This annotated view of a portion of Pluto’s Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), named for Earth’s first artificial satellite, shows an array of enigmatic features. The surface appears to be divided into irregularly shaped segments that are ringed by narrow troughs, some of which contain darker materials. Features that appear to be groups of mounds and fields of small pits are also visible. This image was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
This annotated view of a portion of Pluto’s Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), named for Earth’s first artificial satellite, shows an array of enigmatic features. The surface appears to be divided into irregularly shaped segments that are ringed by narrow troughs, some of which contain darker materials. Features that appear to be groups of mounds and fields of small pits are also visible. This image was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
See 3 image mosaic below[/caption]
The jaw dropping new imagery of young plains of water ice was publicly released today, July 17, by NASA and scientists leading the New Horizons mission during a media briefing, and has already resulted in ground breaking new scientific discoveries at the last planet in our solar system to be visited by a spacecraft from Earth.
“We have now visited every planet in our solar system with American spacecraft,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “These findings are already causing us to rethink the dynamics of interior geologic processes.”
New data and dazzling imagery are now from streaming back some 3 billion miles across interplanetary space to mission control on Earth and researchers eagerly awaiting the fruits of more than two decades of hard labor to get to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I can’t wait for the new discoveries!” exclaimed Bolden at today’s media briefing.
“Over 50 gigabits of data were collected during the encounter and flyby periods,” New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, said during the media briefing.
“So far less than 1 gigabit of data has been returned.”
It will take some 16 months for all the Pluto flyby data to be transmitted back to Earth.
And the team has not been disappointed because the results so far shows Pluto to possess tremendously varied terrain that “far exceed our expectations.”
Video Caption: In the center left of Pluto’s vast heart-shaped feature – informally named “Tombaugh Regio” – lies 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 and has been informally named Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), after Earth’s first artificial satellite. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Two new high resolution images captured by the probes Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 were released today and taken from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as one-half mile (1 kilometer) across are visible in the images – shown above and below.
They were snapped from frozen region lying 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.”
“The landscape is astounding. There are a few ancient impact craters on Pluto. But other areas like “Tombaugh Regio” show no craters. The landform change processes are occurring into current geologic times.”
“There are no impact craters in a frozen area north of Pluto’s icy mountains we are now informally calling ‘Sputnik Planum’ after Earth’s first artificial satellite.”
‘Sputnik Planum’ is composed of a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments. The polygonal shaped areas are roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs based on a quick look at the data.
Notably, some of the clumps are filled with mysterious darker material. Hills are also visible in some areas, which may have been pushed up. Etched areas on the surface may have been formed by sublimation process where the water ice turns directly from the solid to the gas phase due to the extremely negligible atmosphere pressure.
In some places there are also streaks that may have formed from windblown processes and pitted areas.
Three image mosaic of ‘Tombaugh Regio,’ Pluto’s heart-shaped region, combining highest resolution imagery captured by NASA’s New Horizons LORRI imager during closest approach flyby on July 14, 2015. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI. Additional processing Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
“It’s just pure coincidence that we got the highest resolution data at Sputnik Planum which is of the most interest scientifically,” Moore noted.
Moore indicated that the team is working on a pair of theories as to how these polygonal segments were formed.
“The irregular shapes may be the result of the contraction of surface materials, similar to what happens when mud dries. Alternatively, they may be a product of convection, similar to wax rising in a lava lamp. On Pluto, convection would occur within a surface layer of frozen carbon monoxide, methane and nitrogen, driven by the scant warmth of Pluto’s interior,” Moore explained.
Pluto’s polygons look remarkably similar to the Martian polygons upon which NASA’s Phoenix lander touched down on in 2008 and dug into. Perhaps they were formed by similar mechanisms or difference ones, contraction or convection, Moore told me during the briefing.
As of yesterday, New Horizons spacecraft completed and exited the Pluto encounter phase, said Stern. “We are now collecting departure science.”
New Horizons is already over 3 million miles beyond Pluto and heading to its next yet to be determined target in the Kuiper Belt.
“With the flyby in the rearview mirror, a decade-long journey to Pluto is over –but, the science payoff is only beginning,” said Jim Green, director of Planetary Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
“Data from New Horizons will continue to fuel discovery for years to come.”
Counting down to less than 3 minutes from New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, Jim Green, NASA Planetary Science Division Director, addresses the team, guests and media on Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Pluto Explored at Last
The New Horizons mission team celebrates successful flyby of Pluto in the moments after closest approach at 7:49 a.m. EDT on July 14, 2015. New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, CO., left, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Director Ralph Semmel, center, and New Horizons Co-Investigator Will Grundy Lowell Observatory hold an enlarged print of an U.S. stamp with their suggested update after Pluto became the final planet in our solar system to be explored by an American space probe (crossing out the words ‘not yet’) – at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.comIn the center left of Pluto’s vast heart-shaped feature – informally named “Tombaugh Regio” – lies 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 and has been informally named Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), after Earth’s first artificial satellite. The surface appears to be divided into irregularly-shaped segments that are ringed by narrow troughs. Features that appear to be groups of mounds and fields of small pits are also visible. This image was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as one-half mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise -- a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body. Credits: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI
New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise — a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body. Credits: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI
Story/photos expanded[/caption]
APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, LAUREL, MD – Scientists leading NASA’s historic New Horizons mission to the Pluto system announced the first of what is certain to be a tidal wave of new discoveries, including the totally unexpected finding of young ice mountains at Pluto and crispy clear views of young fractures on its largest moon Charon, at a NASA media briefing today (July 15) at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.
A treasure trove of long awaited data has begun streaming back to Mission Control at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to the mouth watering delight of researchers and NASA.
With the first ever flyby of Pluto, America completed the initial up close reconnaissance of the planets in our solar system. Pluto was the last unexplored planet, building on missions that exactly started 50 years ago in 1965 when Mariner IV flew past Mars.
“Pluto New Horizons is a true mission of exploration showing us why basic scientific research is so important,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
“The mission has had nine years to build expectations about what we would see during closest approach to Pluto and Charon. Today, we get the first sampling of the scientific treasure collected during those critical moments, and I can tell you it dramatically surpasses those high expectations.”
Crisp new view of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon shows a swath of cliffs and troughs stretches about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from left to right, suggesting widespread fracturing of Charon’s crust, likely a result of internal processes. At upper right, along the moon’s curving edge, is a canyon estimated to be 4 to 6 miles (7 to 9 kilometers) deep. Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI
Today the team announced that New Horizons has already made a totally unexpected discovery showing clear evidence of ice mountains on Pluto’s surface in the bright area informally known as the ‘big heart of Pluto.’
The new close-up image released today showed an icy mountain range near the base of the heart with peaks jutting as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface, announced John Spencer, New Horizons science team co-investigator at the media briefing.
“It’s a very young surface, probably formed less than 100 million years old,’ said Spencer. “It may be active now.”
Spencer also announce that the heart shaped region will now be named “Tombaugh Reggio” in honor of Clyde Tombaugh, the American astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930.
“We are seeing water ice.”
“I never would have imagined this!” Spencer exclaimed.
“And I’m very surprised that there are no craters in the first high resolution images.”
Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The large, heart-shaped region is front and center. Several craters are seen and much of the surface looks reworked rather than ancient. Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI
The finding of ice mountains has major scientific implications.
Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other process must be generating the mountainous landscape, said the team.
“This may cause us to rethink what powers geological activity on many other icy worlds,” says Spencer of SwRI.
NASA announces discovery of icy mountain ranges on Pluto at July 15 media briefing at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
“Pluto may have internal activity. There may be geysers or cryovolcanoes,” New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, said during the media briefing. However there is no evidence for them yet.
Additional high resolution images for “Tombaugh Reggio” area are being transmitted back to Earth today and will continue.
“Finding a mountain range of ice is a complete surprise,” Stern noted.
After a nine year voyage through interplanetary space, New Horizons barreled past the Pluto system on Tuesday, July 14 for a history making first ever flyby at over 31,000 mph (49,600 kph), and survived the passage by swooping barely 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers) above the planet’s amazingly diverse surface.
The team had to wait another 12 hours for confirmation that the spacecraft lived through the daring encounter when signals were reacquired as planned at 8:53 p.m. EDT last night. Since New Horizons swung past Pluto to continue its voyage, the probe is now more than million miles outbound just 24 hours later.
NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate John Grunsfeld, left, New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, CO, second from left, New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), second from right, and New Horizons Project Manager Glen Fountain of APL, right, are seen at the conclusion of a press conference after the team received confirmation from the spacecraft that it has completed the flyby of Pluto, Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden congratulates the New Horizons team after successful Pluto flyby on July 14, 2015, to cheering crowd at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, during live NASA TV media briefing. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of the Pluto flyby on July 14 from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
New Horizons science team co-investigator John Spencer examines print of the newest Pluto image taken on July 13, 2015 after the successful Pluto flyby. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
The large, heart-shaped region is front and center. Several craters are seen and much of the surface looks reworked rather than ancient. Credit: NASA
APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, LAUREL, MD – With this morning’s (July 14) do or die flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft at 7:49 a.m. EDT while traveling over 3 billion miles away, America completed the initial up close reconnaissance of the last explored planet of our solar system at its frigid, far flung reaches and revealed a remarkably differentiated world dazzling us with alien terrain far beyond anyone’s expectation.
New Horizons barreled past Pluto for a history making first ever flyby at over 31,000 mph (49,600 kph) and passed only 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers) above the planet’s amazingly diverse surface.
To mark the occasion, NASA released the highest resolution image ever taken of Pluto as the probe swooped past its prey this morning, centered on the two lobed, differentiated ‘heart’.
But because the one ton piano shaped spacecraft has been out of touch with Mission Control for the past day as planned and busily gathering hordes of priceless data, confirmation of a successful flyby didn’t reach Mission Control on Earth until half a day later when New Horizons ‘phoned home’ with critical engineering data confirmed the health of the probe at 8:53 p.m. EDT this evening- basically saying “I’m Alive”.
“With this mission we have we have visited every planet in our solar system,” proclaimed NASA Administrator Charles Bolden this evening, July 14, to a packed house of cheering team members, invited guests and media including Universe Today at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, during a live NASA TV media briefing shortly after accomplishing the historic feat after the nine year interplanetary voyage.
“No other nation has that capability. It’s a historic day for exploration.”
“We did it! exclaimed New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, during the live media briefing.
“That’s one small step for New Horizons, one giant leap for mankind,” Stern added, paraphrasing humanity’s first moonwalker, Neil Armstrong.
“New Horizons completes the first planetary reconnaissance, a capstone of our time.”
The Pluto flyby took place on the 50th anniversary of the first interplanetary flyby by America’s Mariner 4 spacecraft when it soared past Mars in 1965.
Pluto and Charon in False Color Show Compositional Diversity. This July 13, 2015, image of Pluto and Charon is presented in false colors to make differences in surface material and features easy to see. It was obtained by the Ralph instrument on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, using three filters to obtain color information, which is exaggerated in the image. These are not the actual colors of Pluto and Charon, and the apparent distance between the two bodies has been reduced for this side-by-side view. Credit: NASA/APL/SwRI
“Today we inspired a whole generation of new explorers,” Bolden said to the crowd emotionally. “And you have more to do!” – as he pointedly acknowledge a crowd of young people in the room.
Pluto is covered by a spectacular array of craters, mountains, valleys, a whale shaped dark feature and a huge heart-shaped continent of pinkinsh bright ice as seen in the image taken on July 13 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface.
“New Horizons has sent back the most detailed data ever of Pluto and its system of moons.”
“Every mission expands our horizons and bring us one step further on the Journey to Mars,” said Bolden regarding NASA’s agency wide plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet during the 2030s.
“You have made Pluto almost human.”
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden congratulates the New Horizons team after successful Pluto flyby on July 14, 2015, to cheering crowd at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, during live NASA TV media briefing. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Tomorrow, the more than year long data playback begins.
“The best is yet to come,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, at the media briefing.
“You haven’t seen anything yet. There are many more months of data to be sent back.”
“This is like the Curiosity landing. This is just the beginning for fundamental discoveries. It’s a tremendous moment in human history.”
New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern celebrates in mission control after reception of signal from NASA’s New Horizons probe at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland after the successful Pluto flyby on July 14, 2015. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Congratulations rolled in from around the world including President Obama and world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking.
It has been three decades since we last visited planetary bodies at the outer reaches of our solar system when Voyager 2 flew past Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989.
The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission.
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of the Pluto flyby on July 14/15 from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
New Horizons science team co-investigator John Spencer examines print of the newest Pluto image taken on July 13, 2015 after the successful Pluto flyby. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com How many planets are there? A resounding 9! Says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern and Ken Kremer/Universe Today, flashing Stern’s signature ‘9 Planets’ call sign. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
A portrait from the final approach. Pluto and Charon display striking color and brightness contrast in this composite image from July 11, showing high-resolution black-and-white LORRI images colorized with Ralph data collected from the last rotation of Pluto. Color data being returned by the spacecraft now will update these images, bringing color contrast into sharper focus. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI
Measurements by New Horizons gathered just in the past few days as the spacecraft barrels towards the Pluto planetary system now confirm that Pluto is indeed the biggest object in the vast region beyond the orbit of Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt.
Pluto is thus the undisputed King of the Kuiper Belt!
Pluto measures 1,473 miles (2,370 kilometers) in diameter, which is at the higher end of the range of previous estimates.
The big news was announced today, by New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, during a live media briefing at Pluto mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.
“This settles the debate about the largest object in the Kuiper Belt,” Stern noted.
New Horizons will swoop to within about 12,500 kilometers (nearly 7,750 miles) of Pluto’s surface and about 17,900 miles (28,800 kilometers) from Charon during closest approach at approximately 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) on July 14.
The new and definitive measurement of Pluto’s size is based on images taken by the high resolution Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) to make this determination.
“The size of Pluto has been debated since its discovery in 1930. We are excited to finally lay this question to rest,” said mission scientist Bill McKinnon, Washington University, St. Louis.
Pluto was the first planet discovered by an American, Clyde Tombaugh.
Pluto’s “Heart” is seen in this new image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) received on July 8, 2015 after normal science operations resumed following the scary July 4 safe mode anomaly that briefing shut down all science operations. The LORRI image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI
Pluto is bigger than Eris, another big Kuiper Belt object discovered in 2005 by Mike Brown of Caltech, which is much further out from the Sun than Pluto. The discovery of Eris further fueled the controversial debate about the status of Pluto’s planethood.
Eris comes in second in size in the Kuiper Belt at only 1,445 miles (2,326 km) in diameter.
On July 11, 2015, New Horizons captured a world that is growing more fascinating by the day. For the first time on Pluto, this view reveals linear features that may be cliffs, as well as a circular feature that could be an impact crater. Rotating into view is the bright heart-shaped feature that will be seen in more detail during New Horizons’ closest approach on July 14. The annotated version includes a diagram indicating Pluto’s north pole, equator, and central meridian. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Stern also noted that because Pluto is slight bigger than the average of previous estimates, its density is slightly lower than previously thought. Therefore the fraction of ice in its interior is slightly higher and the fraction of rock is slightly lower. But further data is required to pin the density down more precisely.
The uncertainty in Pluto’s size has persisted for decades and was due to the fact that Pluto has a very tenuous atmosphere composed of nitrogen.
Furthermore Pluto’s lowest atmospheric layer called the troposphere, is shallower than previously believed.
On the other hand, its largest moon Charon with which it forms a double planet, lacks a substantial atmosphere and its size was known with near certainty based on ground-based telescopic observation.
New Horizons LORRI imagery has confirmed that Charon measures 751 miles (1208 km) kilometers) across.
Stern also confirmed that frigid Pluto also has a polar cap composed of methane and nitrogen ices based on measurements from the Alice instrument.
LORRI has also zoomed in on two of Pluto’s smaller moons, Nix and Hydra.
“We knew from the time we designed our flyby that we would only be able to study the small moons in detail for just a few days before closest approach,” said Stern. “Now, deep inside Pluto’s sphere of influence, that time has come.”
The approximate sizes of Pluto’s moons Nix and Hydra compared to Denver, Colorado. While Nix and Hydra are illustrated as circles in this diagram, mission scientists anticipate that future observations by New Horizons will show that they are irregular in shape. Credits: JHUAPL/Google
But because they are so small, accurate measurement with LORRI could only be made in the final week prior to the July 14 flyby.
Nix is estimated to be about 20 miles (about 35 kilometers) across, while Hydra is roughly 30 miles (roughly 45 kilometers) across. These sizes lead mission scientists to conclude that their surfaces are quite bright, possibly due to the presence of ice.
Determinations about Pluto’s two smallest moons, Kerberos and Styx, will be made later at some point during the 16-month long playback of data after the July 14 encounter.
It has been three decades since we last visited planetary bodies at the outer reaches of our solar system when Voyager 2 flew past Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989.
New Horizons’ last look at Pluto’s Charon-facing hemisphere reveals the highest resolution view of four intriguing darks spots for decades to come. This image, taken early the morning of July 11, 2015, shows newly-resolved linear features above the equatorial region that intersect, suggestive of polygonal shapes. This image was captured when the spacecraft was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
New Horizons is closing in fast on its quarry at a whopping 31,000 mph (49,600 kph) after a nine year interplanetary voyage and is now less than half a million miles away, in the final hours before closest approach.
The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission.
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of the Pluto flyby on July 14 from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Chasms, craters, and a dark north polar region are revealed in this image of Pluto’s largest moon Charon taken by New Horizons on July 11, 2015. The annotated version includes a diagram showing Charon’s north pole, equator, and central meridian, with the features highlighted. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Chasms, craters, and a dark north polar region are revealed in this image of Pluto’s largest moon Charon taken by New Horizons on July 11, 2015. The annotated version includes a diagram showing Charon’s north pole, equator, and central meridian, with the features highlighted. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Story/imagery updated[/caption]
Indeed the largest of Charon’s chasms stretches farther than Earth’s Grand Canyon. And it’s taken New Horizons over nine years speeding through space – since launching back in 2006 as the fastest spacecraft departing Earth – to get close enough to see these wonders for the first time.
“The most pronounced chasm, which lies in the southern hemisphere, is longer and miles deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon,” says William McKinnon, deputy lead scientist with New Horizon’s Geology and Geophysics investigation team, in a NASA statement.
To put that into perspective, consider this; Charon is only about 750 miles (1200 kilometers) across, about half the diameter of Pluto. The Grand Canyon stretches 277 miles (446 km) across the western United States and is up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6093 feet or 1857 meters). Thus Charon’s ‘Grand Canyon’ is truly gargantuan in comparison to its moons size when compared to our Grand Canyon.
At 1471 miles (2368 km) across, Pluto is about half the diameter of the United States. Both Pluto and Charon and largely composed of icy materials, with much less rock compared to the terrestrial planets like Earth.
“This is the first clear evidence of faulting and surface disruption on Charon,” says McKinnon, who is based at the Washington University in St. Louis.
“New Horizons has transformed our view of this distant moon from a nearly featureless ball of ice to a world displaying all kinds of geologic activity.”
Chasms, craters, and a dark north polar region are revealed in this image of Pluto’s largest moon Charon taken by New Horizons on July 11, 2015. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
The exquisite new image of Charon’s chasms and canyons was just released by NASA this evening, Sunday, July 12. It was taken yesterday, Saturday, July 11, by New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at a distance of 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto and Charon, and radioed back to Earth today.
The largest crater seen in the July 11 images lies near Charon’s south pole and is about 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) across.
“The brightness of the rays of material blasted out of the crater suggest it formed relatively recently in geologic terms, during a collision with a small body some time in the last billion million years,” says the team.
“The darkness of the crater’s floor is especially intriguing,” says McKinnon.
“One explanation is that the crater has exposed a different type of icy material than the more reflective ices that lie on the surface. Another possibility is that the ice in the crater floor is the same material as its surroundings but has a larger ice grain size, which reflects less sunlight. In this scenario, the impactor that gouged the crater melted the ice in the crater floor, which then refroze into larger grains.”
New Horizons is now merely one day and one million miles (1.6 million km) out from its history making encounter with the Pluto planetary system – some three billion miles (4.8 billion km) from Earth. It passed the million mile milestone at 11:23 p.m. EDT, Sunday night July 12.
And its closing in fast on its quarry at a whopping 31,000 mph (49,600 kph) after a nine year interplanetary voyage.
Facts about Pluto. Credit: NASA
The high resolution LORRI imager is achieving an image resolution of 5 mile per pixel at this moment at a million miles away. And it will gets thousands of times better during the closest approach.
“Features as small as the lakes in New York’s Central Park and wharfs on the Hudson will be resolved,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, during a live mission update today, July 12. The image resolution will reach a maximum of about 230 feet (70 meters).
New Horizons suite of seven science instruments will collected 44 gigabits of data during the flyby encounter period lasting from July 7 to July 16, from Pluto, Charon and the four tiny moons – Hydra, Styx, Nix and Kerberos.
New Horizons will swoop to within about 12,500 kilometers (nearly 7,750 miles) of Pluto’s surface and about 17,900 miles (28,800 kilometers) from Charon during closest approach at approximately 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) on July 14.
Pluto and Charon are gravitationally locked with an orbital period of 6.4 days, so they always show the same face to one another. They orbit about 12,160 mi (19,570 kilometers) apart but about a center of gravity, or barycenter, above the surface of Pluto, unlike any of the other major bodies in our solar system.
Image of Pluto and Charon from July 8, 2015; color information obtained earlier in the mission from the Ralph instrument has been added. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI
Charon is by far the largest of Pluto’s five moons. The new July 11 image also shows that it sports a “mysterious dark region” stretching some 200 miles across near the north pole.
Pluto is the last of the nine classical planets to be explored up close and completes the initial the initial reconnaissance of the solar system nearly six decades after the dawn of the space age. It represents a whole new class of objects known as the ice dwarfs, located in the Kuiper Belt – a relic of solar system formation replete with countless bodies.
It has been three decades since we last visited planetary bodies at the outer reaches of our solar system when Voyager 2 flew past Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989.
New Horizons trajectory to the Pluto System. Credit: NASA
The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission.
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of the Pluto flyby on July 14 from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
New Horizons' last look at Pluto's Charon-facing hemisphere reveals the highest resolution view of four intriguing darks spots for decades to come. This image, taken early the morning of July 11, 2015, shows newly-resolved linear features above the equatorial region that intersect, suggestive of polygonal shapes. This image was captured when the spacecraft was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
New Horizons’ last look at Pluto’s Charon-facing hemisphere reveals the highest resolution view of four intriguing darks spots for decades to come. This image, taken early the morning of July 11, 2015, shows newly-resolved linear features above the equatorial region that intersect, suggestive of polygonal shapes. This image was captured when the spacecraft was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
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The four puzzling spots (see above) are located on the hemisphere of Pluto which always faces its largest moon, Charon, and have captivated the scientists and public alike. Pluto and Charon are gravitationally locked with an orbital period of 6.4 days.
Over only the past few days, we are finally witnessing an amazing assortment of geological wonders emerge into focus from these never before seen worlds – as promised by the New Horizons team over a decade ago.
Be sure to take a good hard look at the image, because these spots and Pluto’s Charon-facing hemisphere will not be visible to New Horizons cameras and spectrometers during the historic July 14 encounter as the spacecraft whizzes by the binary worlds at speeds of some 30,800 miles per hour (more than 48,600 kilometers per hour) for their first up close reconnaissance.
And it’s likely to be many decades before the next visitor from Earth arrives at the frigid worlds at the far flung reaches of our solar system for a longer look, hopefully from orbit.
“The [July 11] image is the last, best look that anyone will have of Pluto’s far side for decades to come,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, in a statement.
The image of the mysterious spots was taken earlier today (July 11) by New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at a distance of 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from Pluto, and just released by NASA. The image resolution is 10 miles per pixel. One week ago it was only 40 miles per pixel.
They were first seen only in very recent LORRI images as Pluto’s disk finally was resolved and are located in a Missouri sized area about 300 miles (480 kilometers) across and above the equatorial region.
But until today they were still rather fuzzy – see image below from July 3! What a difference a few million miles (km) makes!
Latest color image of Pluto taken on July 3, 2015. Best yet image of Pluto was taken by the LORRI imager on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 3, 2015 at a distance of 7.8 million mi (12.5 million km), just prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Color data taken from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
“The Pluto system is totally unknown territory,” said Dr. John Spencer, New Horizons co-investigator at today’s (July 11) daily live briefing from NASA and the New Horizons team.
“Pluto is like nowhere we’ve even been before. It is unlike anything we’ve visited before.”
Now, with the $700 million NASA planetary probe millions of miles closer to the double planet, the picture resolution has increased dramatically and the team can at least speculate.
Researchers say the quartet of “equally spaced” dark splotches are “suggestive of polygonal shapes” and the “boundaries between the dark and bright terrains are irregular and sharply defined.”
“It’s weird that they’re spaced so regularly,” says New Horizons program scientist Curt Niebur at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
However their nature remains “intriguing” and truly “unknown.”
“We can’t tell whether they’re plateaus or plains, or whether they’re brightness variations on a completely smooth surface,” added Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California.
“It’s amazing what we are seeing now in the images, showing us things we’ve never seen before,” said Spencer.
“Every day we see things we never knew before. We see these crazy black and white patterns. And we have no idea what these mean.”
Answering these questions and more is what the encounter is all about.
Pluto is just chock full of mysteries, with new ones emerging every day as New Horizons at last homes in on its quarry, and the planet grows from a spot to an enlarging disk with never before seen surface features, three billion miles from Earth after an interplanetary journey of some nine and a half years.
“We see circular things and wonder are those craters? Or are they something else,” Spencer elaborated.
“We saw circular features on Neptune’s moon Triton that are not craters. So we should know in a few days . But right now we are just having an awful lot of fun just speculating. It’s just amazing.”
Until a few days ago, we didn’t know that “the other Red Planet” had a big bright heart and a dark ‘whale-shaped’ feature – see my earlier articles; here and here.
Pluto’s “Heart” is seen in this new image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) received on July 8, 2015 after normal science operations resumed following the scary July 4 safe mode anomaly that briefing shut down all science operations. The LORRI image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument. Credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI
“When we combine images like this of the far side with composition and color data the spacecraft has already acquired but not yet sent to Earth, we expect to be able to read the history of this face of Pluto,” Moore explained.
New Horizons will swoop to within about 12,500 kilometers (nearly 7,750 miles) of Pluto’s surface and about 17,900 miles (28,800 kilometers) from Charon during closest approach at approximately 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) on July 14.
The probe was launched back on Jan. 19, 2006 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on a 9 year voyage of over 3.6 billion miles (5.7 billion km).
Pluto is the last of the nine classical planets to be explored up close and completes the initial the initial reconnaissance of the solar system nearly six decades after the dawn of the space age. It represents a whole new class of objects.
“Pluto is a member of a whole new family of objects,” said Jim Green, director of Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, in today’s live Pluto update.
“We call that the Kuiper Belt. And it is the outer solar system.”
New Horizons is equipped with a suite of seven science instruments gathering data during the approach and encounter phases with the Pluto system.
Graphic shows data gathered by New Horizons particle and plasma science instruments from 2 million miles out on July 11, 2015. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
The New Frontiers spacecraft was built by a team led by Stern and included researchers from SwRI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. APL also operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Tantalizing signs of geology on Pluto are revealed in this image from New Horizons taken on July 9, 2015 from 3.3 million miles (5.4 million km) away. This annotated version shows the large dark feature nicknamed “the whale” that straddles Pluto’s equator, a swirly band and a curious polygonal outline. At lower is a reference globe showing Pluto’s orientation in the image, with the equator and central meridian in bold. Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI
Latest color image of Pluto taken on July 3, 2015. Best yet image of Pluto was taken by the LORRI imager on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 3, 2015 at a distance of 7.8 million mi (12.5 million km), just prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Color data taken from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Latest color image of Pluto taken on July 3, 2015 shows 4 mysterious dark spots.
Best yet image of Pluto was taken by the LORRI imager on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 3, 2015 at a distance of 7.8 million mi (12.5 million km), just prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Color data taken from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
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Despite some hair-raising and unplanned 4th of July fireworks of sorts in deep space which caused NASA’s Pluto bound New Horizons spacecraft to enter “safe mode” due to a computer glitch and temporarily halt all science operations over the weekend, the spacecraft is now fully back on track, “healthy” and working “flawlessly” and set to resume all planned research investigations on Tuesday, July 7, NASA and top mission managers announced at a media briefing held this afternoon, Monday, July 6.
It’s now just exactly one week before the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fast flyby encounter of the ever intriguing binary planet, at the far flung reaches of the solar system. And the great news could not come soon enough given the proximity of the flyby.
“The spacecraft is in excellent health and back in operation. New Horizons is barreling towards the Pluto system,” stated Jim Green, director of Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, at the start of today’s news media briefing.
The $700 million mission remains on track to conduct the complex close flyby science sequence in its entirety, as planned over the next week, including the July 14 flyby of Pluto, despite the scary safe mode episode.
“The New Horizons spacecraft and science payload are now operating flawlessly,” Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, announced at the media briefing.
NASA unexpectedly lost contact with the New Horizons spacecraft on Saturday, July 4, at about 1:30 p.m. EDT after it suffered a memory related software anomaly and executed a protective operation known as “safe mode.” An anomaly investigation team was formed immediately.
“It’s really a historic time, but also fraught with many decisions and challenges on the way to the July 14 Pluto system encounter,” Green said.
The mission team quickly worked to reestablish contact with the piano shaped spacecraft about 90 minutes after the signal was lost.
“On Saturday we lost contact with the spacecraft. The New Horizons team immediately went into action. Within 90 minutes the signal was reacquired by the team, with the spacecraft in safe mode. They soon found the root cause and corrective actions were immediately taken to get the spacecraft back in business.”
The team worked tirelessly and diligently day and night over the holiday weekend to recover New Horizons back to full operation quickly and in time for the flyby encounter of Pluto on July 14, set for approximately 7:49 a.m. EDT (11:49 UTC) on July 14, said Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland.
There are no second chances.
This trio of images are the most recent high-resolution views of Pluto sent by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, including one showing the four mysterious dark spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the world. The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) obtained these three images between July 1 and 3 of 2015, prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
The software glitch occurred a day after new operating software was uploaded to New Horizons last Friday.
The spacecraft was trying to do two things at once on Saturday, compressing science data and writing command sequences while using up too much flash memory, explained Fountain.
“The computer was trying to do these two things at the same time, and the two were more than the processor could handle,” Fountain said.
“So the processor said ‘I’m overloaded.’ Then the spacecraft did exactly what it was supposed to do. It then switched to the backup computer and went into safe mode. At that point, we lost the downlink from the primary computer. We realized quickly what happened and put a recovery plan in place and recovered.”
Artist view of New Horizons passing Pluto and three of its moons. The ship is about the size of a grand piano and kept warm in the cold of the outer Solar System by heat release from the radioactive decay of plutonium within the probe’s RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
At this moment New Horizons is about 3 billion miles (4.9 billion km) from Earth and less than 6 million miles (9 million km) away from unmasking the secrets of tantalizing Pluto, Charon, its largest moon with which it forms a double planet system, and its four tiny and recently discovered moons. Charon is half the size of Pluto.
The round trip time for signals traveling at the speed of light is 8.5 hours. So it’s a very long time before commands from Earth can reach the spacecraft and for the team to determine their outcome. So the probe has to be able to operate on its own without direction from Earth during the intense and brief flyby period.
Pluto is the most distant and last unexplored planet in our Solar System, and therefore presents enormous complexities to those bold enough to dare the mightiest things.
“We expect a nominal flyby of Pluto from every indication now,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, announced at the media briefing.
“This object is unlike any other that we have observed,” Stern said. “Both Pluto and Charon are already surprising us.”
Less than 1 percent of the planned data was lost in the three days that the science instruments were shut off.
“It’s more important to focus on the later science during the flyby,” Stern elaborated.
“There is zero impact to the primary Group 1 highest-priority science objectives. And a minor impact to Group 2 and Group 3 objectives,” Stern elaborated.
“This is a speed bump in terms of the total return that we expect from this flyby.”
“I’m pleased that our mission team quickly identified the problem and assured the health of the spacecraft,” noted Green. “Now, with Pluto in our sights, we’re on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold.”
New Horizons trajectory map to Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
The team said this type of software update will not be repeated and a similar type safe mode event should not recur.
Fountain said that during the encounter period, the probe can switch itself to exit safe mode event within about 7 minutes, depending on the situation, and minimize any science data losses.
New Horizons will swoop to within about 12,500 kilometers (nearly 7,800 miles) of Pluto’s surface.
It will zoom past Pluto at speeds of some 30,000 miles per hour (more than 48,000 kilometers per hour).
Today the team also released the best yet images of Pluto that were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). The trio of images were between July 1 and 3 of 2015, prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode.
The images show varying and enigmatic surface features on the different hemispheres of Pluto.
They also show the four mysterious dark spots on Pluto that have captured the imagination of the scientists and the world.
Their nature remains unknown at this time.
The probe was launched back in 2006 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
“We are on our way to Pluto!” Green exclaimed.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
New Horizons infographic about the Pluto encounter.
Are you ready for New Horizons’ flyby of Pluto? The science and engineering team reports they are ready for action, with the spacecraft on track and all systems functioning, with closest approach on July 14, 2015.
To get the rest of us ready, the National Space Society has put together a stirring video of the New Horizons mission. It was directed and produced by Erik Wernquist, who created another stirring video last year, Wanderers, which looks to the future of solar system exploration. For this new video, New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern served as advisor.
“As both an NSS member and the Principal Investigator of New Horizons, I’m excited about this beautiful film – and very appreciative of the efforts of NSS and its sponsors to create this. It really is stirring; I hope you’ll think so too,” said Stern.
You can read the latest update from the New Horizons team here, which includes information about the third and final far encounter science phase, called Approach Phase 3, which runs until seven days before Pluto close approach. Additionally, the team is on the lookout for possible hazards for the spacecraft, e.i., new moons, rings or other space debris that might present hazards to the fast-moving spacecraft when it flies through the Pluto system. They’ve been analyzing the latest images from the spacecraft and so far it looks all clear.
“Every day we break a new distance record to Pluto, and every day our data get better,” said Stern. “Nothing like this kind of frontier, outer solar system exploration has happened since Voyager 2 was at Neptune way back in 1989. It’s exciting–come and watch as New Horizons turns points of light into a newly explored planetary system and its moons!”
Additionally, @NewHorizons2015 just tweeted out a great infographic about the encounter:
The overview of the New Horizon journey to the binary system of Pluto and Charon. The NASA probe is now surpassing Hubble imagery. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
The latest set of images from the long range imager, LORRI, on New Horizons now reveals surface features. At a press conference today, exhilarated NASA scientists discussed what the images are now suggesting. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Today, a trio of NASA scientists expressed their exhilaration with the set of new Pluto images released by the New Horizons team. “Land Ho” exclaimed Dr. Alan Stern as he first tried to explain where they are on their long journey. Nearly 500 years ago, not even Magellan on a three year journey to circumnavigate the Earth waited so long. A ten year journey is beginning to reveal fascinating new details of the dwarf planet Pluto, once the ninth planet of our Solar System. The latest images show surface features on Pluto suggesting polar caps.
A team effort that Dr. Weaver said called upon leading experts to resolve these newest details of Pluto’s surface. The inset at left shows schematically the geographic relationship of the two bodies as they orbit each other. The inset at right shows surface details at 3x maximum resolution. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
The NASA press conference took place this afternoon, anchored by Dr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate who quickly turned over the discussion to the project scientist of the New Horizons mission, Dr. Alan Stern from the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio, Texas. Grunsfeld began by stating NASA’s mission – “to explore, discover and inspire” and added that New Horizons is certainly executing these prime objectives.
The overview of the New Horizon journey to the binary system, Pluto and Charon, and beyond. The NASA probe is now surpassing Hubble imagery. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Alan Stern started off by expressing his excitement with the latest results from the long range telescope on board New Horizons, LORRI, but emphasized he represents a team effort, the culmination of decades of work.
With just 11 weeks remaining and now 98% of the way to Pluto, the latest set of images from LORRI have now revealed details better than the best that was previously attainable – from the Hubble Space Telescope. Most incredible are indications of polar caps on the dwarf planet Pluto.
Until now, the Hubble space telescope had shown tantalizing but mottled features of the surface of Pluto (Photo Credit: NASA)
Dr. Stern, stated that the 25th Anniversay of the Hubble mission has also functioned as a segue to what is about to unfold from New Horizons. Until now, the best images of Pluto’s surface had been wrestled out of images from Hubble with computer processing. Yet, at the present distance New Horizons remains, his team is still relying on image processing to reveal these first surface details.
The gravitational tug of war of the unique binary system has forced both small bodies to forever face each other, similar to how our Moon always faces the Earth. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Dr. Stern stated how remarkable the Pluto-Charon system is. The earlier set of LORRI images from 2014 had shown the gravitational dance of the two small bodies. He stated that they are truly a binary system and a type we have never explored before. Pluto-Charon is a dual synchronous, tidally locked system. Dr. Stern explained that the Earth, close-in to the Sun, and their space probe New Horizons, now on its final approach, is viewing the sunlit side of Pluto and Charon.
The system is tipped over relative to its orbital plane around the Sun. Dr. Stern stated, “it is like watching Pluto rotate on a spit.” He said that we are nearly seeing it face on; similar to an observer hovering far above the Earth’s polar cap and looking down upon the Earth-Moon system. The orbits of the two bodies, as seen in the LORRI image sequence (animations, above), appear elliptical (oval), however, due to the extreme and final state of this binary system, the orbits are perfect circles; the eccentricities are zero! New Horizons is just approaching slightly off center.
Images of the New Horion space probe shows its compactness, necessarily to minimize weight, volume, power demands and achieve the high velocity necessary to reach Pluto in nine years. Af left the instruments are shown included the long range imager, LORRI. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Dr. Stern continued and explained how this latest set is now showing surface features on Pluto. The features “are suggesting the presence of polar caps”, however he also emphasized that it remains only suggestive until New Horizons can deliver more details, that is, higher resolution, color imagery from the Ralph imager and spectroscopic data (Ralph and Alice imaging spectrometers) to reveal composition. Dr. Stern turned over the press conference to Dr. Hal Weaver of John Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory, the lead scientist for the LORRI instrument.
LORRI, the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, shown through details of a schematic. (Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
LORRI as Dr. Weaver explained is a state-of-the-art instrument. A fixed focus telescopic camera, functional from room temp down to 180 degees Fahrenheit below zero and utilizes an 8 inch primary mirror. The optical quality is extraordinary but the light gathering power is the same as one has in an amateur 8 inch telescope such as offered by Meade or Celestron. Still further, Dr. Weaver stated that LORRI is also extremely efficient and ligthweight, using less than 5 watts of power and weighing less than 20 lbs.
New York City’s Manhattan is shown as an example of the resolving power the Ralph multi-spectral imager will have at closest approach to Pluto and Charon (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Dr. Weaver explained how the raw images from LORRI are presently little more than blotches of light, unspectacular at first glance, but with image processing, the details discussed today are revealed. The New Horizons team employed world-class experts in the technique of Image Deconvolution. It was again Hubble that spawned “a cottage industry”, over 20 years ago, including one expert – Todd Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Lauer and others took on the challenge of extracting quality imagery from the Hubble space telescope as it struggled with the astigmatism accidentally built into its optical system. A NASA Space Shuttle mission delivered and inserted a corrective lens into Hubble which has made its 25 years of service possible.
Without the imaging processing technique of deconvolution, the latest images of Pluto are mere blotches. Dr. Weaver credited experts born from the Hubble astigmatism from 20 years ago. (Photo Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
And the New Horizons’ processed images are now slightly better than Hubble and will just get much better. From the Q&A with the press. Weaver explained that while the images show more detail, Earth-based and Hubble images remain more light sensitive. Hubble sets an upper limit to the size of any remaining moons to be discovered. Weaver stated that by June, New Horizons’ LORRI will exceed the light sensitivity limits of Hubble. If there are more moons to be found, June will be the month.
An artist’s illustration of Pluto. With a tenuous atmosphere that has so far defied explanations, New Horizons is altogether revealing a light red – peach – colored surface but with large contrasting areas of white and dark red. (Illust. Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Through the Q&A, Dr. Stern stated that an extraordinary aspect of Pluto’s atmosphere is that the planet’s atmosphere has continued to expand despite having passed a point in its orbit at which it should be freezing and condensing onto its surface. The atmosphere expanded 200 to 300% in the last decade. With the limited observations, Stern and other Pluto experts surmise that there is a lag in the climate akin to how our hottest months lag the beginning of Summer by a couple of months. Perhaps, a latent heat stored up in the near surface has continued to vaporize frozen gases thus building up the atmosphere more than first expected.
The composition of the dwarf planet’s surface was discussed. Most evident in Earth-based spectroscopy is that there is molecular nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane. Stern stated they these species of molecules could explain the bright and dark spots of the surface. However, he emphasized that Pluto is composed of 70% rock by mass and the remaining is ice. Charon stands in remarkable contrast to Pluto. Chraon has primarily water and ammonia hydrates on its surface; no detectable atmosphere (so far). Charon’s appearance is much more uniform and bland. Altogether, Stern said that experts call this the Pluto-Charon dichotomy.
The present approach at 60 million miles to Pluto is just the beginning of the story of New Horizons’ study of the primary targets. This press conference illustration explains near-term plans. (Illust. Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Dr. Stern near the end of the press conference restated that this is truly “my meet Pluto moment.” New Horizons is like a plane on its final approach to touchdown but New Horizons cannot slow down. There are no retro-rockets, no propulsion onboard that can slow down the probe on its trek to escape the gravity of the Sun. The probe will join the Pioneer and Voyager space probes as the only Human-made objects to leave the Solar System. With its final approach, with every day, Pluto and Charon closes in as Dr. Stern and Dr. Weaver explained, Pluto’s image will fill the full breadth of the imaging detector. Details on its surface will be equivalent to high resolution images of New York’s Manhattan (figure, above) showing details such as the ponds in Central Park.
To continue following the latest release of images from New Horizons go to http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons/lorri-gallery.
ILLUSTRATION IS RESERVED - DO NOT USE. The eight planets of the Solar System and the dwarf planet Pluto. For many astronomers and planetary scientists Pluto's status remains an open question. Redefining what is a planet could return Pluto to the fold - 9 planets and also open the door for many more. Insets from upper left, clockwise: Clyde Tombaugh, Mike Brown, Alan Stern, Gerard Kuiper.(Credit: NASA, Judy Schmidt, Björn Jónsson)
A storm is brewing, a battle of words and a war of the worlds. The Earth is not at risk. It is mostly a civil dispute, but it has the potential to influence the path of careers. In 2014, a Harvard led debate was undertaken on the question: Is Pluto a planet. The impact of the definition of planet and everything else is far reaching – to the ends of the Universe.
It could mean a count of trillions of planets in our galaxy alone or it means leaving the planet Pluto out of the count – designation, just a dwarf planet. This is a question of how to classify non-stellar objects. What is a planet, asteroid, comet, planetoid or dwarf planet? Does our Solar System have 8 planets or some other number? Even the count of planets in our Milky Way galaxy is at stake.
“Dawn arising.” The latest image of Ceres – February 12, 2015 – by the Dawn spacecraft from 80,000 km. With icy deposits pock marking its surface, a possible reservoir of water below its surface, is Ceres a planet, dwarf planet, an asteroid or all three? (Credit: NASA/Dawn)
Not to dwell on the Harvard debate, let it be known that if given their way, the debates outcome would reset the Solar System to nine planets. For over eight years, the solar system has had eight planets. During the period 1807 to 1845, our Solar System had eleven planets. Neptune was discovered in 1846 and astronomers began to discover many more asteroids. They were eliminated from the club. This is very similar to what is now happening to Pluto-like objects – Plutoids. So from 1846 to 1930, there were 8 planets – the ones as defined today.
The discoverer of Pluto – Clyde Tombaugh in the 1930s and again with homebuilt telescope in the 1990s that earned him an assignment at Lowell Observatory – discover Planet X. The cremated remains of Clyde are attached to the New Horizons space probe that is now approaching the dwarf planet Pluto.
In 1930, a Kansas farm boy, Clyde Tombaugh, hired by Lowell Observatory discovered Pluto and for 76 years there were 9 planets. In the year 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) took up a debate using a “democratic process” to accept a new definition of planet, define a new type – dwarf planet and then set everything else as “Small Bodies.” If your head is spinning with planets, you are not alone.
All two body systems have a barycenter, the shared point in space around which they orbit. Pluto and Charon’s happens to be between both bodies due to their proximity and similar mass. (Credit: NASA/New Horizons)
Two NASA missions were launched immediately before and after the IAU announcement took affect. The Dawn mission suddenly was to be launched to an asteroid and a dwarf planet and the New Horizons had rather embarked on a nine year journey to a planet belittled to a dwarf planet – Pluto. Principal Investigator, Dr. Alan Stern was upset. Furthermore, from the discoveries of the Kuiper mission and other discoveries, we now know that there are hundreds of billions of planets in our Milky Way galaxy; possibly trillions. The present definition excludes hundreds of billions of bodies from planethood status.
The presently known largest trans-Neptunian objects (TSO) – are likely to be surpassed by future discoveries. Which of these trans-Neptunian objects (TSO) would you call planets and which “dwarf planets”? (Illustration Credit: Larry McNish, Data: M.Brown)
There are two main camps with de facto leaders. One camp has Dr. Mike Brown of Caltech and the other, Dr. Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) as leading figures. A primary focus of Dr. Brown’s research is the study of trans-Neptunian objects while Dr. Sterns’s activities are many but specifically, the New Horizons mission which is 6 months away from its flyby of Pluto. Consider first the IAU Resolution 5A that its members approved:
(1) A “planet” is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
(2) A “dwarf planet” is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as “Small Solar System Bodies”.
This is our starting point – planet, dwarf planet, everything else. Consider “everything else”. This broad category includes meteoroids, asteroids, comets and planetesimals. Perhaps other small body types will arise as we look more closely at the Universe. Within the category, there is now a question of what is an asteroid and what is a comet. NASA’s flybys of comets and now ESA’s Rosetta at 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko are making the delineation between the two types difficult. The difference between a meteoroid and an asteroid is simply defined as less than or greater than one meter in size, respectively. So the Chelyabinsk event absolutely involved a small asteroid – about 20 meters in diameter. Planetesimals are small bodies in a solar nebula that are the building blocks of planets but they could lead to the creation of all the other types of small bodies.
Dr. Alan Stern, project scientist for New Horizons and Neil deGrasse Tyson discuss the New Horizons spacecraft in the mission operations center at JHU/APL. The interview was for a NOVA special (12/14/2011), the Pluto Files, about a Kansas farm boy, a missing planet and the 70 years of astronomical discoveries leading to the present day. (Credit: JHU/APL,PBS)
Putting aside the question of “Small Bodies” and its sub-classes, what should be the definition of planet and dwarf planet? These are the two terms that demoted Pluto and raised Ceres to dwarf planet. It is also interesting to note how Resolution 5A is meant exclusively for our Solar System. In 2006, there were not thousands of exo-planets but just a few dozen extreme cases but nevertheless, the IAU did not choose to extend the definition to “stars” but rather just in reference to our pretty well known star, the Sun.
Recall Tim Allen’s movie, “The Santa Clause”. Clauses can cause a heap of trouble. The IAU has such a clause – Clause C which has caused much of the present controversy around the definition of planets. Clause (c) of Resolution 5A: “has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” This is the Pluto killer-clause which demoted it to dwarf planet status and reduced the number of planets in our solar system to eight. In a sense, the IAU chose to cauterize a wound, a weakness in the definitions, that if left unchanged, would have led to who knows how many planets in our Solar System.
The question of what is Pluto is open for public discussion so armed with enough knowledge to be dangerous, the following is my proposed alternative to the IAU’s that are arguably an improvement. The present challenge to Pluto’s status lies in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Such belts or clouds are probably not uncommon throughout the galaxy. Plutoids are the 500 lb gorilla in the room.
Two spacecraft, Dawn and New Horizon will reach their final objectives in 2015 – Dwarf Planets – Ceres and Pluto. (Credit: NASA, Illustration – T.Reyes)
This year, as touted by the likes of Planetary Society, Universe Today and elsewhere, is the year of the dwarf planet. How remarkable and surprising will the study of Ceres, Pluto and Charon by NASA spacecraft be? There is a strong possibility that after the celestial dust clears and data analysis is published, the IAU will take on the challenge again to better define what is a planet and everything else. It is impossible to imagine that the definitions can remain unchanged for long. Even now, there is sufficient information to independently assess the definitions and weigh in on the approaching debate. Anyone or any group – from grade schools to astronomical societies – can take on the challenge.
To encourage a debate and educate the public on the incredible universe that space probes and advanced telescopes are revealing, what follows is one proposed solution to what is a planet and everything else.
planet: is a celestial body that a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium – nearly round shape, b) has a differentiated interior as a result of its formation c) has insufficient mass to fuse hydrogen in its core, d) does not match the definition of a moon.
minor planet: is a planet with a mass less than one Pluto mass and does not match the definition of a moon.
inter-Stellar (minor) planet: is a (minor) planet that is not gravitationally bound to a stellar object.
binary (minor) planet: is a celestial body that is orbiting another (minor) planet for which the system’s barycenter resides above the surface of both bodies.
These definitions solve some hairy dilemmas. For one, planets orbit around the majority of most stars in the Universe, not just the Sun as Resolution 5A was only intended. Planets can also exist gravitationally not bound to a star – the result of it own molecular cloud collapse without a star or expulsion from a stellar system. One could specify gravitational expulsion however, it is possible that explosive events occur that cause the disintegration of a star and its binding gravity or creates such an impulse that a planet is thrusted out of a stellar system. Having an atmosphere certainly doesn’t work. Astronomers are already anticipating Mars or Earth-sized objects deep in the Oort cloud that could have no atmosphere – frozen out and also despite their size, not be able to “clear their neighborhood.”
An animation (above) of Kepler mission planet candidates compiled by Jeff Thorpe. Kepler and other exoplanet projects are revealing that the properties of planets – orbits, size, temperature, makeup – are all extreme. Does Pluto represent one of those extremes – the smallest of planets? (Credit: NASA/Kepler, Jeff Thorp)
The need to create a lower-end limit to what is a planet reached a near fever pitch with the discovery of a Trans-Nepturnian Object (TNO) in 2005 that is bigger than Pluto – Eris. Dr. Michael Brown of Caltech and his team led in the discovery of bright large KBOs. There was not just Eris but many of nearly the same size as Pluto. So without clause (c), one would be left with a definition for planet that could allow the count of planets in our Solar System to rise into the hundreds maybe even thousands. This would become a rather unmanageable problem; the number of planets rising year after year and never settled and with no means to make reasonable comparisons between planetary systems throughout our galaxy and even the Universe.
The book that tells the story of discovery – trans-Neptunian objects (TNO) that led to the downfall of Pluto from full planethood to that of a dwarf. The 2006 IAU decision was a pre-emptive strike to stave off a proliferation of planets in our system. It worked but “killed” Pluto. Did it have it coming? Dr. Brown also agrees that the present definition of planet is flawed and incomplete. (Photo Credits: Caltech/M.Brown)
Two more celestial body types follow that are proposed to round out the set.
moon: is a celestial body that a) orbits a (minor) planet and b) for which the barycenter of its orbit is below the surface of its parent (minor) planet.
This creates the possibility of a planet-moon system such that its barycenter is above the surface of the larger body. Pluto and Charon are the most prominent case in our Solar System. In such cases, if one body meets the criteria of a (minor)planet, then the other body can also be assessed to determine if it is also a (minor) planet and the pair as binary (minor) planets. If the primary body was a minor planet, it is possible that the barycenter could be above its surface but the secondary body does not meet all the criteria of a minor planet, specifically “differentiated interior”.
The definition of moon is compounded by the existence of, for example, asteroids with moons. For such objects, the smaller object is defined as a satellite.
Satellite: is a celestial body that a) orbits another celestial body, b) whose parent body is not a (minor) planet.
Another permissible term is moonlet which could be used to describe both very small moons such as those found in the Jovian and Saturn systems or a small body orbiting an asteroid or comet. Moonlet could replace satellite.
The discriminator between planet and moon is not mass but simply whether the celestial body orbits a (minor) planet and the barycenter resides inside the larger body. The definition of moon excludes the possibility of a planet orbiting another planet except in the special case of binary (minor) planet.
Defining a lower size limit to “Planet” is necessary to compare stellar systems and classify. A limit based on the body’s average surface pressure and temperature or the surface gravity could define a limit. While they could, they are not practical because of the extremes and diverse combinations of conditions. Strange objects would fall through the cracks.
Removing clause (c) – “has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit” – will avoid a future conflict such as a very low mass star with a plutoid-sized object or smaller, in a close orbit that has cleared its neighborhood.
Additionally, choosing to declare that Pluto becomes the “standard weight” that differentiates minor planet from planet sets a precedent. In an era in which computers measure and tally the state of our existence, setting this limit to include Pluto and return it as the ninth planet of our Solar System, is, in a small but significant way, a re-declaration of our humanity. Soon we will be challenged by artificial intelligence greater than ours; we are already have. Where will we stand our ground?
Forget about Pluto for a moment. Should Eris be our tenth planet? Like Pluto it has a prominent moon- Dysnomia. Human perception and conceptions of the Universe have shaped our view of the Solar System. The Ptolemaic system (Earth centered), Kepler’s Harmonic Spheres, even the fact that ten digits reside on our hands impact our impression of the Solar System (Photo Credits:NASA/ESA and M. Brown / Caltech)
The consequences of this proposed set of definitions, makes Ceres a minor planet and no longer an asteroid. Many trans-Neptunian objects discovered in this century become minor planets. Of the known TNOs only Pluto and Eris meets the criteria of planet.The dwarf planet Eris would become the tenth planet. Makemake, Sedna, Quaoar, Orcus, Haumea would be minor planets. By keeping Pluto a planet and defining it as the standard bearer, only one new planet must be declared. Surely, more will be found, very distant, in odd elliptical and tilted orbits. The count of planets in our solar system could rise by 10, 20 maybe 50 and perhaps this would make the definition untenable but maybe not. So be it. New Horizons will fly by a dwarf planet in July but this should mark the beginning of the end of the present set of definitions.
Three perspectives of a ten planet Solar System. No longer Earth centered, or with harmonic spheres but now with planets outside the ecliptic plane and growing. How many planets would be too many? (Credits: Wikimedia, T.Reyes)
This set of definitions defines a set of celestial bodies that consistently covers the spectrum of known bodies. There is the potential of exotic celestial objects that are spawned from cataclysmic events or from the unique conditions during the early epochs of the Universe or from remnants of old or dying stellar objects. Their discovery will likely trigger new or revised definitions but these definitions are a good working set for the time being. Ultimately, it is the decision of the IAU but the sharing of knowledge and the democratic processes that we cherish permits anyone to question and evaluate such definitions or proclamations.To all that share an interest in Pluto as or as not a planet raise your hand and be heard.
A video from 2014 by Kurz Gesagt describing the Pluto-Charon system. Is this a binary planet system or one of the “dwarf” variety?
My condolences to the friends and family of Tammy Plotner, the first regular contributing writer to Universe Today. Can’t we all relate to what drew Tammy to write about the Universe? She wrote outstanding articles for U.T.
