Starship Asterisk*

NASA Television will air media briefings at 1 p.m. EDT and 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 14, to discuss plans and related upcoming activities about the agency’s historic New Horizons spacecraft flyby of Pluto this summer.

The two briefing event, which is open to the public, will take place in the Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW in Washington.

Briefers will describe the mission’s goals, scientific objectives and encounter plans, including the types of images and other data that can be expected and when.

New Horizons will fly past Pluto on July 14. The spacecraft already has covered more than 3 billion miles since it launched on January 19, 2006. It will pass Pluto at a speed of 31,000 mph taking thousands of images and making a wide range of other science observations. Given the distance between Pluto and Earth, data from the spacecraft during the encounter will take approximately 4.5 hours to reach our planet. ...

Beyond wrote:You draw good!!

neufer wrote:

luxorion wrote:

A general view of Pluto, Charon and New Horizons
...

Do you realize that Charon is over
half the (linear) size of Pluto?
Pluto radius = 1170 km
Charon radius = 603 km

luxorion wrote:

neufer wrote:
Do you realize that Charon is over
half the (linear) size of Pluto?

• Pluto radius = 1170 km
  Charon radius = 603 km

Yes, but the apparent size depends on many factors, the first being the distance at which are both bodies from the camera.

But if you insist I can make Charon larger

Thanks!

THX1138 wrote:
<<The most recent pictures seem to hint colors real close to the that which you have used ( BTW, awesome artwork )
and i really hope to see a colorful Pluto upon arrival, that is to say i won't be disappointed by pictures of a frozen Ice ball, I'd just rather pluto have a colorful rocky surface, flowing rivers of methane, mountain peaks of white or clear frozen methane.>>

• Possibly a little more pinkish as with Triton? =>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#Appearance_and_surface wrote:
<<Spectroscopic analysis of Pluto's surface reveals it to be composed of more than 98 percent nitrogen ice, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide. The face of Pluto oriented toward Charon contains more methane ice, whereas the opposite face contains more nitrogen and carbon monoxide ice.

Pluto is one of the most contrastive bodies in the Solar System, with as much contrast as Saturn's moon Iapetus. The color varies between charcoal black, dark orange and white: Buie et al. term it "significantly less red than Mars and much more similar to the hues seen on Io with a slightly more orange cast".>>

For the first time, images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft are revealing bright and dark regions on the surface of faraway Pluto – the primary target of the New Horizons close flyby in mid-July.

The images were captured in early to mid-April from within 70 million miles (113 million kilometers), using the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera on New Horizons. A technique called image deconvolution sharpens the raw, unprocessed images beamed back to Earth. New Horizons scientists interpreted the data to reveal the dwarf planet has broad surface markings – some bright, some dark – including a bright area at one pole that may be a polar cap.

BMAONE23 wrote:And one lump in particular seems to always be pointing away from Charon

Chris Peterson wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:And one lump in particular seems to always be pointing away from Charon

This binary planet system is tidally locked- Pluto to Charon, Charon to Pluto. So what we see here is to be expected.

BMAONE23 wrote:There also appears to be another, not quite so bright spot, directly beneath Charon. The physical location of the spots strongly resembles Tidal Bulging and Inertial Tidal Bulging...

luxorion wrote:

neufer wrote:

luxorion wrote:

A general view of Pluto, Charon and New Horizons
...

Do you realize that Charon is over
half the (linear) size of Pluto?
Pluto radius = 1170 km
Charon radius = 603 km

THX1138 wrote:Theoretically speaking
With Charon's radius being only 603 km could a person standing on it escape it's gravitation pull by jumping up
That would have to be an E ticket ride were one able to jump off one and land on the other
Just wondering