{"id":10505,"date":"2015-04-29T17:01:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=10505"},"modified":"2015-04-29T17:01:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T21:01:00","slug":"new-horizons-starts-to-see-surface-features-on-pluto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=10505","title":{"rendered":"New Horizons starts to see surface features on Pluto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pluto starting to come into focus as New Horizons gets closer:<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s New Horizons Detects Surface Features,
\nPossible Polar Cap on Pluto<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For the first time, images from NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft are revealing bright and dark regions on the surface of faraway Pluto \u2013 the primary target of the New Horizons close flyby in mid-July.<\/p>\n

The images were captured in early to mid-April from within 70 million miles (113 million kilometers), using the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera on New Horizons. A technique called image deconvolution sharpens the raw, unprocessed images beamed back to Earth. New Horizons scientists interpreted the data to reveal the dwarf planet has broad surface markings \u2013 some bright, some dark \u2013 including a bright area at one pole that may be a polar cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we approach the Pluto system we are starting to see intriguing features such as a bright region near Pluto\u2019s visible pole, starting the great scientific adventure to understand this enigmatic celestial object,\u201d says John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. \u201cAs we get closer, the excitement is building in our quest\u00a0to unravel the mysteries of Pluto using data from New Horizons.”<\/p>\n

\"First<\/a>View the graphics<\/a> from the April 29 media telecon.<\/div>\n

Also captured in the images is Pluto\u2019s largest moon, Charon, rotating in its 6.4-day long orbit. The exposure times used to create this image set \u2013 a tenth of a second \u2013 were too short for the camera to detect Pluto\u2019s four much smaller and fainter moons.<\/p>\n

Since it was discovered in 1930, Pluto has remained an enigma. It orbits our sun more than 3 billion miles (about 5 billion kilometers) from Earth, and researchers have struggled to discern any details about its surface. These latest New Horizons images allow the mission science team to detect clear differences in brightness across Pluto\u2019s surface as it rotates.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter traveling more than nine years through space, it\u2019s stunning to see Pluto, literally a dot of light as seen from Earth, becoming a real place right before our eyes,\u201d said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. \u201cThese incredible images are the first in which we can begin to see detail on Pluto, and they are already showing us that Pluto has a complex surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

The images the spacecraft returns will dramatically improve as New Horizons speeds closer to its July rendezvous with Pluto,<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can only imagine what surprises will be revealed when New Horizons passes approximately 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) above Pluto\u2019s surface this summer,\u201d said Hal Weaver, the mission\u2019s project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.<\/p>\n

APL designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

\"OpNav3_plutcenv7_lowres[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"OpNav3_barycen_v7_lowres[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These two \u201cmovies\u201d show a series of LORRI images of Pluto and Charon taken at 13 different times spanning 6.5 days, from April 12 to April 18, 2015. During that time, the spacecraft\u2019s distance from Pluto decreased from about 69 million miles (111 million kilometers) to 64 million miles (104 million kilometers).<\/em><\/p>\n

Pluto and Charon rotate around a center-of-mass (also called the \u201cbarycenter\u201d) once every 6.4 Earth days, and these LORRI images capture one complete rotation of the system. The direction of the rotation axis is shown in the figure. In one of these movies, the center of Pluto is kept fixed in the frame, while the other movie is fixed on the center of mass (accounting for the \u201cwobble\u201d in the system as Charon orbits Pluto).<\/em><\/p>\n

The 3x-magnified view of Pluto highlights the changing brightness across the disk of Pluto as it rotates. Because Pluto is tipped on its side (like Uranus), when observing Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft, one primarily sees one pole of Pluto, which appears to be brighter than the rest of the disk in all the images. Scientists suggest this brightening in Pluto\u2019s polar region might be caused by a \u201ccap\u201d of highly reflective snow on the surface. The \u201csnow\u201d in this case is likely to be frozen molecular nitrogen ice. New Horizons observations in July will determine definitively whether or not this hypothesis is correct.<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition to the polar cap, these images reveal changing brightness patterns from place to place as Pluto rotates, presumably caused by large-scale dark and bright patches at different longitudes on Pluto\u2019s surface. In all of these images, a mathematical technique called \u201cdeconvolution\u201d is used to improve the resolution of the raw LORRI images, restoring nearly the full resolution allowed by the camera\u2019s optics and detector.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here for non-annotated versions of the \u201cPluto-centric<\/a>\u201d \u00a0\u00a0and \u00a0\u201cbary-centric<\/a>\u201d movies.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA\/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory\/Southwest Research Institute)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pluto starting to come into focus as New Horizons gets closer: NASA\u2019s New Horizons Detects Surface Features, Possible Polar Cap on Pluto For the first time, images from NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft are revealing bright and dark regions on the surface of faraway Pluto \u2013 the primary target of the New Horizons close flyby in … Continue reading New Horizons starts to see surface features on Pluto<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,13,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pluto","category-space-science","category-space-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-2Jr","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10752,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=10752","url_meta":{"origin":10505,"position":0},"title":"Latest New Horizons images give hints of highly varied terrain","author":"TopSpacer","date":"June 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest images of Pluto from the New Horizons probe: Different Faces of Pluto Emerging in New Images from New Horizons\u00a0 The surface of Pluto is becoming better resolved as NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft speeds closer to its July flight through the Pluto system. 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