APOD: Geology on Pluto (2015 Jul 11)

[APOD Robot]

Geology on Pluto

Explanation: Pluto is coming into focus. As the robotic New Horizons spacecraft bears down on this unexplored world of the distant Solar System, new features on its surface are becoming evident. In the displayed image taken last Thursday and released yesterday, an unusual polygonal structure roughly 200 kilometers wide is visible on the left, while just below it relatively complex terrain runs diagonally across the dwarf planet. New Horizon's images and data on these structures will likely be studied for years to come in an effort to better understand the geologic history of Pluto and our Solar System. After suffering a troublesome glitch last week, New Horizons will make its historic flyby of Pluto and its moons on Tuesday.

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[ta152h0]

I was at the edge of my seat when Mr Armstrong came off the LEM and now I got to go thru this again ??? Do you know where in the wobble geometry NH is going to be above the surface ?

[BMAONE23]

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/news/na ... te=classic
Per this report it appears that NH will pass the area of the HEART at the Head of the Whale the same area depicted in many images
Roughly the same area as is imaged in this APOD http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150709.html

[peter radley]

PLUTO

We are coming to see you.
The ballet with your moons,
has no more time to rehearse.
Our world is curious.

We want to know all about you.
Like a distant cousin,
we have never met.
What will you think of us?

We are so rude to you.
After years as a planet,
you are now called a Dwarf.
No wonder you live so far away.

Alas, we will not be able to stay.
Not to chat, not to Tea.
Yes, a few pictures of course.
Then we must be speeding on, far far away.

•

peter radley

7.11.15

[Tszabeau]

"We are so rude to you.
After years as a planet,
you are now called a Dwarf.
No wonder you live so far away."

What is it about dwarves that offends you?

[Chris Peterson]

What is it about dwarves that offends you?

As a rule, "dwarves" are found in Tolkien, and "dwarfs" are little people.

[neufer]

• We are so rude to you.
  After years as a planet,
  you are now called a Dwarf.
  No wonder you live so far away.
  
  Alas, we will not be able to stay.
  Not to chat, not to Tea.
  Yes, a few pictures of course.
  Then we must be speeding on, far far away.

What is it about dwarves that offends you?

As a rule, "dwarves" are found in Tolkien, and "dwarfs" are little people.

• David Copperfield / Chapter 47

<<The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves nor houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank prison.>>

<<Modern English has two plurals for the word dwarf; dwarfs and dwarves. Dwarfs remains the most commonly employed plural. While recorded as early as 1818, the minority plural dwarves was popularized by the fiction of philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien, originating as a mistake (hypercorrection) and employed by Tolkien since some time before 1917. Regarding the plural, Tolkien wrote in 1937 that "I am afraid it is just a piece of private bad grammar, rather shocking in a philologist; but I shall have to go with it.".>>

<<The [traditional] representation of Dwarves as evil changed dramatically with The Hobbit. Here the Dwarves became occasionally comedic and bumbling, but largely seen as honorable, serious-minded, but still portraying some negative characteristics such as being gold-hungry, extremely proud and occasionally officious. Tolkien was now influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history. The dwarves' characteristics of being dispossessed of their homeland (the Lonely Mountain, their ancestral home, is the goal the exiled Dwarves seek to reclaim), and living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture are all derived from the medieval image of Jews, whilst their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible. Medieval views of Jews also saw them as having a propensity for making well-crafted and beautiful things. For The Hobbit almost all dwarf-names are taken from the Dvergatal or "Catalogue of the Dwarves", found in the Poetic Edda. The Dwarves' written language is represented on maps and in illustrations by Anglo-Saxon Runes. The Dwarven calendar invented for The Hobbit reflects the Jewish calendar in beginning in late autumn. The dwarves taking Bilbo out of his complacent existence has been seen as an eloquent metaphor for the "impoverishment of Western society without Jews."

• COSMO KRAMER: So, you're still master of your domain.
  
  JERRY SEINFELD: (Nodding) Yes. Yes I am.

<<S. Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957, in New Orleans, Louisiana) is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has become particularly involved in the debate surrounding the 2006 definition of planet by the IAU. After the IAU's decision was made he was quoted as saying "It's an awful definition; it's sloppy science and it would never pass peer review" and claimed that Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have not fully cleared their orbital zones and has stated in his capacity as PI of the New Horizons project that "The New Horizons project will not recognize the IAU's planet definition resolution of August 24, 2006."

[However,] a 2000 paper by Stern and Levison proposed a system of planet classification that included both the concepts of hydrostatic equilibrium and clearing the neighbourhood used in the new definition, with a proposed classification scheme labeling all sub-stellar objects in hydrostatic equilibrium as "planets" and subclassifying them into "überplanets" and "unterplanets" based on a mathematical analysis of the planet's ability to scatter other objects out of its orbit over a long period of time. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were classified as neighborhood-clearing "überplanets" and Pluto was classified as an "unterplanet". One could take this classification system as planet and dwarf planet respectively, with the major difference of the IAU definition classifying the two as distinct categories of celestial bodies instead of two subsets of planets.

Some large satellites are of similar size or larger than the planet Mercury, e.g. Jupiter's Galilean moons and Titan. Stern has argued that location should not matter and only geophysical attributes should be taken into account in the definition of a planet, and proposes the term satellite planet for a planet-sized object orbiting another planet. Likewise planet-sized objects in the asteroid belt or Kuiper belt should also be planets according to Stern. Others have used the neologism planemo (planetary-mass object) for the broad concept of "planet" advocated by Stern.>>

[starsurfer]

This is so excting! It's getting closer and closer until it'll be within our hearts! Also a nice song for everyone:

[chuckster]

Question : With a 248 yr orbit, a portion of which is interior to Neptune's, where is Pluto now, during this encounter, within that orbit ? We have launch windows for most planets (e.g. Mars' window is every two years), so was NH on a schedule to catch Pluto at its closest approach to the Sun , or did we just bite the bullet and catch it where we could, consistent with our ability to do so at all (tech+funding)in a reasonable amount of time ?

[Chris Peterson]

Question : With a 248 yr orbit, a portion of which is interior to Neptune's, where is Pluto now, during this encounter, within that orbit ?

Pluto is currently about 32 AU from the Earth. This is less than its maximum distance of 50 AU, less than its average distance of 41 AU, and not a lot more than its minimum distance of 29 AU.

We have launch windows for most planets (e.g. Mars' window is every two years), so was NH on a schedule to catch Pluto at its closest approach to the Sun , or did we just bite the bullet and catch it where we could, consistent with our ability to do so at all (tech+funding)in a reasonable amount of time ?

No consideration was given to its position, which is changing too slowly to really be relevant. The launch window may have been designed around the relative positions of Jupiter and Pluto, but this would still have been very wide. We were lucky that the mission coincides with a time when Pluto is relatively close, but I don't think things would have been done differently had Pluto been farther away. It would just have taken longer to get there.

[chuckster]

VERY interesting. And Thank You.

[ufox]

I can not believe this picture. Is it really the best quality the probe can provide? Why do we send up expensive probes that are unable to make clear images. The distance is more than enough to make good pictures, even with a standard digial camera. I've expected more and I'm a bit disappointed...

[neufer]

I can not believe this picture. Is it really the best quality the probe can provide?

No. The best quality the probe can provide will start to be shown on July 15.

But the quality today (July 12) is much better than it was in the July 11 APOD:

• http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-la ... -zoom.html

[rochelimit]

I can not believe this picture. Is it really the best quality the probe can provide? Why do we send up expensive probes that are unable to make clear images. The distance is more than enough to make good pictures, even with a standard digial camera. I've expected more and I'm a bit disappointed...

Why disappointed? it's not the best quality yet. The only thing you have to be disappointed with is that it's a flyby mission, but even that you have to applaud with because a flyby mission is a pioneering mission, which would provide more data for scientists to think about what to provide in the next following missions. Say thick atmosphere, they need a specific atmosphere detector; or Triton-like feature, they need a nitrogen, methane analyst; cyrovolcanoes, they need a geology-wave-detector. More studies are needed to create a second mission, and this first mission provide the data.

[rochelimit]

Those polygonal structure reminds me of Triton's palimpsest.

[APODFORIST]

[...]
But the quality today (July 12) is much better than it was in the July 11 APOD:

• http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-la ... -zoom.html

Wow! The last picture looks as interesting as Titan!

[Chris Peterson]

I can not believe this picture. Is it really the best quality the probe can provide? Why do we send up expensive probes that are unable to make clear images. The distance is more than enough to make good pictures, even with a standard digial camera. I've expected more and I'm a bit disappointed...

What is a "standard digial [sic] camera"?

The instrument here has a resolution of one arcsecond per pixel, and at the current distance the planet doesn't cover very many pixels. Standard cameras and lenses as used for typical photography do not provide this level of resolution.

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

But the quality today (July 12) is much better
than it was in the July 11 APOD:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-la ... -zoom.html

Wow! The last picture looks as interesting as Titan!

Triton would probably be more apt.

Voyage 2 passed within 40,000 km of 2707 km diameter Triton.
NH will pass within 12,500 km of 2368 km diameter Pluto.

[ta152h0]

I just hope NH doesn't have the original HUBBLE problem

[neufer]

I just hope NH doesn't have the original HUBBLE problem

They would have discovered that sort of problem a long time ago.

[Tszabeau]

What is it about dwarves that offends you?

As a rule, "dwarves" are found in Tolkien, and "dwarfs" are little people.

I feel so diminished.

[Chris Peterson]

I just hope NH doesn't have the original HUBBLE problem

They would have discovered that sort of problem a long time ago.

On the ground. Because it was feasible to completely test the simple 200 mm mirror (a typical amateur telescope optic) during production. The problem with the HST mirror went undetected because of the much greater difficulty in completely testing a 2.4 meter mirror, as well as the higher tolerances required, given its intrinsically higher resolution.

[WooferHound]

We don't like to be called Dwarf, We prefer "Little Planet" . . .

[Tszabeau]

We don't like to be called Dwarf, We prefer "Little Planet" . . .

https://youtu.be/lGx0KQr_2XI

[ta152h0]

Bet they are convoluting themselves over the " planet " designation now. I heard Mr Stern call it a planet last week, on the radio machine