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New pictures of Pluto from NASA
- Thread starter nhlducks35
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The Sum of Zero
Member
I'll echo my comments from the OT. Those pictures are just plain amazing.
Chuckie
Member
It's transmitting via radio at 125 bytes a second. They have an 8 hour a day reception window, assuming they can get the antenna time, and each photo takes about 45 minutes to send.
The LORRI camera is monochromatic, unfortunately. But, they have another instrument called the Ralph telescope, which has a color CCD imager, so they can take color from the Ralph and use it for LORRI images. Like so:
http://www.space.com/30039-incredib...ortrait-created-from-multiple-pics-video.html
That looks great, any reason this picture has more colors than the one we got to see when the Horizons flew by?
Haha, glad I wasn't the only one!
Prototype Viktor
Member
I went there once. It had a arby's so I never went back
Shining Sunshine
Banned
Dear Pluto,
Watch out for Sephiroth.
Watch out for Sephiroth.
daTRUballin
Member
Have humans really never landed on Pluto? Why? I'm surprised we haven't by now.
zoleristec
Member
We've never landed on any planet that isn't Mars or Venus, so it's not that surprising.
daTRUballin
Member
But why not though? Is it because we're not sure if the surfaces are solid, or are we scared to find out the 'hard way'?
I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff.
Chuckie
Member
But why not though? Is it because we're not sure if the surfaces are solid, or are we scared to find out the 'hard way'?
I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff.
It is solid. It is also really expensive to send a lander to Pluto.
You did mean lander right? Not humans? Because humans have only landed on the moon.
Well, we crashed on Mercury, so there's that...
For starters, it's a long-ass trip.But why not though? Is it because we're not sure if the surfaces are solid, or are we scared to find out the 'hard way'?
I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff.
Also Venus is like solid underneath but it's covered in methane clouds and is hot as fuck.
daTRUballin
Member
Ah, ok. So there's a difference. I forgot we can just send landers without humans. So I guess I meant both.
Chuckie
Member
Ah, ok. So there's a difference. I forgot we can just send landers without humans. So I guess I meant both.
The only possibility in our lifetimes seems a manned mission to Mars. Venus' surface is insta-death.
Himynameischris
Member
That's just amazing
nocturnalis
Member
Give me pictures of the Charon Relay, lol.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I was wondering what the transmission rate was. How familiar are you with the project? Are they using some type of recovery file setup, such as a Parchive? I imagine a typical connection response saying it was received is impractical.
daTRUballin
Member
Yeah ok, I can see how going to Venus would be basically death, but what about the other ones? Like Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Pluto, etc.?
Is Pluto too cold for us?
LookAtMeGo
Member
With the time it would take to slow down we would reach Pluto in like 35-40 years. That's too long.
Considering the cost and risk of not actually landing its not realistic to think we will land on it until we develop better propulsion technology.
Chuckie
Member
Mercury is too hot, too close to the sun
Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus have a surface of gas, although maybe one of their moons would be a possibility
Pluto is way too far.
The only one close enough to even try such a thing would be Mars.
ConfusingJazz
Member
Just getting to Pluto is hard enough. It took us 9 years to get to Pluto, and that is just a flyby. In order to slow the sucker down for orbital insertion? I would hazard to guess how long that would take other than decades, let alone with a lander in tow.
We did crash MESSENGER into Mercury.
I thought we shot it
But why not though? Is it because we're not sure if the surfaces are solid, or are we scared to find out the 'hard way'?
I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff.
It took New Horizons about a decade just to reach Pluto and it did that by travelling at ~80 000 km/h (one of the fastest speeds of anything made humans), using a gravity assist from Jupiter.
Even if it was reasonable to slow down enough to land a probe there, which would more than double the length of time to get there, Pluto's eccentric and off kilter orbit from the rest of the planets means there are tight windows where the planets literally align themselves in such a way to make travel feasible.
There was a good gif showing off New Horizons flight path but I can't find it right now so check out this video. Remember, that time between leaving Earth to reaching Pluto is a decade and Pluto + Charon are small enough that overlayed on Earth, they could fit on top of just the US. Not to mention timing the speed boost from Jupiter, which cut off 3 years.
If you want to see even more crazy precision and planing, look up Voyager missions and their flight paths to see how they were once in a lifetime opportunities.
daTRUballin
Member
Geez. It's crazy to think about. If an astronaut in their 20s would set out to go to Pluto, they would arrive in their 60s. And then if they head back, they will be back on Earth in their 100s. Holy crap. No wonder humans haven't landed on Pluto. ._.
Yeah, I guess it all makes sense. I just hope we find our way around these issues someday (somehow) and be able to check these planets out.
It's super expensive and in some cases we just can't. We're not capable of making a craft that can land on Saturn or Jupiter, due to pressure, so you're basically throwing away a multi million dollar spacecraft. Which we've done on Mercury and Jupiter. The Russians landed on Venus, but their probe melted. We've landed on Titan, Jupiter's moon, and the Russians were going to land on Phobos, but their craft malfunctioned. We've landed on an asteroid. We will likely land more craft on Jupiter and Saturn's moons because they're some of the most interesting places in the solar system. That really just leaves the outer planets which are super far away, meaning programs take decades, they're expensive, and you're flying past more interesting targets. We'll go someday. As we get better at making rovers, and we make cheaper ones, the outer planets start to make more sense.But why not though? Is it because we're not sure if the surfaces are solid, or are we scared to find out the 'hard way'?
I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff.
Yeah, I left off crashes
. We tried to crash on Jupiter, but imploded almost instantly.I'm not THAT familiar with it, but I do know that it's microwave based, and its bandwidth decreases with distance. It has 16 gigs of solid state data storage and uses a variant of the PS1 processor (but clocked much slower) as its primary controller. It runs a modified cersion of Nucleus RTOS. That pretty much taps my knowledge, although since it's all public info, some Google searching might turn it up.
daTRUballin
Member
Hmmm. Very interesting. Thanks for the video!
It's super expensive and in some cases we just can't. We're not capable of making a craft that can land on Saturn or Jupiter, due to pressure, so you're basically throwing away a multi million dollar spacecraft. Which we've done on Mercury and Jupiter. The Russians landed on Venus, but their probe melted. We've landed on Titan, Jupiter's moon, and the Russians were going to land on Phobos, but their craft malfunctioned. We've landed on an asteroid. We will likely land more craft on Jupiter and Saturn's moons because they're some of the most interesting places in the solar system. That really just leaves the outer planets which are super far away, meaning programs take decades, they're expensive, and you're flying past more interesting targets. We'll go someday. As we get better at making rovers, and we make cheaper ones, the outer planets start to make more sense.
Yeah, I left off crashes
I'm not THAT familiar with it, but I do know that it's microwave based, and its bandwidth decreases with distance. It has 16 gigs of solid state data storage and uses a variant of the PS1 processor (but clocked much slower) as its primary controller. It runs a modified cersion of Nucleus RTOS. That pretty much taps my knowledge, although aince it's all public info, some Google searching might turn it up.
How are Jupiter's and Saturn's moons like? Are they similar to our moon?
Whoops, I didn't mean to imply I thought they were taken from earth, I was just saying "how on earth" as a very coincidental expression. And yes, I agree with you!
It just blows my mind, especially considering the quality. Any idea how.. Far away from us it is? The probe that is.
Also, I was reading that photos of stuff like milky way aren't actually photos, just interpretation based on distance of the stars. While I never believed they were actual photos (obviously), it's interesting to learn how it was actually done. Humans are effin' clever, and I love it. The universe scares the shit out of me, but it is also one of my biggest obsessions.
Maybe that's why I love the Sailor Moon franchise so much..
Some might be. They're as varied as the planets are. Titan has an atmosphere 1.45 times as dense as ours. Some are larger than Mercury. Most of them are tiny.
Nah, our moon sucks. It's dead volcanically, it has no atmosphere.
Saturn and Jupiter have ridiculous numbers of moons. When I was a kid we all thought they had thirteen or fourteen, but they both have 60+, depending on how you split moon/moonlet, but the interesting ones are:
Saturn:
Titan
Rhea
Enceladus
Jupiter:
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto
Titan has an atmosphere and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. It has wind and it rains liquid methane. Rhea is a rock and ice world, but may have internal liquid seas. Enceladus is covered in ice, and has cryo volcanoes that spew water vapor into the sky, some of which escapes and some of which falls back down as snow.
Io is all volcanoes and magma, and it's got mountains taller than Everest. Europa is a cue ball of ice, that may have a liquid ocean underneath it. It is even possible that liquid ocean might contain life. Ganymede has its own magnetosphere and an internal ocean that may have more water in it than all of our oceans together. Callisto looks like it got the shit pounded out of it, but it has water ice on the surfCe and liquid water below, most likely.
Guys, Pluto was never a true planet in the first place, it was misclassified from the beginning. Just let it go already. It's time to move on.
Krappadizzle
Member
Wow, awesome pic OP. Thanks.
hobblygobbly
Member
Many planets aren't specifically spherical but instead oblate spheroids due to the equatorial bulge (this extends to other bodies as well that aren't planets). Earth is the same. Some aren't as pronounced when you look at it such as Earth, but Jupiter's for example is very noticeable (due to its size and centripetal force). It is due to the rotation yes, but the rotation actually makes it an oblate spheroid instead of simply spherical.
daTRUballin
Member
Nah, our moon sucks. It's dead volcanically, it has no atmosphere.
Saturn and Jupiter have ridiculous numbers of moons. When I was a kid we all thought they had thirteen or fourteen, but they both have 60+, depending on how you split moon/moonlet, but the interesting ones are:
Saturn:
Titan
Rhea
Enceladus
Jupiter:
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto
Titan has an atmosphere and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. It has wind and it rains liquid methane. Rhea is a rock and ice world, but may have internal liquid seas. Enceladus is covered in ice, and has cryo volcanoes that spew water vapor into the sky, some of which escapes and some of which falls back down as snow.
Io is all volcanoes and magma, and it's got mountains taller than Everest. Europa is a cue ball of ice, that may have a liquid ocean underneath it. It is even possible that liquid ocean might contain life. Ganymede has its own magnetosphere and an internal ocean that may have more water in it than all of our oceans together. Callisto looks like it got the shit pounded out of it, but it has water ice on the surfCe and liquid water below, most likely.
Thanks for the info, guys! Very appreciated.
Saturn's and Jupiter's moons seem way more interesting than ours.
gaming_noob
Member
Besada's post just blew my mind. Incredible stuff. Appreciate it.
cj_iwakura
Member
Why would you name a crater after Cthulhu, even informally? It's like inviting him over.
JUICE is your buddy. The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer is scheduled to launch in 2022 and it's designed to investigate Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. Any decision to land a rover will be based on the data and images JUICE returns, in much the same way that the Mars Surveyor went to tell us what we needed to know to land rovers there.
There should be a bunch of lunar exploration in the next year or so. China, Russia, and India all have plans to put multiple rovers on the moon and return samples.
Someday we'll finish Orion, and its first manned mission might be to take astronauts out to an asteroid. Cool stuff coming up, and the more countries that join in, the better.
VaultBoy101
Member
Pluto is inhabited by Terminators? We're all doomed!
They obviously hope to be eaten first.
Omg, I am so hyped right now. And this all sounds like an epic buildup to the manned mars mission in the 2030s.
Stiflers Mom
Banned
The spherical shape is due to gravity not rotation, no?Many planets aren't specifically spherical but instead oblate spheroids due to the equatorial bulge (this extends to other bodies as well that aren't planets). Earth is the same. Some aren't as pronounced when you look at it such as Earth, but Jupiter's for example is very noticeable (due to its size and centripetal force). It is due to the rotation yes, but the rotation actually makes it an oblate spheroid instead of simply spherical.
I didn't know there had been a probe actually sent into Jupiter itself.
Pluto Nash!! Heck yes.
brainchild
Banned
Close-ups of celestial bodies make for some of the best porn in the universe. It is known.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-pluto-images-from-nasa-s-new-horizons-it-s-complicated
This synthetic perspective view of Pluto, based on the latest high-resolution images to be downlinked from NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, shows what you would see if you were approximately 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) above Plutos equatorial area, looking northeast over the dark, cratered, informally named Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth, expanse of icy plains informally called Sputnik Planum. The entire expanse of terrain seen in this image is 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) across. The images were taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Mosaic of high-resolution images of Pluto, sent back from NASAs New Horizons spacecraft from Sept. 5 to 7, 2015. The image is dominated by the informally-named icy plain Sputnik Planum, the smooth, bright region across the center. This image also features a tremendous variety of other landscapes surrounding Sputnik. The smallest visible features are 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) in size, and the mosaic covers a region roughly 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) wide. The image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
In the center of this 300-mile (470-kilometer) wide image of Pluto from NASAs New Horizons spacecraft is a large region of jumbled, broken terrain on the northwestern edge of the vast, icy plain informally called Sputnik Planum, to the right. The smallest visible features are 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) in size. This image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
This 220-mile (350-kilometer) wide view of Pluto from NASAs New Horizons spacecraft illustrates the incredible diversity of surface reflectivities and geological landforms on the dwarf planet. The image includes dark, ancient heavily cratered terrain; bright, smooth geologically young terrain; assembled masses of mountains; and an enigmatic field of dark, aligned ridges that resemble dunes; its origin is under debate. The smallest visible features are 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) in size. This image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
This image of Plutos largest moon Charon, taken by NASAs New Horizons spacecraft 10 hours before its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 290,000 miles (470,000 kilometers), is a recently downlinked, much higher quality version of a Charon image released on July 15. Charon, which is 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) in diameter, displays a surprisingly complex geological history, including tectonic fracturing; relatively smooth, fractured plains in the lower right; several enigmatic mountains surrounded by sunken terrain features on the right side; and heavily cratered regions in the center and upper left portion of the disk. There are also complex reflectivity patterns on Charons surface, including bright and dark crater rays, and the conspicuous dark north polar region at the top of the image. The smallest visible features are 2.9 miles 4.6 kilometers) in size.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
This image of Pluto from NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, processed in two different ways, shows how Plutos bright, high-altitude atmospheric haze produces a twilight that softly illuminates the surface before sunrise and after sunset, allowing the sensitive cameras on New Horizons to see details in nighttime regions that would otherwise be invisible. The right-hand version of the image has been greatly brightened to bring out faint details of rugged haze-lit topography beyond Plutos terminator, which is the line separating day and night. The image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Two different versions of an image of Plutos haze layers, taken by New Horizons as it looked back at Pluto's dark side nearly 16 hours after close approach, from a distance of 480,000 miles (770,000 kilometers), at a phase angle of 166 degrees. Pluto's north is at the top, and the sun illuminates Pluto from the upper right. These images are much higher quality than the digitally compressed images of Plutos haze downlinked and released shortly after the July 14 encounter, and allow many new details to be seen. The left version has had only minor processing, while the right version has been specially processed to reveal a large number of discrete haze layers in the atmosphere. In the left version, faint surface details on the narrow sunlit crescent are seen through the haze in the upper right of Plutos disk, and subtle parallel streaks in the haze may be crepuscular rays- shadows cast on the haze by topography such as mountain ranges on Pluto, similar to the rays sometimes seen in the sky after the sun sets behind mountains on Earth.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
These are some amazing pics.
You are correct. Combine with the fact the planets aren't just one big solid piece but rather many, many "smaller" particles clumped together (and even if there was a single planet sized irregular shaped solid particle just floating around in space the massive gravitational force would cause it to break apart and collapse on itself anyway). Naturally these particles will slip and slide past each other until they can settle into the most stable shape, which happens to be a sphere. Of course they're not perfect spheres, but gravity does try and pull them into as close to shape as it can.
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