Latest Pluto Flyby Photos 2015-07-17 NASA New Horizons News Conference /...
Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 17 Ιουλ 2015
more at: http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/p...
July 17th post Pluto flyby live press conference on the New Horizons mission.
"NASA
officials and team members of the historic New Horizons mission to
Pluto provide an update and share the latest developments on the
spacecraft during a news conference from NASA headquarters."
Public domain film from NASA.
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nas...
In
the latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up
image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no
more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by
geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy
mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named
“Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered
Pluto in 1930.
“This terrain is not easy to explain,” said Jeff
Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team
(GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The
discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all
pre-flyby expectations.”
This fascinating icy plains region --
resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth -- has been informally named
“Sputnik Planum” (Sputnik Plain) after the Earth’s first artificial
satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments,
roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, bordered by what appear to be
shallow troughs. Some of these troughs have darker material within them,
while others are traced by clumps of hills that appear to rise above
the surrounding terrain. Elsewhere, the surface appears to be etched by
fields of small pits that may have formed by a process called
sublimation, in which ice turns directly from solid to gas, just as dry
ice does on Earth.
Scientists have two working theories as to how
these 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.
Pluto’s icy plains also
display dark streaks that are a few miles long. These streaks appear to
be aligned in the same direction and may have been produced by winds
blowing across the frozen surface.
The Tuesday “heart of the
heart” image was taken when New Horizons was 48,000 miles (77,000
kilometers) from Pluto, and shows features as small as one-half mile (1
kilometer) across. Mission scientists will learn more about these
mysterious terrains from higher-resolution and stereo images that New
Horizons will pull from its digital recorders and send back to Earth
during the next year.
The New Horizons Atmospheres
team observed Pluto’s atmosphere as far as 1,000 miles (1,600
kilometers) above the surface, demonstrating that Pluto’s nitrogen-rich
atmosphere is quite extended. This is the first observation of Pluto’s
atmosphere at altitudes higher than 170 miles above the surface (270
kilometers).
The New Horizons Particles and Plasma team has
discovered a region of cold, dense ionized gas tens of thousands of
miles beyond Pluto -- the planet’s atmosphere being stripped away by the
solar wind and lost to space.
“This is just a first tantalizing
look at Pluto’s plasma environment,” said New Horizons co-investigator
Fran Bagenal, University of Colorado, Boulder.
"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.”
Alan
Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research
Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado, added, “We’ve only scratched the
surface of our Pluto exploration, but it already seems clear to me that
in the initial reconnaissance of the solar system, the best was saved
for last."
New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program,
managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Alabama. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in
Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons
spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission
Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, science team, payload operations
and encounter science planning.
July 17th post Pluto flyby live press conference on the New Horizons mission.
"NASA
officials and team members of the historic New Horizons mission to
Pluto provide an update and share the latest developments on the
spacecraft during a news conference from NASA headquarters."
Public domain film from NASA.
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nas...
In
the latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up
image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no
more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by
geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy
mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named
“Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered
Pluto in 1930.
“This terrain is not easy to explain,” said Jeff
Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team
(GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The
discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all
pre-flyby expectations.”
This fascinating icy plains region --
resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth -- has been informally named
“Sputnik Planum” (Sputnik Plain) after the Earth’s first artificial
satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments,
roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, bordered by what appear to be
shallow troughs. Some of these troughs have darker material within them,
while others are traced by clumps of hills that appear to rise above
the surrounding terrain. Elsewhere, the surface appears to be etched by
fields of small pits that may have formed by a process called
sublimation, in which ice turns directly from solid to gas, just as dry
ice does on Earth.
Scientists have two working theories as to how
these 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.
Pluto’s icy plains also
display dark streaks that are a few miles long. These streaks appear to
be aligned in the same direction and may have been produced by winds
blowing across the frozen surface.
The Tuesday “heart of the
heart” image was taken when New Horizons was 48,000 miles (77,000
kilometers) from Pluto, and shows features as small as one-half mile (1
kilometer) across. Mission scientists will learn more about these
mysterious terrains from higher-resolution and stereo images that New
Horizons will pull from its digital recorders and send back to Earth
during the next year.
The New Horizons Atmospheres
team observed Pluto’s atmosphere as far as 1,000 miles (1,600
kilometers) above the surface, demonstrating that Pluto’s nitrogen-rich
atmosphere is quite extended. This is the first observation of Pluto’s
atmosphere at altitudes higher than 170 miles above the surface (270
kilometers).
The New Horizons Particles and Plasma team has
discovered a region of cold, dense ionized gas tens of thousands of
miles beyond Pluto -- the planet’s atmosphere being stripped away by the
solar wind and lost to space.
“This is just a first tantalizing
look at Pluto’s plasma environment,” said New Horizons co-investigator
Fran Bagenal, University of Colorado, Boulder.
"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.”
Alan
Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research
Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado, added, “We’ve only scratched the
surface of our Pluto exploration, but it already seems clear to me that
in the initial reconnaissance of the solar system, the best was saved
for last."
New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program,
managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Alabama. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in
Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons
spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission
Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, science team, payload operations
and encounter science planning.
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