New Horizons update today on latest images and data from the Pluto fly-by [Update]

The New Horizons team will hold a briefing today at 2:00 pm EDT: Complex World: New Horizons Pluto Science Update Set for July 24 – NASA.

The panel will include:

  • Jim Green, director of Planetary Science at NASA Headquarters
  • Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado
  • Michael Summers, New Horizons co-investigator at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia
  • William McKinnon, New Horizons co-investigator at Washington University in St. Louis
  • Cathy Olkin, New Horizons deputy project scientist at SwRI

 

[ Update: Here is a video of the briefing:

]

Some of Ceres’s bright spots covered with haze

While waiting for the Dawn spacecraft to spiral down to a closer look at the surface of Ceres, the situation with the bright spots has gotten more rather than less murky:

pia19579_main-1041_crop

From the Nature article:

Haze on Ceres would be the first ever observed directly in the asteroid belt. In 2014, researchers using the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory reported seeing water vapour spraying off Ceres, which suggested that it was geologically active1. At least one-quarter of Ceres’s mass is water, a much greater proportion than seen in most asteroids.

Bright spots pepper Ceres’s surface, but the haze has so far been seen in only one location — a crater named Occator, which has a large bright area at its centre and several smaller spots nearby. Mission scientists have been trying to work out whether the bright spots are made of ice, evaporated salts or other minerals, or something else entirely.

Some team members had been leaning towards the salt explanation, but the discovery of haze suggests the presence of sublimating ice. “At noontime, if you look at a glancing angle, you can see what seems to be haze,” Russell says. “It comes back in a regular pattern.” The haze covers about half of the crater and stops at the rim.

Heinlein short story becomes a film

The Heinlein Books site points to a positive review of the film Predestination, which based on the Robert Heinlein short story All You Zombies:

Best Films of 2015 so far…

25. Predestination 

Effective time travel films must be able to set clear, established rules and be a means of achieving greater, emotional weight . Without the two, a film can be eviscerated by plot holes or become an unruly, empty spectacle. Predestination, an adaptation of an Robert A. Heinlein’s short story, “”—All You Zombies—”,” effectively coopts time travel and musings on fate and identity by anchoring the film emotionally with a stellar performance by Sarah Snook.

Predestination is paradoxically both stylistic as well as barebones. Temporal agents hop via a pedantically named device in the form of a violin case, and the effects itself are minimal but still satisfy. This is not a typical time travel thriller nor a brilliant, nuanced allegory, but something in between. Although the twist will shock and amuse, it is the gradient performance by Sarah Snook in transforming Jane into John that sets an otherwise shallow film apart.

Science fiction allows people to grapple with difficult and often nebulous themes, and although not perfect, Predestination does just enough to stand out in its dealings with time, fate, and identity. (David Tran)

Source: Sound and Sight

See also Predestination (2014) – IMDb.

Constellation Supply Co. brings space themes to its ceramic products

Evan Dohrmann is a ceramics expert, an astronomy buff, and founder of the new startup Constellation Supply Co. He contacted me about his company’s first product: The Little Dripper Coffee Brewer, whose launch is backed by a successful Kickstarter soon to end.

The pledge rewards include a badge “inspired by the mission patches worn by intrepid space explorers” –

6d7a520364b170becef868462efead4e_original

– and a limited edition glow in the dark star chart constellation star chart –

Constellation_Poster_crop

Evan describes the poster to me as follows:

1. Innovative Design – The poster is inspired by the works of astrophysicist Donald H. Menzel and author H.A. Rey, and is designed and printed in the U.S.A. (Portland, Oregon).
2. Glow In the Dark – A glow in the dark poster is appealing to kids and adults alike.
3. Celebrate Science and Astronomy – Constellation Supply Co. is a ceramics business first and foremost, however we’ve chosen to celebrate our love of astronomy in everything we do. We believe this is something your followers will appreciate.

Nice to see Evan finding ways to combine his ceramics business with his interest in space and astronomy.