Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The Gang of Five | The Land Before Time. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
New Horizons flyby of Pluto
Topic Started: Jul 7 2015, 09:30:17 PM (1,008 Views)
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
Has anyone seen the close-up pictures of Pluto that have been released so far? They show interesting features such as mountains as tall as the Rockies that are made out of water ice. There's one of Charon that includes a feature that some have call a "mountain with a moat". And there's also a pair of (albeit blurry) pictures of two of Pluto's smaller moons, Nix and Hydra, showing them to be rather lumpy in shape (like the moons of Mars) and likely made out of water ice, due to how bright they are.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
bestariana1girl
Member Avatar
bestariana1girl
I have! They are amazing! I can't believe Pluto isn't as icy as they thought, I'm excited to see what else is out there too! :smile
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
NASA released a new batch of images last Friday (and we supposedly won't get any more new ones until September). Among these are clearer (but still blurry) images of the tiny moons Nix and Hydra; the northern edge of that heart-shaped region, showing that it's likely a large glacier made out of nitrogen ice that seems to be flowing over older cratered terrain; and a view of the night side of Pluto showing sunlight passing through its atmosphere all around it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
For the first time in over a month, new images from the flyby have just been released. They are not yet in color, but they show a much higher level of detail of Pluto's surface than the earlier images, revealing the older heavily-cratered dark terrain and the water ice mountains along the edge of the smooth heart-shaped plain.

As New Horizons continues to transmit data ever so slowly, expect to see more new images on a regular basis.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ducky123
Member Avatar
*insert creative caption here*

Here's a pretty good article with some of the most recent pictures sent back to earth :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
Some of the more recently released images show both Pluto and Charon in full color, including close-up high resolution images of Pluto's surface, and that Charon's dark polar region is actually reddish in color, indicating that the material in that region probably came from Pluto.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
Quite some interesting new discoveries coming from some of the latest images. For example, the color photo of the hazy atmosphere around Pluto show's that it's actually blue. Also, Pluto's tiniest moon, Styx, is only a few miles across, about as small as Mars's moons.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kor
Member Avatar


I read that supposedly Pluto has frozen water ice and it's red in color for some reason. Think I read that. Not fully awake so may have misread it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
A blurry image of the last of Pluto's moons, Kerboros, has been released, and it's quite a surprise. Due to the gravitational effects it's had on the system, scientists had expected that moon to be rather large, with its dimness probably due to a very dark surface. However, the image shows it's very tiny (the smallest one of all) and just as bright as all the others. This was quite an unexpected discovery, and clearly some work needs to be done to figure out why there's such a discrepancy between the gravitational effects and the actual image.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
The most recently released images show the surface of Pluto at the highest resolution we will ever see out of this flyby mission.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/4/9851162/...high-resolution
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Chronicler
Member Avatar
Bionicle fan of GoF
Now there's a color version of last week's high-resolution image.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/10/9888348...-enhanced-color
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ducky123
Member Avatar
*insert creative caption here*

Amazing, isn't it? :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · The Fridge · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Modified version of the theme/skin created by "Jameswgw". Find more great designs at the ZetaBoards Theme Zone.