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NASA Probe Reveals More Detail In Pluto's Complex Surface
astroengine writes: As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft careens through the solar system with Pluto in its cross-hairs, new detail in the dwarf planet's surface is popping into view at an ever increasing rate. Any images acquired from here on in are the most detailed images humanity has ever seen of Pluto and, a little over a month from its historic flyby, New Horizons is already giving us tantalizing glimpses of what appears to be a rich and complex little world. Take, for example, this most recent series of observations captured by the mission's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), which were taken from May 29 to June 2. There appears to be large variations in surface albedo (reflectiveness), possibly indicating there are huge regions of varying composition.
First "yes it's a planet" post.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As happy as I am to see such amazing photos and time-lapse video, I immediately noticed a crater at the south pole which NASA are going to be surprised about. With a raised centre. Curious, but nothing we haven't seen on other moons and planets on the inner solar system.
What's clear to me, is we've not no idea how planets or moons are formed, and the standard model doesn't really cut the mustard, hence, why we're still exploring, and still surprised at every turn.
If Pluto had been whacked soo many times by asteroids (south pole, 90 degree impact?) wouldn't you expect its rotation to be tumbling all over the 3 axis? The time lapse looks like a regular rotation to me.
The mission costs south of $50m per year for 15 years; for comparison, the US social security budget is on the order of $1t, or $1,000,000m. You lose more money for food, housing, and medical treatment due to rounding errors.
"We do these things, and the other things, not because they're easy, but because they're hard!"
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Yeah because welfare recipients are so rich they will take that dollar and shove it under their mattress forever, never spending it.
Nah, that was lost but the Nibiruans will have more to hand over during Nibiru's next perihelion.
Why don't we do world peace?
That statement of Kennedy's sounds great at first, but it's so vacuous. You can use it to apply to any project whatsoever, no matter how ridiculous it is.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Busy with the other things.
Just newtonian physics. If it were to get captured by Plutonian gravity to enter the orbit it would have to travel much slower - and that would mean it would have taken forever for it to get there.
Just as a curiosity, more than once I installed Celestia. It is interesting but the navigation is so crap, but so crap I quit shortly after.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Wow talking about buying into a fool's dilemma.
You can spend money on feeding those that can not feed themselves and explore the universe.
In fact I would say that a good society spends on both.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
9 years ago I typed my name in to the JPL website (I think it was JPL) along with 434737 others, these were added to a CD and attached to the probe. Kind of cool thinking a few bits of all that data are mine. Even if it's just a fly by, it's still pretty awesome. Unless future humans venture out after it, it's never coming back our way, for me this seems just as worthwhile as if it had fuel enough to slow down and place itself in orbit.
http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/blogs/dnews-files-2015-06-pluto-sharpens-670x440-150611-jpg.jpg
As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft careens through the solar system [...]
If the spacecraft is careening though solar system, did the engineers mixed up their metric and standard formulas again?
This guy named Hitler tried, but no one wanted his kind of peace. As long as people/countries get to make their own decisions, there will never be world peace. When I can force you to stop fighting your neighbor over the lawnmower, then there will be peace.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
https://www.google.com/search?...
I'm not entirely sure of what the AC is speaking...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Hahahaha no, no... This one. Is a very interesting application but the mouse navigation is a real pain to use, almost useless.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
... welcome our new Plutonian overlords..
Why don't we do world peace?
We do. It's all the malcontents out there that won't go with the program.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
No, it's because when the Pluto probe engineer spends her dollar,...
You describe the multiplier effect of money. Research has shown that the largest multiplier effect of different types of government spending comes from: food stamps. That money that gets spent at local stores, and on perishable goods that are harder to import is more likely to get spent on again within the country. Give more well off people money (e.g. through employment or tax breaks), and they are more likely to spend it on things like electronics, and some to most of that money goes overseas, and out of the US economy.
If you turn javascript off on discovery.com (there are about 3 dozen(!) embedded sites; the list even scrolls off the NoScript screen), not only does the page load about 20 times faster, as a bonus you get the entire slideshow on one page and don't have to mindlessly click through one picture at at time.
What makes me laugh is the context of Kennedy's remark there - one of "the other things" is referring to a previous sentence in the speech where he's asking why Rice plays Texas in college football, knowing that they will be creamed every year.
Context:
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Most people die, prior to 67.
No, they don't. (National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 63 No 7, November 6 2014).
Over half of Americans will not only collect SS, they will do so for longer than a decade.
Or, they could have greatly increased the mass of the probe to include reaction mass and a thruster to slow down and capture into orbit... but that would have then required a far bigger lifter to get it off Earth to begin with, etc.
Plus you're doing it all on automation because Pluto is ~5.4 light-hours away...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.