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'Blowing my mind': Peaks on Pluto, canyons on Charon


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'Blowing my mind': Peaks on Pluto, canyons on Charon
By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Mankind's first close-up look at Pluto did not disappoint Wednesday: The pictures showed ice mountains on Pluto about as high as the Rockies and chasms on its big moon Charon that appear six times deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Especially astonishing to scientists was the total absence of impact craters in a zoom-in shot of one otherwise rugged slice of Pluto. That suggests that Pluto is not the dead ice ball many people think, but is instead geologically active even now, its surface sculpted not by collisions with cosmic debris but by its internal heat, the scientific team reported.

Breathtaking in their clarity, the long-awaited images were unveiled in Laurel, Maryland, home to mission operations for NASA's New Horizons, the unmanned spacecraft that paid a history-making flyby visit to the dwarf planet on Tuesday after a journey of 9½ years and 3 billion miles.

"I don't think any one of us could have imagined that it was this good of a toy store," principal scientist Alan Stern said at a news conference. He marveled: "I think the whole system is amazing. ... The Pluto system IS something wonderful."

As a tribute to Pluto's discoverer, Stern and his team named the bright heart-shaped area on the surface of Pluto the Tombaugh Reggio. American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh spied the frozen, faraway world on the edge of the solar system in 1930.

Thanks to New Horizons, scientists now know Pluto is a bit bigger than thought, with a diameter of 1,473 miles, but still just two-thirds the size of Earth's moon. And it is most certainly not frozen in time.

The zoom-in of Pluto, showing an approximately 150-mile swath of the dwarf planet, reveals a mountain range about 11,000 feet high and tens of miles wide. Scientists said the peaks — seemingly pushed up from Pluto's subterranean bed of ice — appeared to be a mere 100 million years old. Pluto itself is 4.5 billion years old.

"Who would have supposed that there were ice mountains?" project scientist Hal Weaver said. "It's just blowing my mind."

John Spencer, like Stern a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, called it "just astonishing" that the first close-up picture of Pluto didn't have a single impact crater. Stern said the findings suggesting a geologically active interior are going to "send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing boards."

"It could be a game-changer" in how scientists look at other frozen worlds in the Kuiper Belt on the fringes of our solar system, Spencer said. Charon, too, has a surprisingly youthful look and could be undergoing geologic activity.

"We've tended to think of these midsize worlds ... as probably candy-coated lumps of ice," Spencer said. "This means they could be equally diverse and be equally amazing if we ever get a spacecraft out there to see them close up."

The heat that appears to be shaping Pluto may be coming from the decay of radioactive material normally found in planetary bodies, the scientists said. Or it could be coming from energy released by the gradual freezing of an underground ocean.

As for Charon, which is about half the size of Pluto, its canyons look to be 3 miles to 6 miles deep and are part of a cluster of troughs and cliffs stretching 600 miles, or about twice the length of the Grand Canyon, scientists said.

The Charon photo was taken Monday. The Pluto picture was shot just 1½ hours before the spacecraft's moment of closest approach. New Horizons swept to within 7,700 miles of Pluto during its flyby. It is now 1 million miles beyond it.

Up until this week, the best pictures of Pluto were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and they were blurry, pixelated images.

Scientists promised even better pictures for the next news briefing on Friday. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory is in charge of the $720 million mission.
___

Online:

NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/

Johns Hopkins University: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

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-- (c) Associated Press 2015-07-16

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Be afraid, be very afraid, Nasa is hiding the truth people

For those of you wondering why they are only showing a hi res close up and not a high res shot of the planet as a whole:

pluto-death-starjpg-0912af5ea77e42c3.jpg

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Be afraid, be very afraid, Nasa is hiding the truth people

For those of you wondering why they are only showing a hi res close up and not a high res shot of the planet as a whole:

pluto-death-starjpg-0912af5ea77e42c3.jpg

I had this image ready to post..I'm glad someone else realises the danger. But it's not a Death Star as we know it.....just imagine when that sub-woofer is aimed at Earth!

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It seems to me, there's been a lot of effort lately to find earth-like worlds in other solar systems. It seems like a waste of money to me, as given the number of galaxies, probability would say there are millions upon millions of them. And if the purpose is to find a home to go to after the earth becomes uninhabitable, that's certainly a pipe dream. 9 years to get to Pluto, 21 years to get to the edge of our solar system; puts getting to another galaxy quite a pipe dream.

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It seems to me, there's been a lot of effort lately to find earth-like worlds in other solar systems. It seems like a waste of money to me, as given the number of galaxies, probability would say there are millions upon millions of them. And if the purpose is to find a home to go to after the earth becomes uninhabitable, that's certainly a pipe dream. 9 years to get to Pluto, 21 years to get to the edge of our solar system; puts getting to another galaxy quite a pipe dream.

If you would phantasy something about a laptop computer or a smartphone only 100 year ago all scientist would agree that it is just a pipe dream.

You don't know what we can do in another 100 years. If we can accelerate close to light speed time wouldn't be a problem anymore. Or there is a complete different solution we can't think of today, like a LCD screen for the 1915 people.

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Truly astounding. Incredible technology.

Somtam...

Yes the technology is incredible...considering its age.

Picture wise, what type of digital camera did you have

back in 2002 when the developers of the camera that

has taken these kickass shots received their funding

to proceed with making the thing...what type of digital

camera did you have back then?! Plus considering the

spacecraft had to get to Pluto & survive all sorts of

extremes...this really is something to be proud of.

Digital gadgets today outdate themselves every few

years and many don't even last till the warranty expires.

OK ,granted...these gadgets are not built to NASA specs

either but technological progress never sleeps...kinda

like rust never sleeps.

I'm gobsmacked by the photos so I let Google locate some

info for me to share with everybody who takes the time to

read it.

Here's what 10 minutes yeilded....

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

http://spacenews.com/new-horizons-about-to-bring-an-unknown-world-into-sharp-focus/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-camera-behind-the-new-horizons-pluto-photos-ralph/398549/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

If one takes some more time and delve into the References section of the Wiki

page, there's heaps of stuff out there.

I hope New Horizons keeps astounding us as time passes by.

Speaking of "time" and traveling at the speed of light...

Have a look & listen here...

http://lightyear.fm/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

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A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Don't let short sighted pessimistic fools hold you back. This vision won't happen in our or our children's future but will happen in some time... just wish I would be around to tell everyone how I used to go to school on the back of a water buffalo. .. :P

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Truly astounding. Incredible technology.

Somtam...

Yes the technology is incredible...considering its age.

Picture wise, what type of digital camera did you have

back in 2002 when the developers of the camera that

has taken these kickass shots received their funding

to proceed with making the thing...what type of digital

camera did you have back then?! Plus considering the

spacecraft had to get to Pluto & survive all sorts of

extremes...this really is something to be proud of.

Digital gadgets today outdate themselves every few

years and many don't even last till the warranty expires.

OK ,granted...these gadgets are not built to NASA specs

either but technological progress never sleeps...kinda

like rust never sleeps.

I'm gobsmacked by the photos so I let Google locate some

info for me to share with everybody who takes the time to

read it.

Here's what 10 minutes yeilded....

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

http://spacenews.com/new-horizons-about-to-bring-an-unknown-world-into-sharp-focus/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-camera-behind-the-new-horizons-pluto-photos-ralph/398549/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

If one takes some more time and delve into the References section of the Wiki

page, there's heaps of stuff out there.

I hope New Horizons keeps astounding us as time passes by.

Speaking of "time" and traveling at the speed of light...

Have a look & listen here...

http://lightyear.fm/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Thank you so much for a most interesting article. I've just spent the most fascinating afternoon reading up on your recommendations. I'm also in the process of (re)reading Stephen Hawking's book, "The Universe in a Nutshell" which poses more questions than answers, I'm happy to say! Once again, thanks.

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Truly amazing. Even more so in this day and age to think that most people believe in deities and supernaturalism.

Pluto definition. The Roman name of Hades, the Greek and Roman god of the underworld and ruler of the dead. biggrin.png

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It seems to me, there's been a lot of effort lately to find earth-like worlds in other solar systems. It seems like a waste of money to me, as given the number of galaxies, probability would say there are millions upon millions of them. And if the purpose is to find a home to go to after the earth becomes uninhabitable, that's certainly a pipe dream. 9 years to get to Pluto, 21 years to get to the edge of our solar system; puts getting to another galaxy quite a pipe dream.

!00 years ago going to the moon was a pipe dream. Pluto was not even known of. !00 years from now everything we have in terms of technology will be comparable to medeival stuff now. I doubt we are commencing the search for alternative homes to Earth for next month but more like the next 200 years.

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Right. But I have coworkers, who appear as otherwise mainstream people, airline pilots who are respected by society, honestly insist that my "soul" is to be destroyed and I will be condemned to "Hell" because I do not follow their narrow evangelical Christ cult.Daily we read about Mr. Islams strap explosives to their bodies to kill other Muslims. I ask these so called Chirstians where is Hell? No answer. They have no evidence at all to back up their claims which constitute the fundament of their personal belief system. What's up with that?

Meanwhile we have direct physical evidence of Pluto, surface temp close to absolute zero. 9 years away by spacecraft, encircled with multiple moons. Not mentioned in bibles.

Seems a waste of money of course but space program is only a fraction of what is spent on wars of aggression and unneeded weapons systems, big government and welfare for deadbeats. At least I get some pleasure from these images.

Idiots.

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Interesting photos but if they're "blowing his mind", I'd like some of whatever they're smoking at NASA.

Well...whatever they're smoking must be rather mild since this link describes what

we knew about Pluto before the New Horizons spacecraft sent all of us some pix...

look at post #18.....

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/839982-its-showtime-for-pluto;-prepare-to-be-amazed-by-nasa-flyby/

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Be afraid, be very afraid, Nasa is hiding the truth people

For those of you wondering why they are only showing a hi res close up and not a high res shot of the planet as a whole:

pluto-death-starjpg-0912af5ea77e42c3.jpg

I had this image ready to post..I'm glad someone else realises the danger. But it's not a Death Star as we know it.....just imagine when that sub-woofer is aimed at Earth!

Somchai will just laugh at it and try to get one for his truck.

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Truly astounding. Incredible technology.

Somtam...

Yes the technology is incredible...considering its age.

Picture wise, what type of digital camera did you have

back in 2002 when the developers of the camera that

has taken these kickass shots received their funding

to proceed with making the thing...what type of digital

camera did you have back then?! Plus considering the

spacecraft had to get to Pluto & survive all sorts of

extremes...this really is something to be proud of.

Digital gadgets today outdate themselves every few

years and many don't even last till the warranty expires.

OK ,granted...these gadgets are not built to NASA specs

either but technological progress never sleeps...kinda

like rust never sleeps.

I'm gobsmacked by the photos so I let Google locate some

info for me to share with everybody who takes the time to

read it.

Here's what 10 minutes yeilded....

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

http://spacenews.com/new-horizons-about-to-bring-an-unknown-world-into-sharp-focus/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-camera-behind-the-new-horizons-pluto-photos-ralph/398549/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

If one takes some more time and delve into the References section of the Wiki

page, there's heaps of stuff out there.

I hope New Horizons keeps astounding us as time passes by.

Speaking of "time" and traveling at the speed of light...

Have a look & listen here...

http://lightyear.fm/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Thank you so much for a most interesting article. I've just spent the most fascinating afternoon reading up on your recommendations. I'm also in the process of (re)reading Stephen Hawking's book, "The Universe in a Nutshell" which poses more questions than answers, I'm happy to say! Once again, thanks.

You are most welcome Verangkul. I still have a first edition paperback of "A Brief History Of Time" which

I reread every few years just to stay in tune so to speak. I did edit the amount of links this morning before

I posted them as so many were out there. With all of its ups & downs NASA still manages to pull off some

amazing, gobsmacking events IMO. I hope the nice folks at Lightyear.com update as "time" goes by!!!

The music of my birthday, what my parents listened to anyway, is out at around 66.3 - 67 LY from us

now...hah!

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"Pluto itself is 4.5 billion years old."

This statement alone proves that this is all a lie and it never happened!

My priest told me the universe is 6,000 years old..not 4.5 billion years old!

That is when my god made it all , in six days!

Why do you people believe in this "science" garbage???

God Bless You!

(sarc)

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Be afraid, be very afraid, Nasa is hiding the truth people

For those of you wondering why they are only showing a hi res close up and not a high res shot of the planet as a whole:

pluto-death-starjpg-0912af5ea77e42c3.jpg

I had this image ready to post..I'm glad someone else realises the danger. But it's not a Death Star as we know it.....just imagine when that sub-woofer is aimed at Earth!

Somchai will just laugh at it and try to get one for his truck.

After first asking why one of Pluto's moons is called hot tea.
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"Pluto itself is 4.5 billion years old."

This statement alone proves that this is all a lie and it never happened!

My priest told me the universe is 6,000 years old..not 4.5 billion years old!

That is when my god made it all , in six days!

Why do you people believe in this "science" garbage???

God Bless You!

(sarc)

No, what it shows is that there is no consensus, no fact of the matter and hence no reason to believe that 'Pluto' is 4.5 billion years old and because the 'scientists' are wrong about that what else are they wrong about? Lot's I'd say. Anyhow, ever heard of Plutogate? Emails showing that astro-physicists routinely joked about whether Pluto was a planet? And if it's not a planet how old is it really after all. Plutogate. And no, Pluto is not 'warming' - it has had natural cycles of warming and cooling in its 6,000 year history just like god intended.

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