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Photo of Pluto May Show Cloud for 1st Time
#1
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A newly-released image taken during New Horizons' flyby of Pluto shows the back lit dwarf planet in a detailed new light. 

The photo, captured just minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach with Pluto on July 14, 2015, reveals the world's atmosphere illuminated by the rays of the distant sun nearly 4 billion miles away.


Quote:A spectacular new image of Pluto shows rugged mountains, nitrogen-ice plains and, perhaps, a big cloud scudding through the dwarf planet's exotic skies. NASA even described the view as the "twilight zone" of Pluto.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured the photo shortly after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, when the sun was on the other side of the dwarf planet from the probe's perspective.

In the backlit twilight view, sunlight filters through Pluto's many-layered atmosphere and lights up certain features, including the towering Norgay Montes mountain range and the vast plain known as Sputnik Planum, whose surface is likely renewed every 500,000 years or so by churning convective processes.

Also illuminated is a bright wisp tens of miles across "that may be a discrete, low-lying cloud in Pluto's atmosphere; if so, it would be the only one yet identified in New Horizons imagery," NASA officials wrote in a photo description Thursday (June 2) that dubbed the image Pluto's "twilight zone." "Atmospheric models suggest that methane clouds can occasionally form in Pluto's atmosphere."

These features — mountains, plains and possible cloud — all lie in a sliver of sunlight, at the top limb of Pluto. But intriguing landscape details are also visible near the bottom of the photo, which depicts Pluto's night side.


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This backlit Pluto photo was captured on July 14, 2015 by NASA’s New Horizons probe, shortly after its closest approach to the dwarf planet. Mountains, ice plains and a possible cloud are visible in the sunlit portion of the photo (top inset), while rugged topography is apparent on Pluto’s dark side (bottom inset).






I can't wait to see what else they discover about Pluto.
Pluto appears to be a world filled with fascinating geology that scientists are trying to figure out.

They are still waiting on more data to be downloaded, which may take a few more months.

Quote:New Horizons is still beaming flyby data home, and will continue to do so through this coming fall. (The probe is currently about 3.2 billion miles, or 5.15 billion km, from Earth; such a vast distance makes transmission rates slow, due to the significant weakening of New Horizons' radio signal.)




Gorgeous 'Twilight Zone' Photo of Pluto May Show Cloud for 1st Time

a.k.a. 'snarky412'
 
        

#2
It's it just Beautiful! What a Wonderful Little Planet, so full of surprises.
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Once A Rogue, Always A Rogue!
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#3
It's become a 'taken for granted' scenario when we get images like that but as I mentioned in one of Sky's thread on Pluto, we are SO fortunate to be the first ones in this planet's history to get to see close ups of this dwarf that is so far away that it's almost unimaginable...

It is mindblowing. It really is !
~ Today is the youngest you'll ever be again ~
#4
Some new releases for Pluto.

Some Great Pictures Here: Link
Once A Rogue, Always A Rogue!
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#5
They are still waiting for more images of Pluto and its largest moon Charon.
But just thin about the distance Horizon traveled, 2.97 Billion miles and I understand Horizon is an additional 287 Millions miles from Pluto and still going Strong.
How you may ask?
A Small Nuclear Population engine.
[Image: 944.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fi...12b837ab8e]

Quote:An ‘X’ formation appears on the surface of Pluto in one of the newly released photos taken by New Horizons for Nasa. Photograph: Nasa/JHUAPL/SwRI
  
Quote:The new images show that the low-lying surface is not totally flat, but rather a mix of pitted areas, 10 to 25 miles wide, that the researchers call “cells”. The cells have ridged margins and raised centers, visible thanks to shadows cast by a low sun, and some cells appear separated by trench or canal formations.
Researchers believed the strange surface patterns are formed by convection, as soft frozen nitrogen carries warm ice on to Pluto’s surface, where it evaporates en route to the edge of each cell. Liquid nitrogen may flow beneath the plains, emerging in rivers and moving the glaciers of nitrogen ice above.
“This part of Pluto is acting like a lava lamp,” said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons geology and geophysics team. “If you can imagine a lava lamp as wide as, and even deeper than, the Hudson Bay.”
The “X” formation visible in one photo of the plains is probably the “quadruple junction of former convection cells”, New Horizons’ planetary astronomer Alex Parkertweeted.

Source
OK, but who's the guy/gal with the Snow Machine and is he/she broken down? tinysurprised
Once A Rogue, Always A Rogue!
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#6
(08-06-2016, 12:09 AM)guohua Wrote: They are still waiting for more images of Pluto and its largest moon Charon.
But just thin about the distance Horizon traveled, 2.97 Billion miles and I understand Horizon is an additional 287 Millions miles from Pluto and still going Strong.
How you may ask?
A Small Nuclear Population engine.
[Image: 944.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fi...12b837ab8e]

Quote:An ‘X’ formation appears on the surface of Pluto in one of the newly released photos taken by New Horizons for Nasa. Photograph: Nasa/JHUAPL/SwRI
  
Quote:The new images show that the low-lying surface is not totally flat, but rather a mix of pitted areas, 10 to 25 miles wide, that the researchers call “cells”. The cells have ridged margins and raised centers, visible thanks to shadows cast by a low sun, and some cells appear separated by trench or canal formations.
Researchers believed the strange surface patterns are formed by convection, as soft frozen nitrogen carries warm ice on to Pluto’s surface, where it evaporates en route to the edge of each cell. Liquid nitrogen may flow beneath the plains, emerging in rivers and moving the glaciers of nitrogen ice above.
“This part of Pluto is acting like a lava lamp,” said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons geology and geophysics team. “If you can imagine a lava lamp as wide as, and even deeper than, the Hudson Bay.”
The “X” formation visible in one photo of the plains is probably the “quadruple junction of former convection cells”, New Horizons’ planetary astronomer Alex Parkertweeted.

Source
OK, but who's the guy/gal with the Snow Machine and is he/she broken down? tinysurprised

I was thinking it looked like a Plutonic Snail ?
#7
Ah YES!, New videos of pluto and some very exciting stuff I think.
Quote:Pluto may have an icy sea beneath its surface

Dwarf planet Pluto may be hiding an icy ocean beneath its surface, according to two new reports published by the scientific journal Nature.

The papers seek to explain why Sputnik Planitia -- a 1,000 kilometer-wide, nitrogen-covered basin in Pluto's heart-shaped northern region -- is permanently aligned with the dwarf planet's moon Charon.

The first paper, from the University of Arizona,suggests that Sputnik Planitia filled with ice and altered tidal forces between Pluto and Charon.

The second, from the University of California, suggests the reorientation was caused by tidal forces as a result of a "slushy," partially-frozen underground ocean.
Watch the videos that are part of the article as a whole.
Source
Once A Rogue, Always A Rogue!
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