New Horizons: Nasa releases historic Pluto close-up images

[n2doc]

Source: BBC

Nasa is presenting the first images acquired by the New Horizons probe during its historic flyby of Pluto.

Chief scientist Alan Stern said the new images showed evidence of geological activity and mountains in the Pluto system.

The team has also named the prominent heart-shaped region on Pluto after the world's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.


The spacecraft sped past the dwarf planet on Tuesday, grabbing a huge volume of data.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33543383

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Charon

[n2doc]

1. NASA's main mission page

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

[louis-t]

2. That's one, big hunk of frozen rock.

[snooper2]

3. bigger than some but pretty tiny, put it up next to a gas giant

[bulloney]

6. You mean like Limbaugh?

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

11. Oh boy...

...

[Baclava]

4. 'At The Mountains of Madness' - wish we sent down a lander

[longship]

5. First pic is Pluto water ice mountains.

From NASA:

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, says Jeff Moore of New Horizons’ Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI). That suggests the close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today.

Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate 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.

“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Moore.

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.

More at NASA link (in first response).

[trusty elf]

7. Fantastic!

K&R

[brer cat]

8. Fascinating. nt

[uhnope]

9. Face on Pluto any day now

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

14. Take a look at this

That expansive flat area in the southern hemisphere looks just like the Pluto the dog Disney character.

http://time.com/3958205/pluto-the-dog-disney-nasa/

[uhnope]

15. heh. yah

[Gloria]

10. H20!!!!

heard the discussion, that once the veneer scraped away, what is showing is ....H20...and abundance of it!!!

[longship]

12. Yup! That's why it is called an "ice dwarf."

Just like other Kuiper belt bodies.

There's lots of water out there. The mountains in the up close pic are 11,000 feet tall peaks of water ice!!

It's cold out there.

Amazing!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

13. Science Channel tonight has a special on the Pluto fly-by

7:00 Pacific time. I'm not going to miss this. Lately I've really been hating on the Science Channel. They've banned me from commenting on their Facebook page because I keep asking when they're going to show something else besides the show How It's Made (endless show about how jelly beans, pool sticks, or other ordinary household items are made). There are some days (and sometimes entire weeks) when they rerun and rerun and rerun nothing else. I'm giving them love today, though. This special on Pluto and the scientists who are interpreting the images promises to be great.