Pluto — a Complex and Changing World

astroengine writes "After 4 years of processing the highest resolution photographs the Hubble Space Telescope could muster, we now have the highest resolution view of Pluto's surface ever produced. Most excitingly, these new observations show an active world with seasonal changes altering the dwarf planet's surface. It turns out that this far-flung world has more in common with Earth than we would have ever imagined."

Comments

High res?

[XPeter]

Is it just me, or do the photos look like a big blob of yellows and grays?

Re:High res?

[ceoyoyo]

Considering it normally looks like this: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100204-pluto-hubble-best-pictures/, those blobs of yellow and grays are pretty impressive.

Re:High res?

[pushing-robot]

Is it just me, or do the photos look like a big blob of yellows and grays?

Based on my experience, all planets look like that from space. And on the surface they all look like southern California.

Re:High res?

[MichaelSmith]

Is it just me, or do the photos look like a big blob of yellows and grays?

Based on my experience, all planets look like that from space. And on the surface they all look like southern California.

Based on my experience of watching Doctor Who, Blakes 7, etc; all planets look like the quarry next to the BBC studios.

Re:High res?

[frieko]

Except of course for planets which happen to have Stargates or Cylons, all of which look like Vancouver.

Re:High res?

[Tablizer]

I think there's a matter of interpretation as far as "sharpest picture yet". The image you reference is "over-exposed" to bring out Pluto's multiple moons. They meant it's the best pic of Pluto's *system*, not Pluto's disk. In other words, "best" depends on what you want to emphasize. The world ain't black and white (pun semi-intended).

Re:High res?

[ceoyoyo]

True, but it was the closest thing I could find on short notice. The point is that Pluto isn't very many pixels across. Also, I think when they said "best" they were actually talking about the new images, even though they didn't show a picture.

There are a few more pictures here, both from Hubble and ground telescopes: http://www.solarviews.com/eng/pluto.htm

It's not quite as simple as "the image is over-exposed." Pluto is dim and small enough to be right at the edge of telescopes' resolving power. Intensity variations across its face are even harder to detect, so it usually looks like either a fuzzy white ball or a fuzzy grey ball.

The images are quite impressive.

Pluto = Asteroid WIth Attitude and Ego!

[loose electron]

the amateur astronomer understands that Pluto is noting more than an asteroid with a big ego

The attitude gets even bigger when its closer to the sun than Neptune.....

How would you like to be demoted?

Re:Pluto = Asteroid WIth Attitude and Ego!

[goldaryn]

the amateur astronomer understands that Pluto is noting more than an asteroid with a big ego

"That's no planet... it's an asteroid with a big ego.."

Re:Pluto = Asteroid WIth Attitude and Ego!

[zach_the_lizard]

But that's the trick to flying! All you have to do is fall at the ground and miss! The, er, knack is in the missing part, but nothing we can't handle.

Can't wait for a good picture!

[mykos]

Five more years until we have a GOOD picture of Pluto. July 14, 2015...can't wait!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

Re:Can't wait for a good picture!

[Brad1138]

Damn, the worlds going to end before then.

Re:Can't wait for a good picture!

[slashqwerty]

The data rate from Pluto is expected to be 1000 bits per second. It would take over two years to transfer the entire 8GB buffer at that speed. Granted, New Horizons could send back a 1MB picture in about two hours. But the mission planners have other plans for the immediate flyby. They are going send radio signals from Earth to New Horizons to measure Doppler shift (inferring the gravitational pull and mass of Pluto) and to detect the effect Pluto's atmosphere has on the signal.

Compressed pictures should be available to the public a few days after the flyby. They are expecting the full data set to take nine months.

So for decent pictures you had best revise your estimate:

Five more years until we have a GOOD picture of Pluto. July 14, 2015...can't wait!

July 2015

At the same time

[ascari]

It's not just the seasons that change: In those four years Pluto has gone from being a planet to not being a planet to being a planet again to being kind of a planet... Complex and changing indeed.

News Flash

[MyLongNickName]

Pluto IS a planet. It was a planet when I was in school, so it will always be a planet, dadgummit.

Re:News Flash

[iceborer]

You seem a little down; perhaps your humors are imbalanced. A good leeching should fix that right up!

Re:Pluto having seasonal changes is well known

[Tumbleweed]

the fact that Pluto undergoes significant seasonal cycles has been known for quite a while.

Yeah, don't mess with Pluto. She's been in a bad mood for awhile now. Must be that time of the orbit.

i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[circletimessquare]

if you grant me the other seven dwarves are planets: eris, makemake, haumea, sedna, orcus, 2001OR10, and quaoar

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/EightTNOs.png

and the other 100 or so such objects of pluto size likely to be found in the coming decades in the oort cloud

or keep it easy and say its not a planet

your choice, but the third graders of 2080 who have to memorize 80 planets might not be too happy with you

face it, pluto is chump change

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[NotQuiteReal]

the third graders of 2080 who have to memorize 80 planets might not be too happy with you

If it is important you'll know... if not? Meh.

How many of the 117 elements can you name?

How many C-List Hollywood celebrities can you name? How much SF trivia do you know?

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[mbone]

The solar system does not exist to make things easier for third graders. If there are 80 planets, then so be it.

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[lawpoop]

Well, Pluto does seem to have the biggest satellite. If we wanted to maintain tradition and keep Pluto a planet, this might just be the fudge factor we need.

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[Beowabbit]

your choice, but the third graders of 2080 who have to memorize 80 planets might not be too happy with you

Once upon a time, students had to memorize only four elements (earth, air, fire, and water). Nowadays we recognize over a hundred, and there are a bunch of theoretical ones we can predict but have a hard time detecting. I don’t think “but people will have a hard time remembering them all, so we have to add arbitrary limit so that we don’t have so many” is a very good way of defining terms.

I can see a good argument for saying that the solar system contains four planets and some rubble. I can see an argument for saying that it contains over a dozen planets, probably way over. I can see a good argument for saying that it consists tens of thousands of planets. I can see a good argument for saying that “planet” is not a piece of scientific terminology and letting lay usage define it.

I can see an argument, although not a great one, for coming up with a definition that keeps the number down to a dozen, but I think the definition the IAU came up with is pretty ambiguous, since “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit” is clearly relative, and you could define “cleared”, “neighbourhood”, and “around” in such a way that Ceres has done it (admittedly a stretch), or that Jupiter hasn’t. (There’s also the matter of “has” — do things that weren’t planets early in the history of the solar system become planets as time passes and they collect impacts?) And the IAU definition explicitly excludes anything that orbits around any star other than our sun, which to my mind makes it just silly, and means that a sizable fraction of the astronomical community is concerned with studying planets (and publishing papers calling them planets) that do not meet the IAU definition.

Incidentally, once upon a time, any new thing discovered in orbit in the solar system other than the sun was considered a planet, so the moon, the moons of Jupiter, and the asteroids (the few then known) would all have been considered planets. If you exclude dust particles and the like, that’s still a reasonable definition for the sorts of things that “planetary scientists” study, and personally I kind of like that approach.

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[sznupi]

They are nowhere near "considerably" smaller than Pluto. Than Earth, maybe.

The "cleared its neighborhood" definition is absurd, since by that definition Earth is not a planet.

And that is simply not true (have you even read the definition?). Earth very much cleared it's neighbourhood; bodies in its vicinity are completelly dominated by its gravitation.

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[sznupi]

But our language and terminology exists to facilitate exchange of ideas. Any term which encompasses so many so different bodies looses most of any usable meaning.

Re:i'll grant you pluto is a planet

[khallow]

or keep it easy and say its not a planet

What's the scientific justification? I could care less about the troubles of third graders of 2080. May their tongues freeze on the 2080 analogue of the ice-cold flag pole.

Here's my complaint with the 2006 IAU definition.

1) "Planet" is poorly defined. "Clears the neighborhood" needs to be defined and should have been back in 2006.
2) It abuses the English language. For some odd reason, "dwarf planets" are not considered "planets". That is not how adjectives in the English language are supposed to be used and will just increase the confusion among laypeople.
3) The definition fails to extend to any other star system with planets (excuse me, exoplanets). Any attempt to use a "clears the neighborhood" definition would lead to stupidity since you'd have to determine most of the dynamical characteristics of a star system in order to avoid the unpleasant label "probable planet". And what happens when (not if, when) you have a Jupiter-mass exoplanet that is in a resonance orbit with a much larger planet or brown dwarf? A "dwarf planet" (since that's what's left for labels in the Solar System).
4) People who claim that this process exemplifies in any way a genuine scientific process should be embarrassed. Any of the prior three points rules that out.

Classification

[Brad1138]

It turns out that this far-flung world has more in common with Earth than we would have ever imagined.

Should we maybe think of classifying Pluto as a real planet?

There are four planets.

[argent]

The solar system only has four planets worth distinguishing, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The rest of the objects in the solar system are too small to retain significant hydrogen and can be dismissed.

Re:There are four planets.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yep. You could also say that the Solar System consists of one star, one failed star, and a bunch of other junk.

Re:There are four planets.

[argent]

You're right... Because Earth is WAY to small to hold any of that hydrogen stuff...

Jupiter: 89% Hydrogen
Saturn: 96% Hydrogen
Uranus: 83% Hydrogen
Neptune: 80% Hydrogen
Earth: 0.0021% Hydrogen

Yeh, pretty much.

Re:There are four planets.

[dominious]

this is funny because the word "planet" comes from the Greek word "planitis" which means "wanderer". From wikipedia:

In ancient times, astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Ancient Greeks called these planetes asteres: wandering stars or simply planetoi: wanderers, from which today's word "planet" was derived.

Now you want to change the definition of what a "planet" is while the actual meaning of the word hasn't changed. Imagine "planets" were called "wanderer stars" and then I told you that the definition of a "wanderer star" has nothing to do with movement but with size and whether the object produces hydrogen. So stop calling it "wanderer star" then!

Re:There are four planets.

[argent]

I checked a number of sources and it put it at 0.14% of the crust, and about 0% of the mantle and core. The crust is about 0.015% of the volume of the Earth (and less than that by mass). Multiply it out, you get 0.0021%. My bad for forgetting the oceans. Still, it's really a negligible percentage either way.

The real question is...

[argent]

If Pluto's a dog, then what's the deal with Goofy?

Another Earth(like)?

[DynaSoar]

"...more in common with Earth than we would have ever imagined."

If this is going to be along the lines of the the "Earthlike" exoplanets, it means something like Pluto has a surface, and probably some elements.

Why is it every planet that's not obviously entirely unlike Earth is "Earthlike"? Are we really that desperate for a refuge should we ruin this planet completely?

Hell no. Most people with even a slight interest and modest education know better, and don't try to make a point anything like that. No, these asinine statements are almost invariably made by 'science journalists' which are rapidly becoming less and less of both of those. They know they can't keep your interest recounting the bare facts so they have to come up with some bullshit that they're probably not even aware how bag of hammers stoopid it sounds. Pluto has an axial tilt, therefore it has seasons... like Earth. Sure, seasons with an average summer of 60 degrees Kelvin and winters at 30 Kelvin. How very Earthlike.

See, there's a downside to all these magazines and other media making stuff available on the net. Since they're making it available for free, they're not making anything directly from them, so they have nothing to lose by making them crap. Then they can get you to subscribe for the better stuff. In theory. Rather than paying some real and knowledgeable science journalists, or even specialists in that field, to write better material, they go the cheap route and use the same mediocre hacks for their print versions as for their e-versions.

So, naturally Pluto is Earthlike. It's because the source is Sciencelike. Sure, and those writers' and editors' asses are Hatlike.

Re:Because...

[imakemusic]

Awesome! That means my desk is a planet as well!

once upon a time

[circletimessquare]

ceres was considered a planet FOR HALF A CENTURY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

The classification of Ceres has changed more than once and has been the subject of some disagreement. Johann Elert Bode believed Ceres to be the "missing planet" he had proposed to exist between Mars and Jupiter, at a distance of 419 million km (2.8 AU) from the Sun.[17] Ceres was assigned a planetary symbol, and remained listed as a planet in astronomy books and tables (along with 2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta) for about half a century until further asteroids were discovered.[17][25][35]
However, as other objects were discovered in the area it was realised that Ceres represented the first of a class of many similar bodies.[17] In 1802 Sir William Herschel coined the term asteroid ("star-like") for such bodies,[35] writing "they resemble small stars so much as hardly to be distinguished from them, even by very good telescopes".[36] As the first such body to be discovered, it was given the designation 1 Ceres under the modern system of asteroid numbering.[35]

they got over it WHEN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS FOUND TO BE FULL OF SUCH MIDGETS

sound familiar? when the deluge of asteroids came in, people thought "uh, its going a little crazy with these planets here, lets lop off the pretenders". now, as they search and catalog the oort cloud, they find that pluto's experience is like ceres's experience in the asteroid belt: planet, until the deluge of neighbors, then demotion. its happened before, its happening again. there's no claim to pluto's status except nostalgia. they got over it in the 1800s, you can get over it now

pluto was discovered in in 1930, and kicked out of the club in 2006. that's a nice 75 year run, 50% more time than ceres

the only thing you have going for your clinging to pluto is adherence to tradition. that's not a good reason to say everything and its uncle is a planet, just to preserve pluto's status. its far easier to lop off pluto, consider us to have 4 (rocky) +4 (gas) planets, and be done with it. everything else is dwarf planet/ comet/ asteroid/ etc.: detritus, flotsam and jetsam, left over rocks, of lower import than the main 8

simple, easy, case closed