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Mission to Pluto: New Horizons


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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

NASA’s New Horizons Discovers Frozen Plains in the Heart of Pluto’s ‘Heart’

 

In the latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named “Tombaugh Regio†(Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

“This terrain is not easy to explain,†said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all pre-flyby expectations.â€

This fascinating icy plains region — resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth — has been informally named “Sputnik Planum†(Sputnik Plain) after the Earth’s first artificial satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments, roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs. Some of these troughs have darker material within them, while others are traced by clumps of hills that appear to rise above the surrounding terrain. Elsewhere, the surface appears to be etched by fields of small pits that may have formed by a process called sublimation, in which ice turns directly from solid to gas, just as dry ice does on Earth. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150717

 

Also..

 

Edited by Polar Maritime
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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

New Horizons discovers Pluto's hazy atmosphere rises five times higher than expected http://www.nasa.gov/…/nasa-s-new-horizons-team-finds-haze-f…

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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

Nice detailed shots there, Taken a while to reach Earth but worth it!

Happy Birthday W.H

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Posted
  • Location: Western Isle of Wight
  • Weather Preferences: Snow, Storm, anything loud and dramatic.
  • Location: Western Isle of Wight

During solar flares there is likely to be package loss, I hope they are lucky.

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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

What a sight WH!

 

nh-apluto-mountains-plains-9-17-15-detai

 

http://lightsinthedark.com/2015/09/17/these-new-pictures-of-pluto-are-almost-impossibly-awesome/

Edited by Polar Maritime
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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District South Pennines Middleton & Smerrill Tops 305m (1001ft) asl.

Amazing detail on those shots.

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Posted
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon

Wow!!!

Charon-Neutral-Bright-Release.jpg

Pluto-Charon-v2-10-1-15.jpg

Yup, it really is an amazing 'corner' of the solar system. I really wish they'd gone back to Triton, odd they haven't imo it seems to be a fascinating moon - but I doubt they will in my lifetime :(
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