New Horizons' First Ultra High Resolution Photos of Pluto Released

StartsWithABang writes: After a 9 year journey to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto this past July, taking so much data that it will take a full 16 months to send it all back. The first of the highest resolution photos ever taken were released by NASA earlier today, and before the data has even been scientifically analyzed, a visual inspection teaches us a number of things about its sedimentary history, its active geology and its transient, eroding mountainous terrain. Perhaps the best part: Pluto is the prototype for the most common type of world in the Universe, even though it's not a planet anymore.

Comments

Commonality and heat pumps

[Tablizer]

Pluto is the prototype for the most common type of world in the Universe

It may be true that Kuiper-belt-like objects are the most common kind, but Pluto is probably unique in that it comes relatively close to the sun, and the temporary heat is likely what causes the "pumping action" that shapes Pluto's dynamic geology. Bodies further out may not get enough energy from the sun to drive similar processes.

But being we've only seen one so far*, we can only speculate. Although other large Kuiper bodies are (on average) further away, they may still come close enough on occasion for some of the same heat/cold pump cycling action.

Eris is a possible example. It comes about as close as Pluto does but swings further away. It would be interesting to see how a wider temperature range shapes it.

* Some moons of the gas giants may be from the Kuiper belt, but being close to a large planet shapes them in ways that makes it difficult to know what they originally were like.

Re:Commonality and heat pumps

[Rei]

There's also the possibility of much larger objects further out - we're not very good at detecting objects in our solar system at 100+ AU. WISE effectively ruled out Jupiter and Saturn sized bodies a good way out toward the Oort Cloud, but there could be Mars-sized bodies as near as 100-200 AU and Earth-sized bodies as near as a few hundred AU, and potentially Uranus/Neptune sized bodies further than that.

I really look forward to the LSST coming online in a few years - the number of discoveries it should make should be incredible. :) Its not the largest telescope under construction but it's designed to be a data flood - its 3,2 gigapixel camera will produce up to 30 TB of data per night. Virtually anything of significant size that moves in the solar system, it's going to see it. It's expected to, for example, detect 100% of all KBOs larger than 100km, whereas we only know of an estimated 1% of them today.