New Horizons at Pluto

Rincewind said:
I'm a bit disappointed that they haven't found a face yet. :)
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What are you talking about? There are obvious faces all over the surface of Pluto.

They're just not human faces, but then, why would you expect that on Yuggoth?
 
After growing up with the idea that Pluto was just a boring hunk of rock; this is truly amazing, even breathtaking stuff to see. Mountains, flowing nitrogen glaciers, it's like something out of one of the sci-fi stories I used to read. I'm expecting to see pictures of Mi-Go striding across the landscape at any moment.
 
luchog said:
After growing up with the idea that Pluto was just a boring hunk of rock; this is truly amazing, even breathtaking stuff to see.
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I never had any doubts they'd find surprising things. The history of space exploration in recent decades almost always reveals unexpected discoveries. Our little slice of the cosmos is a fascinating place... let alone all the other places out there we may never get to see...
 
Grizzly Bear said:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/P_COLOR2_enhanced_release.jpg

A high resolution, false color, and nearly full hemisphere of Pluto was released today along with a few ultra high resolution images of the terrain. I can't stop having my mind blown by some of the stuff they're finding
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Excellent picture. New Horizons has already justified it's existence, and there's still more to come! I think a mission to the outer dwarf planets (Haumea, Makemake and Eris) has to be a strong possibility now. I hope I live to see the results. For now, New Horizons and Dawn are keeping me fascinated.
 
This image shows jeeps driving about in a desert leaving tyre tracks behind them, which is more interesting than a fuzzy "cylinder" on Mars, IMO.
 
Craig B said:
Another Plutonian mystery: "dragon scales".
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Couple of options spring to mind.

The first is "dune field". They look like smaller ripples on larger dunes, but not quite; the slip face is too steep, for one thing. Though that's based on Terran sedimentology, which may not be applicable; angle of repose depends on a lot of factors, including roundedness, grading of the sediment (everyone who just got a headache, my excuse is I work with engineers!), viscosity of the fluid it's in, and a few other things.

Second is lava. It looks like a lava flow that very, very rapidly is getting frozen as it is exposed. Think sheets of lava, not the typical image of a volcano here. It's probably more likely that this is closer to the truth than dunes, because of the lack of atmosphere.
 
Dinwar said:
Couple of options spring to mind.

The first is "dune field". They look like smaller ripples on larger dunes, but not quite; the slip face is too steep, for one thing. Though that's based on Terran sedimentology, which may not be applicable; angle of repose depends on a lot of factors, including roundedness, grading of the sediment (everyone who just got a headache, my excuse is I work with engineers!), viscosity of the fluid it's in, and a few other things.

Second is lava. It looks like a lava flow that very, very rapidly is getting frozen as it is exposed. Think sheets of lava, not the typical image of a volcano here. It's probably more likely that this is closer to the truth than dunes, because of the lack of atmosphere.
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Yes. Surely the atmosphere is too tenuous to create dunes on that scale; but I don't know.
 
Craig B said:
Yes. Surely the atmosphere is too tenuous to create dunes on that scale; but I don't know.
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I'm not sure. We know there is an atmosphere, and we know it's going away. We also know there are glaciers, which means there's wind (glaciers advance until the amount of material coming in is balanced by the amount going out, which almost always means they're the coldest things around at the edge). If the material is fine enough, or the wind strong enough, it could form dunes.

luchog said:
It appears to be a large glacial sea of some sort.
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Which explains the young appearance of the planet. If there are glaciers, it's pretty clear that they come and go (there's water-ice on Titan that no one in their right mind would call glaciers). If bolides hit the glaciers, then the glaciers melt, the evidence for the impacts could, if they're small enough, be erased. Either way, the glaciers would erase most of the craters as they advance.

I still want to know the composition of those glaciers. I have an idea, but it's dependent on what the material is.
 
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