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Youthful Frozen Plains Cover Pluto’s Big ‘Heart’ – Spectacular New Images from New Horizons
universetoady.com ^ | on July 17, 2015 | Ken Kremer

Posted on 07/17/2015 2:00:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin

A vast, craterless plain of Plutonian ice no more than 100 million years old and centered amidst Pluto’s big ‘heart’ was unveiled in spectacular new imagery taken by NASA’s resounding successful New Horizons mission, during its history making rapid transit through the Pluto-Charon binary planet system barely three days ago, on Tuesday, July 14.

The jaw dropping new imagery was publicly released today, July 17, by NASA and scientists leading the New Horizons mission during a media briefing, and has already resulted in ground breaking new scientific discoveries at the last planet in our solar system to be visited by a spacecraft from Earth.

...

“Over 50 gigabits of data were collected during the encounter and flyby periods,” New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, said during the media briefing.

“So far less than 1 gigabit of data has been returned.”

It will take some 16 months for all the Pluto flyby data to be transmitted back to Earth.

(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; charon; deusexmachina; newhorizons; pluto
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This annotated view of a portion of Pluto’s Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), named for Earth’s first artificial satellite, shows an array of enigmatic features. The surface appears to be divided into irregularly shaped segments that are ringed by narrow troughs, some of which contain darker materials. Features that appear to be groups of mounds and fields of small pits are also visible. This image was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
1 posted on 07/17/2015 2:00:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

Oooh! It looks like a brain!


2 posted on 07/17/2015 2:02:16 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a Doctor and I won't touch that thing!)
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To: BenLurkin
“So far less than 1 gigabit of data has been returned.”
It will take some 16 months for all the Pluto flyby data to be transmitted back to Earth.


They must be using the same network I'm using.

3 posted on 07/17/2015 2:07:16 PM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: BenLurkin

Planetary geologist are going to be on cloud nine for years.

Makes me want to get back into it.


4 posted on 07/17/2015 2:08:25 PM PDT by VanDeKoik
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To: BenLurkin

“Dark Material Within Troughs”? Alien latrines??


5 posted on 07/17/2015 2:08:49 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

This looks like tundra landscape where ice wedges tend to form in hexagonal or other polygon patterns.


6 posted on 07/17/2015 2:10:46 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Pluto better watch out for zombie planets...


7 posted on 07/17/2015 2:13:04 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: BitWielder1

That’s funny but there actually is a reason—power.

The work is too far from the sun to use solar panels—not enough sun light.

So it has a small plutonium (—which is, I suppose, just the right element to power a probe to Pluto!—) reactor on it, but it can only consistently generate about 200 watts at any given time!

So they’re using the low and slow transmission to get the bits back to us ‘cause their modem is lo-po!


8 posted on 07/17/2015 2:14:19 PM PDT by Alas Babylon! (As we say in the Air Force, "You know you're over the target when you start getting flak!")
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To: centurion316
Or kind of like dry lake beds, where the ground cracks as it dries out and shrinks:


9 posted on 07/17/2015 2:16:36 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Slow pygmies.


10 posted on 07/17/2015 2:17:15 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Alas Babylon!

Like 300 baud?


11 posted on 07/17/2015 2:18:29 PM PDT by AlmaKing (It's Beer Thirty Somewhere)
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To: SunkenCiv

Good stuff ping.


12 posted on 07/17/2015 2:18:45 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: BenLurkin

The photos we’ve seen so far are still from a long way out.


13 posted on 07/17/2015 2:23:43 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Sad fact, most people just want a candidate to tell them what they want to hear)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

God is great! i love the “heart.” and ice sheet? as in water?


14 posted on 07/17/2015 2:25:33 PM PDT by dadfly
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Pluto has flea bites and eczema.


15 posted on 07/17/2015 2:31:26 PM PDT by outofsalt ( If history teaches us anything it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
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To: BenLurkin

16 posted on 07/17/2015 2:34:10 PM PDT by JPG (What's the difference between the Rats and the GOPe? Nothing.)
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To: cripplecreek

Close in photos have to be photoshopped first to cover up Disney copyrighted features.


17 posted on 07/17/2015 2:34:36 PM PDT by Seruzawa (All those memories will be lost,in time, like tears in rain.)
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To: Boogieman

They used that example in the article.


18 posted on 07/17/2015 2:35:24 PM PDT by Sawdring
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To: Boogieman

That’s a very good observation, but dry lake beds tends to be asymmetrical, whereas the arctic landforms are much more symmetrical. Of course, we are talking about a completely environment than has ever been present on our planet.

Dry lakes present their appearance on the shrinking of the surface material, wheres the tundra landscape occurs from an expansion of surface and just sub-surface features by expansion of ice wedges formation.

My boat is so small and the ocean is so great. We are so ignorant, aren’t we.


19 posted on 07/17/2015 2:37:29 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: BenLurkin


20 posted on 07/17/2015 2:39:07 PM PDT by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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