New close-up images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal a bewildering variety of surface features that have scientists reeling because of their range and complexity.

“Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. “If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that’s what is actually there.”

New Horizons began its yearlong download of new images and other data over the Labor Day weekend. Images downlinked in the past few days have more than doubled the amount of Pluto’s surface seen at resolutions as good as 400 meters (440 yards) per pixel. They reveal new features as diverse as possible dunes, nitrogen ice flows that apparently oozed out of mountainous regions onto plains, and even networks of valleys that may have been carved by material flowing over Pluto’s surface. They also show large regions that display chaotically jumbled mountains reminiscent of disrupted terrains on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. ...more...

newolder wrote:Data torrent begins and shows complicated surfaces...

New close-up images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal a bewildering variety of surface features that have scientists reeling because of their range and complexity.

“Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. “If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that’s what is actually there.”

New Horizons began its yearlong download of new images and other data over the Labor Day weekend. Images downlinked in the past few days have more than doubled the amount of Pluto’s surface seen at resolutions as good as 400 meters (440 yards) per pixel. They reveal new features as diverse as possible dunes, nitrogen ice flows that apparently oozed out of mountainous regions onto plains, and even networks of valleys that may have been carved by material flowing over Pluto’s surface. They also show large regions that display chaotically jumbled mountains reminiscent of disrupted terrains on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. ...more...

linky

Macdoc wrote:I what Pluto back in the planetary Pantheon

Calilasseia wrote:The fun part being that all of these processes, which resemble to a remarkable degree the geological and geophysical processes observable back here on Earth, are taking place on a body with much weaker gravity, 3.5 billion miles from the Sun, where the ambient temperature is about 50 Kelvins, and the "ice" is solid nitrogen.

I'm going to have so much fun with these images in the future.

scott1328 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:The fun part being that all of these processes, which resemble to a remarkable degree the geological and geophysical processes observable back here on Earth, are taking place on a body with much weaker gravity, 3.5 billion miles from the Sun, where the ambient temperature is about 50 Kelvins, and the "ice" is solid nitrogen.

I'm going to have so much fun with these images in the future.

And all those craters and weathering in only 6,000 years time. Amazing

Pluto’s Majestic Mountains, Frozen Plains and Foggy Hazes: Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. The smooth expanse of the informally named icy plain Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to the west (left) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) high, including the informally named Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline. To the right, east of Sputnik, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers. The backlighting highlights over a dozen layers of haze in Pluto’s tenuous but distended atmosphere. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) to Pluto; the scene is 780 miles (1,250 kilometers) wide.

Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:The fun part being that all of these processes, which resemble to a remarkable degree the geological and geophysical processes observable back here on Earth, are taking place on a body with much weaker gravity, 3.5 billion miles from the Sun, where the ambient temperature is about 50 Kelvins, and the "ice" is solid nitrogen.

I'm going to have so much fun with these images in the future.

And all those craters and weathering in only 6,000 years time. Amazing

The weathering is from the Great Flood.

Evolving wrote:"If space is a vacuum, how could spacecraft traverse it?"

Gosh, I never thought of that. Good point!

I wonder how the Earth traverses it.

THWOTH wrote:

Evolving wrote:"If space is a vacuum, how could spacecraft traverse it?"

Gosh, I never thought of that. Good point!

I wonder how the Earth traverses it.

Surely proof that the Earth is also a fake?

After studying images and data that characterize a range of mountains that run for 420km across Pluto's Cthulhu feature, planetary scientists now think they are seeing peaks capped with methane snow.

Pluto's Cthulhu region, about the size of Alaska, is characterized by reddish hues in contrast to the more pale, heart-shaped feature known as Sputnik Planum. Cthuhlu likely gets this darker color from tholins, complex organic molecules that form when ultraviolet light strikes simple organic molecules like methane. Tholins have been found on several worlds in the outer solar system, including Titan.

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