Posted on 12/15/2015 1:22:06 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: What do the sharpest views ever of Pluto show? As the robotic New Horizons spacecraft moves into the outer Solar System, it is now sending back some of the highest resolution images from its historic encounter with Pluto in July. Featured here is one recently-received, high-resolution image. On the left is al-Idrisi Montes, mountainous highlands thought composed primarily of blocks of water ice. A sharp transitional shoreline leads to the ice plains, on the right, that compose part of the heart-shaped feature known as Sputnik Planum, which contains ices including solid nitrogen. Why the plains are textured with ice pits and segmented is currently unknown. The image was taken about 15 minutes before closest approach and shows an area about 30 kilometers across. The New Horizons spacecraft is next scheduled to fly past Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU 69 on New Year's Day 2019.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
Ceres & Pluto Update - SpacePod 12/11/15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfAzskjZCYY
Actually, the astronauts are not 'weightless'; it only appears that way when, in fact, they are 'falling' around the earth due to gravity.
So you are saying if they were stationary, like a com satellite, they wouldn’t be weightless?
The al-Idrisi mountains are named for the late Islamic Golden Age geographer, Mohammed Al-Idrisi (1099-1165) who is most famous for the maps he created while a member of the court of the Christian & Norman King Roger II of Sicily. The map/book was a compilation of Islamic mariner and merchant reports, in Latin "Opus Geographicum" and "Tabula Rogeriana".
It detailed accurately the lands and seas from Europe to the East Indies and a Eurasia and N.Africa map was inscribed on a solid silver disc (2 meter diameter) as a presentation for King Roger. While the disc did not survive long, at least 10 copies of the manuscript have.
Com satellites are not stationary they are in geosynchronous orbit.
That’s what I meant,
From this NASA website, talking about 'microgravity';
If you drop an apple on Earth, it falls at 1g. If an astronaut on the space station drops an apple, it falls too. It just doesn't look like it's falling. That's because they're all falling together: the apple, the astronaut and the station. But they're not falling towards Earth, they're falling around it. Because they're all falling at the same rate, objects inside of the station appear to float in a state we call "zero gravity" (0g), or more accurately microgravity (1x10-6 g.)
“In before morons that will go “Looks like a planet†without realizing they’re conferring the same status on nearly a dozen other objects.”
In after some moron thinks counting to a dozen is difficult and should be avoided.
“how come the earths gravitational pull, being about 50 times greater have no effect on the moon.”
Says who?
“So you are saying if they were stationary, like a com satellite, they wouldn’t be weightless?”
They are far from stationary. The station keeping they do requires fuel and is the primary reason they have a short lifespan.
Being “in orbit” means perfectly balancing the speed at which something is falling so that it remains at a constant altitude (depending on the type of orbit...). Any faster and you fly off into space. Any slower and you fall to the Earth. You are subject to earth’s gravity and are always falling....but you are going so fast that you miss the earth (constantly).
Thanks SES1066.
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