Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Plutonian Landscape

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 15 Jan, 2021 | Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Institute

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: This shadowy landscape of majestic mountains and icy plains stretches toward the horizon on a small, distant world. It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers when New Horizons looked back toward Pluto, 15 minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The dramatic, low-angle, near-twilight scene follows rugged mountains formally known as Norgay Montes from foreground left, and Hillary Montes along the horizon, giving way to smooth Sputnik Planum at right. Layers of Pluto's tenuous atmosphere are also revealed in the backlit view. With a strangely familiar appearance, the frigid terrain likely includes ices of nitrogen and carbon monoxide with water-ice mountains rising up to 3,500 meters (11,000 feet). That's comparable in height to the majestic mountains of planet Earth. The Plutonian landscape is 380 kilometers (230 miles) across.

[MtnClimber]

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[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Are you dying to climb those mountains? You might need oxygen.

[Slyfox]

I like Pluto. I do not like the crapbags who demoted it.

[MtnClimber]

Yes, I would need oxygen for those mountains!

[blueunicorn6]

To me, it looks like a giant piece of pizza.

[SuperLuminal]

Looks like the border between Manchuria and Siberia...

[HighSierra5]

And an extra layer of thermals.

[BipolarBob]

I look wistfully at the landscape. Longing for the day i could travel to such a place to escape the crowds. I could easily see me in a Plutonian private lounge sipping bourbon and contemplating the collation of quantum theories combining Plancks length, Plancks mass and Plancks time to come up with up a directional wormhole to escort me effortlessly great distances without movement navigated by those using the spice melange.

[MtnClimber]

I bet New Horizons brought some cheeseburgers as a peace offering to the Plutonian.

[blueunicorn6]

Whaddya need all those planks for?

You building a dock or something?

[blueunicorn6]

Only if they had real American cheese on them.

Where is this Cheddar country anyway?

[BipolarBob]

No dock. A simple springboard over a fiery abyss for theoretical physicists to walk if they don’t get me in hyperjump mode to Pluto in a reasonable time.

[Spirochete]

Yes, I would need oxygen for those mountains!

Some of those mountains might be made of oxygen.

[JPG]

At an average temp of -380F, be sure to bundle up.

[LeoTDB69]

Wonder how the skiing is?

[left that other site]

Sure looks like a PLANET to me!

[StAnDeliver]

Dude, HAVOC should have every bit the support of Mars. Imagine sunning yourself under a Sun half again as large as it is on Earth. Gravity about 90% of Earth surface. And a much shorter there-and-back.

It is unreal we are not pushing this as hard as Mars surface.

[null and void]

Sun half the apparent size as from Erf.

38% of Erf’s gravity.