APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

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Expand view Topic review: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by starsurfer » Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:25 pm

neufer wrote:

starsurfer wrote:
I'm so happy that we've been able to see how Pluto truly looks! I hope we get to see closeup images of Nix and Hydra and its other recently discovered moons.
Thanks for that Mister neufer dude! They look wonderful, I like Nix more than Hydra.

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by neufer » Fri Oct 23, 2015 2:49 pm


starsurfer wrote:
I'm so happy that we've been able to see how Pluto truly looks! I hope we get to see closeup images of Nix and Hydra and its other recently discovered moons.

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Charles Astro » Fri Sep 04, 2015 4:46 pm

Tszabeau wrote:Does anyone have an idea on how the spiral structures inside many of the craters formed? Like the larger crater at about 7:45. If you zoom-in there are like structures in some of the smaller ones too. I don't recall seeing that in craters elswhere.
A few of Pluto's craters seem to have been flooded with ice. The one you you are talking about, called Elliot Crater by the New Horizons team, appears to have a ringed structure. At the location of the crater the sun is at a low angle so the steepest slopes facing the sun catch it brightly. The outermost bright ring is the sun shining inside the crater's steep outer rim. This ring only goes half way around and the opposite side is in shadow. The next, somewhat wider, ring is ice that has flooded the bottom of the crater, probably the same ice as fills Sputnik Planum. This bright ring is interrupted by on the sunward side by the shadow of the crater rim. At the center, the crater's central peak appears to have a snow cap, although this is also probably simply due to the fact that the sunward face of the peak is also brightly illuminated due to the low sun angle.

--------------------------
My Pluto Geology Interpretation Blog
http://charlesastro.wordpress.com

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by neufer » Tue Sep 01, 2015 8:37 pm

neufer wrote:
Chris Peterson wrote:
hoohaw wrote:
Should we call the smaller ones "half-asteroids" ?
Hemiroids?
  • Not to be confused with ephemeral "Themiroids" like 171 Ophelia.
Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:
Ah ha. Now I know where Them came from. :?:

It wasn't the radiation after all. :no:
  • And Them were, in fact, immune to cyanogen/cyanide gas!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/goofs?ref_=tttrv_ql_2 wrote:
Them! (1954) Goofs: <<The ants are destroyed in the original nest using cyanide (HCN) gas. HCN works by attacking hemoglobin and changing it into cyanohemaglobin, which holds tightly to oxygen and won't release it to tissues. [However,] insects have no hemoglobin, so they would be immune to HCN.>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley's_Comet wrote:
<<The 1910 approach [of Halley's Comet] was notable for several reasons: it was the first approach of which photographs exist, and the first for which spectroscopic data were obtained. Furthermore, the comet made a relatively close approach of 0.15 AU, making it a spectacular sight. Indeed, on 19 May, Earth actually passed through the tail of the comet. One of the substances discovered in the tail by spectroscopic analysis was the toxic gas cyanogen [(CN)2], Like other inorganic cyanides, cyanogen is very toxic, as it readily undergoes reduction to cyanide, which poisons the cytochrome c oxidase complex, thus interrupting the mitochondrial electron transfer chain. Astronomer Camille Flammarion to claim that, when Earth passed through the tail, the gas "would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet." His pronouncement led to panicked buying of gas masks and quack "anti-comet pills" and "anti-comet umbrellas" by the public. In reality, as other astronomers were quick to point out, the gas is so diffuse that the world suffered no ill effects from the passage through the tail.

The comet added to the unrest in China on the eve of Xinhai Revolution that would end the last dynasty in 1911. As James Hutson, a missionary in Sichuan Province at the time, recorded,
  • "The people believe that it indicates calamity such as war, fire, pestilence, and a change of dynasty. In some places on certain days the doors were unopened for half a day, no water was carried and many did not even drink water as it was rumoured that pestilential vapour was being poured down upon the earth from the comet."
The comet was also fertile ground for hoaxes. One that reached major newspapers claimed that the Sacred Followers, a supposed Oklahoma religious group, attempted to sacrifice a virgin to ward off the impending disaster, but were stopped by the police.>>

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:59 pm

ks8661 wrote:Would it be interesting to see a rotating Pluto?
Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:23 pm

neufer wrote:
Chris Peterson wrote:
hoohaw wrote:
Should we call the smaller ones "half-asteroids" ?
Hemiroids?
  • Not to be confused with ephemeral "Themiroids" like 171 Ophelia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themis_family wrote:
<<The Themis or Themistian asteroid family is a Hirayama found in the outer portion of the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. At a mean distance of 3.13 AU from the Sun, it is one of the more populous asteroid families. It consists of a well-defined core of larger asteroids and a surrounding region of smaller ones. This core group includes (and is named after) the asteroid 24 Themis, discovered on April 5, 1853 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. The Themis family is one of the largest and longest-recognized dynamical families of asteroids, and is made up of C-type asteroids with a composition believed to be similar to that of carbonaceous chondrites. To date, the Themis family comprises approximately 535 known asteroids.>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/171_Ophelia wrote:
<<171 Ophelia is a large, dark ["Themiroid"] that was discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly on January 13, 1877, and named after Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
  • Ophelia is also the name of a moon of Uranus.
A 1979 study of the Algol-like light curve produced by this asteroid concluded that it was possible to model the brightness variation by assuming a binary system with a circular orbit, a period of 13.146 hours, and an inclination of 15° to the line of sight from the Earth. Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Leura Observatory in Leura, Australia during 2006 gave a rotation period of 6.6666 ± 0.0002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.50 ± 0.02 in magnitude.>>
Ah ha. Now I know where Them came from. :?:

It wasn't the radiation after all. :no:

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by neufer » Tue Sep 01, 2015 5:35 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
hoohaw wrote:
Should we call the smaller ones "half-asteroids" ?
Hemiroids?
  • Not to be confused with ephemeral "Themiroids" like 171 Ophelia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themis_family wrote:
<<The Themis or Themistian asteroid family is a Hirayama found in the outer portion of the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. At a mean distance of 3.13 AU from the Sun, it is one of the more populous asteroid families. It consists of a well-defined core of larger asteroids and a surrounding region of smaller ones. This core group includes (and is named after) the asteroid 24 Themis, discovered on April 5, 1853 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. The Themis family is one of the largest and longest-recognized dynamical families of asteroids, and is made up of C-type asteroids with a composition believed to be similar to that of carbonaceous chondrites. To date, the Themis family comprises approximately 535 known asteroids.>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/171_Ophelia wrote:
<<171 Ophelia is a large, dark ["Themiroid"] that was discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly on January 13, 1877, and named after Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
  • Ophelia is also the name of a moon of Uranus.
A 1979 study of the Algol-like light curve produced by this asteroid concluded that it was possible to model the brightness variation by assuming a binary system with a circular orbit, a period of 13.146 hours, and an inclination of 15° to the line of sight from the Earth. Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Leura Observatory in Leura, Australia during 2006 gave a rotation period of 6.6666 ± 0.0002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.50 ± 0.02 in magnitude.>>

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Chris Peterson » Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:28 pm

hoohaw wrote:Should we call the smaller ones "half-asteroids" ?
Hemiroids?

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Asterhole » Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:24 pm

hoohaw wrote:
Boomer12k wrote:
Solar wrote:Pluto is not the ninth planet. That’s Pallas:
But as with Pluto, they were RE-classified, and are considered asteroids...especially when considering how far out of the Ecliptic Plane that it is...there are no missions that are planned to go there for this reason, as the energy required it too great.
:---[===] *
Should we call the smaller ones "half-asteroids" ?
I LIKE IT!

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by MarkBour » Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:00 am

The Disney character Pluto understands how it feels to be demoted. Initially considered for a leading role, he was eventually relegated to second class status, being cast inexplicably as a pet of a mouse (!?)

On a more serious note, there's a lovely page at: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Participate/lea ... Atmosphere . Based on this information, I am persuaded that the nitrogen ice of Tombaugh Regio ("the dog in the dwarf") is potentially quite thick, like a major ice sheet on Earth would be, though it probably does not move glacially. Some of the mountains of Hillary Montes may be taller than what we can see, if measured from their true base which might be below thick ice. And the large crater feature mentioned above, Elliott crater, (for which a decent name might have been "the eye of Cthulhu") is interesting, because its shape may have made it a favored location for nitrogen ice condensation, and I think I can see a rather thick deposit of said ice within it, which is giving it the dark-light-dark appearance between the rim, the ice, and the crater's central peak.
PlutoOnPluto.png
We could put an end to the debate over Pluto's status by knocking it into a more elliptical orbit, so it came in close to the Sun. Based on the material there, I'm thinking it would be the comet to end all comets.

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Nitpicker » Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:30 am

If I ruled the universe, anything that isn't a star, and is otherwise massive enough to be roundish (i.e. in hydrostatic equilibrium) would be called a planet. I'd love it if the Earth and the Moon were considered twin planets. And all the other moons orbiting other planets would still be called moons, too, whether or not they are large enough to also be called planets.

(Then comes the difficulty of deciding when a planet becomes a star, or when a planet is not round enough. But still less problematic than the current definitions.)

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by BMAONE23 » Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:01 am

Perhaps Minorroids or Asterettes or Asteressimals

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by hoohaw » Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:05 am

Boomer12k wrote:
Solar wrote:Pluto is not the ninth planet. That’s Pallas:
But as with Pluto, they were RE-classified, and are considered asteroids...especially when considering how far out of the Ecliptic Plane that it is...there are no missions that are planned to go there for this reason, as the energy required it too great.
:---[===] *
Should we call the smaller ones "half-asteroids" ?

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by hoohaw » Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:00 am

ks8661 wrote:Would it be interesting to see a rotating Pluto?
what I found on Wikipedia: "Charon and Pluto orbit each other every 6.387 days. The two objects are gravitationally locked to one another, so each keeps the same face towards the other. This is a case of mutual tidal locking, as compared to that of the Earth and the Moon, where the Moon always shows the same face to Earth, but not vice versa. The average distance between Charon and Pluto is 19,570 kilometres (12,160 mi)."

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Ann » Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:19 pm

Pluto's geology is so interesting. I really, really wonder how Sputnik Planum got so smooth and at the same time so amazingly, regularly segmented. And then all the rest of Pluto is more or less cratered and craggly. Fascinating!

Should we rename all the moderately large bodies in the solar system planets? I wonder where we draw the line. And I can imagine humanity really exploring the 51 Pegasi system, and reporting home that one million, nine thousand, two hundred and thirty-four planets have been discovered orbiting 51 Pegasi, and now we just need to name them...

Ann

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by orin stepanek » Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:43 pm

I really liked today's APOD; I hope I can fit it as a background! It may not have enough space to fill my screen! :shock:

I had to crop the top & bottom off of it; but I made it work. :wink:

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by ks8661 » Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:46 pm

Would it be interesting to see a rotating Pluto?

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by neufer » Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:36 pm

ta152h0 wrote:
keep the cameras rolling as the beast blasts thru the KBO zone.

Might see something unexpected, like a big blob

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob wrote:
<<The Blob (a.k.a. The Molten Meteor) is an independently made, 1958 De Luxe color, American horror/science fiction film directed by Irvin Yeaworth. In the style of American International Pictures, Paramount Pictures released the film as a double feature with I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

The film stars a 27-year-old Steve McQueen in his debut leading role as a teenager, and Aneta Corsaut, as his co-star. The plot depicts a growing corrosive alien amoeba that crashes from outer space in a meteorite and eats and dissolves citizens in the small community of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. When the diner is set ablaze the manager uses a CO2 fire extinguisher on the fire. Steve notices that this causes the Blob to recoil, then remembers that the creature also retreated from the freezer. Shouting in hopes of being picked up on the open phone line, Steve manages to tell Dave about the Blob's vulnerability to cold. Jane's father, Mr. Martin (Elbert Smith), knows there are 20 such extinguishers at the school, and leads Steve's friends to the high school to retrieve them. Returning, the brigade of extinguisher-armed students and police first drive the Blob away from the diner, then freeze it, saving Steve, Jane and the others.

Dave requests an Air Force heavy-lift cargo aircraft to transport the Blob to the Arctic, where it is parachuted to the ice.The origin of The Blob is never identified, and the film ends with a question mark.>>

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by ta152h0 » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:44 pm

keep the cameras rolling as the beast blasts thru the KBO zone. Might see something unexpected, like a big blob

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Boomer12k » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:23 pm

Solar wrote:Pluto is not the ninth planet. That’s Pallas:

7) Uranus 1781
8) Ceres 1801
9) Pallas 1802
10) Juno 1804
11) Vesta 1807
12) Astraea 1845
13) Neptune 1846
14) Hebe 1847


Pluto is way, way down the list! ;-)

Remember, these are all planets, objects that orbit the Sun. It’s just a question of whether they are major, dwarf, or minor.
But as with Pluto, they were RE-classified, and are considered asteroids...especially when considering how far out of the Ecliptic Plane that it is...there are no missions that are planned to go there for this reason, as the energy required it too great.

:---[===] *

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Boomer12k » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:13 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Tszabeau wrote:Does anyone have an idea on how the spiral structures inside many of the craters formed? Like the larger crater at about 7:45. If you zoom-in there are like structures in some of the smaller ones too. I don't recall seeing that in craters elswhere.
I don't see spiral structure, although I do see something that could be confused for that. What I see is a complex crater with sloped walls, a flat annular base, and a central peak. It's shadowed in a way that creates an illusion of a spiral. But I think it's just that- an illusion. I don't see any craters in this image that have what I'd call spiral structures in them.
I agree....Concentric Circles...like a target, but not really "spirals", an inward twisting. Many of the craters do not have the lighter material...Ice? Snow? Whatever. But the one larger crater with the gashes to the left of it....DOES somewhat have a suggestion of spiral...but I think it is not a complete spiral.

anyway....this is an awesomely more detailed, and sharp composite image. Amazing. And fun to speculate and even "see" things.

The Valentine Planet...not Hades at all....
:---[===] *

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by Solar » Mon Aug 31, 2015 6:55 pm

Pluto is not the ninth planet. That’s Pallas:

7) Uranus 1781
8) Ceres 1801
9) Pallas 1802
10) Juno 1804
11) Vesta 1807
12) Astraea 1845
13) Neptune 1846
14) Hebe 1847


Pluto is way, way down the list! ;-)

Remember, these are all planets, objects that orbit the Sun. It’s just a question of whether they are major, dwarf, or minor.

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by bystander » Mon Aug 31, 2015 6:37 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
bystander wrote:Should we also re-add Ceres? It was a planet before Pluto (as were Pallas, Juno, and Vesta). How about Eris, Makemake, Haumea, Quaoar, Sedna ...
Yup. All of them.

I'm not sure Juno qualifies. Pallas and Vesta are questionable (and possibly Hygiea). Ceres is deserving, as is Charon and other TNOs.

Re: Asteroid 2014 MU69

by Solar » Mon Aug 31, 2015 6:31 pm

I see that you all are avoiding the term “Kuiper Belt Object” for 2014 MU69, calling it simply an asteroid, which I know emphasizes the expectation that they are not fundamentally different from “Asteroid Belt Objects”. However, I’ve always preferred the term “icy asteroid” to distinguish them in an obvious and simple way.

Re: APOD: Pluto in Enhanced Color (2015 Aug 31)

by geckzilla » Mon Aug 31, 2015 5:40 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
bystander wrote:Should we also re-add Ceres? It was a planet before Pluto (as were Pallas, Juno, and Vesta). How about Eris, Makemake, Haumea, Quaoar, Sedna ...
Yup. All of them.
Titan For Planethood

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