountains.
Interesting stuff.

I wonder if this is the best image they have from the flyby.

 

[Incubus]

Greenlantern101 from what I remember of what they were saying about 3 weeks ago the latest image of Nix is the second-highest resolution image they have. The best is still on the craft and is expected to be downlinked soon. The resolution of the best image of Hydra when it arrives will be similar to the current image of Nix. And the best images of Styx and Keerberos will only marginally be better than what they have now, all because they were located at the far side side of the system at the time of the flyby.

 

[Grizzly]

No need to worry about the sun exploding. We will of invented the Bistromathic Drive by then and be spread throughout the galaxy.

"I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all."

 

[Titch]

Mummy and Baby ( the latest picture of the small moons)'. it's a bit weird.

 

[Incubus]

New Horizon scientists have released this false-colour image of Pluto, highly-contrasted to illustrate the wide - and hitherto totally unexpected - rich colour variations on the planet's surface. Pretty isn't it.

 

[Incubus]

New Horizon's best images have now begun arriving. And here's the first, a section of the Sputnik Planum mountains:

They'll start being transmitted each week from on.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Mosaic of Pluto’s Craters, Mountains and Glaciers

Huge image in link above. Doesn't view very well on this web site best click the link. Amazing detail.

 

[Titch]

Do those lines represent the edges of tectonic plates?

 

[Incubus]

Titch I can't quite remember what they daid when they published the journal that included the early coclusions on Pluto's surface features but yes, they do suspect the presence of tectonic activivity on Pluto. They already know about glacier flows and moutain features moving along the surface but they're a bit puzzled as to that is actually powering it, because the tidal forces between Pluto and Charon isn't strong enough to do it.