Posted on 09/10/2015 4:51:27 PM PDT by lbryce
NASA just released the latest photos of Pluto, and they reveal more complex features and diversity on the surface than scientists could have ever hoped to imagine.
Here's one of the newest photos that shows the heart-shaped feature, informally named Tombaugh Regio, in the upper-right portion of the dwarf planet:
The dwarf planet Pluto might be 4.6 billion miles from Earth, but last July NASA flew its New Horizons spacecraft to get a better look at just 7,800 miles above the Plutonian surface — about 500,000 times closer than Earth. And some of the first photos it snapped and transmitted to Earth told a mysterious tale of this icy world that still has scientists scratching their heads. Mountains of water ice and nitrogen snow are just a couple of the perplexing possibilities on Pluto.
Now, New Horizons has sent back some of the most detailed photos yet of Pluto's surface that have doubled the amount that we can see in super-fine detail.
"Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we've seen in the solar system," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern in a NASA statement. "If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that's what is actually there."
These latest shots reveal the most heavily cratered portion of Pluto ever seen. Because other features on Pluto are surprisingly smooth — which suggests a younger surface smoothed over time by geological activity — this heavily cratered region is the oldest region of Pluto observed so far, NASA said.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Hmm, for some reason, I am reminded of this analysis of Pluto from a few weeks ago:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pluto.png
The primary disqualifying criteria for these things that are apparently everywhere on the outer solar system (and one of which we know to be larger than Pluto), is that it must be able to clear its orbit of objects.
...
Which is an arbitrary test, that most planetary scientists disagree with. Pluto was downgraded by a very sneaky process that would make the crooks in DC jealous.
Oh please, it had to happen. Or we’re going to end up with a hundred planets once we get the Kuiper Belt properly mapped.
Or we’re going to end up with a hundred planets once we get the Kuiper Belt properly mapped.
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No we wouldn’t. It all depends on the definitions and those are arbitrary.
i think “height challenged planet” is the correct term. ;)
remember, you must always use politically correct language these days, so as to avoid committing a microaggression... much like the muslim French terrorist who came from North Africa in the Charlie Hebdo attack was referred to as an “African American” on TV here in the states.
still smdh at the absurdity of that last one.
:O) HA HA!
Thanks lbryce, will ping later to APoD.
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