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. Credits: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI
Posted on 07/15/2015 5:14:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Scientists leading NASA’s historic New Horizons mission to the Pluto system announced the first of what is certain to be a tidal wave of new discoveries, including the totally unexpected finding of young ice mountains at Pluto and crispy clear views of young fractures on its largest moon Charon, at a NASA media briefing today (July 15) at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.
A treasure trove of long awaited data has begun streaming back to Mission Control at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to the mouth watering delight of researchers and NASA.
With the first ever flyby of Pluto, America completed the initial up close reconnaissance of the planets in our solar system. Pluto was the last unexplored planet, building on missions that exactly started 50 years ago in 1965 when Mariner IV flew past Mars.
“Pluto New Horizons is a true mission of exploration showing us why basic scientific research is so important,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
“The mission has had nine years to build expectations about what we would see during closest approach to Pluto and Charon. Today, we get the first sampling of the scientific treasure collected during those critical moments, and I can tell you it dramatically surpasses those high expectations.”
Today the team announced that New Horizons has already made a totally unexpected discovery showing clear evidence of ice mountains on Pluto’s surface in the bright area informally known as the ‘big heart of Pluto.’
The new close-up image released today showed an icy mountain range near the base of the heart with peaks jutting as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface, announced John Spencer, New Horizons science team co-investigator at the media briefing.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
ping
An awesome time to be alive and be a lover of space
I am happy to have been alive when these new discoveries seemed like they were advancing the knowledge of humanity...Lately, though, it is beginning to look like wasted money.
Not so much that the money was wasted, just that humanity has.
How exactly are they defining “youthful”?
Where are all the photos?
Look like ice crystals sticking to a ice cube.
It it mind-blowing to think that Pluto may be geologically active enough to have produced that type of landscape.
The question is how. Does it’s system of moons really exert tidal forces strong enough to cause interior heat? Or is it seriously possible that it has a heated core?
And this just came to me. One theory is that Pluto used to be a moon of Neptune. It may very well have been one until very recently to produce those features through tidal forces from Neptune. At some point it then got knocked off into its present orbit.
I wish NASA had the welfare budget of some states. (and leadership interested in real space exploration)
New Horizons, launched in 2006 when NASA’s mission was still space exploration.
“Crispy Young Chasms”
Sounds like another name for Cheese Puffs =)
Amazing - Thank you God to be born at a time to marvel your creation.
Ok that large brown spot looks like North America LOL
This was discussed at the nasa presser today and the short answer is no. They were pretty excited about that, too. I think you can watch it in repeat at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/.
Remember, Direct from Pluto on the science channel tonight at 10 eastern.
#7. Anything younger than Nancy Pelosi is “youthful”.
"As well"? The discovery is that neither one is smooth!
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