
New Horizons phones home - aestetix
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33531811
======
zacharycohn
This is the most incredible picture I have ever seen. In May, the best picture
of Pluto was a couple blown up pixels. Now, it looks like a render from a
Pixar movie.

[https://twitter.com/tothur/status/620601134651166720/photo/1](https://twitter.com/tothur/status/620601134651166720/photo/1)

~~~
frikk
Astro-noob here. Why can't we get better pictures from our telescopes, given
that we can take what seems to be high quality pictures of things much further
away? Is it because of how "small" pluto is, versus say a large galaxy or
nebula.

~~~
aperiodic
It is exactly that: Pluto is a very tiny astronomical object. Galaxies,
nebulae, and such are much further away than Pluto, but that is more than made
up for by how mind-boggingly large they are. For example, The Andromeda Galaxy
is about six full moons wide as viewed from Earth[1].

[1]:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/01/moon_and...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/01/moon_and_andromeda_relative_size_in_the_sky.html)

~~~
IndianAstronaut
There are an estimated 1 trillion stars in the Andromeda galaxy.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's kind of a shame humanity evolved in one of the spiral arms of the Milky
Way.

If we'd evolved in one of the Magellanic Clouds, we'd see an astounding
squashed spiral view of this galaxy with direct line of sight of the bright
nucleus.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Meanwhile if there are life forms in Magellanic Clouds they are probably
looking at the spiral arms thinking that it is a shame that they did not
evolve in a galaxy proper...

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multibear
'"With this mission, we have visited every single planet in the Solar System,"
said Nasa's administrator Charles Bolden.'

Uhhhhhhh... Should somebody tell him?

~~~
Thorondor
> Should somebody tell him?

Bolden says he still considers Pluto a planet.
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11739763/Pluto...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11739763/Pluto-
I-still-call-it-a-planet-says-head-of-Nasa.html)

~~~
supermatt
Considering the definition of a plutoid is effectively "a planet further away
than neptune", I'm inclined to shun the plutoists and agree with him.

~~~
lmm
Ceres was robbed of planetary status before it was cool.

~~~
valarauca1
This isn't talked about more often but its kinda funny. During roughly the
American Revolution there were 10 planets.

Neptune/Pluto weren't yet discovered. Instead we had Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, George (Uranus), Ceres, Vesta, and several other minor
asteroids.

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Lennu
It amazes me that we humans have made something that has travelled over seven
billion kilometers in cold dark emptiness and sends us highly detailed
photographs of things we have never seen before.

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mercurialshark
Why does the BBC refuse to capitalize the letters in NASA as an acronym? Is it
British grammar or do they not realize it's in all caps?

~~~
_asummers
From their style guide[0]:

Acronyms

Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no
chance of any misunderstanding (eg UN, Nato, IRA, BBC). Otherwise, spell it
out in full at first reference, or introduce a label (eg the public sector
union Unite).

Where you would normally pronounce the abbreviation as a string of letters -
an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR,
NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms
where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids,
Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec).

[0] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-
guide/art...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-
guide/article/art20131010112740749)

~~~
mercurialshark
Great answer, thanks!

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fpgaminer
Here's an enhanced version of the color photo of Pluto released today (taken
on July 13th, 768,000 km):
[https://i.imgur.com/BiR2WNO.png](https://i.imgur.com/BiR2WNO.png)

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danieltillett
What I find interesting is how few craters there are compared to other planets
(yes I know pluto is no longer a planet). Does this reflect that meteor
bombardment is rare in the outer solar system, or that there is some sort of
geological process going on that is removing craters?

~~~
JupiterMoon
Initial interpretation of the first image apparently suggested an active
(geologically speaking) surface. This would tend to remove visible craters.
Think Venus (highly active surface) vs the Moon.

~~~
danieltillett
Interesting. I wonder is powering this as there is no obvious energy source -
maybe tidal?

~~~
JupiterMoon
I'm not sure. I did wonder about this interpretation myself. It does not make
much sense in terms our understanding of tectonics (or lack thereof) for other
bodies in the solar system.

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chrisBob
[http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-new-horizons-
phones-...](http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-new-horizons-phones-home-
safe-after-pluto-flyby)

It seems strange that the highest ranked story about Pluto for the past few
days has been from BBC not NASA. Check out www.nasa.gov for the original press
release and updates as they come in.

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junto
I assume that the probe is travelling in a straight line? I also assume that
each planet is busily orbiting the sun. How on earth (pardon the pun) did they
work out the exact speed the probe should travel at (I also assume it
accelerates) in order to fly past each planet and moon at exactly the right
point of time and space?

~~~
jobigoud
I think you misunderstood the statement about "visiting every single planet in
the Solar System with this mission".

It's not meant to imply that this _specific_ mission visited all the planets,
just that this mission completes the achievement. (In his opinion).

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callumprentice
I love that we have an operational “deep space network” - emotional moment as
New Horizons reconnects after Pluto fly past last night
[https://amp.twimg.com/v/e360e83b-b3dd-4862-9a7f-7b111b33e27d](https://amp.twimg.com/v/e360e83b-b3dd-4862-9a7f-7b111b33e27d)

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solotronics
Totally amazing! Perhaps one day with hard work and lots of luck humanity may
reach to the stars and beyond.

~~~
Yhippa
Ad astra per aspera.

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artursapek
I can't wait, hopefully they get the higher resolution ones tomorrow!

~~~
idlewords
I believe tomorrow we get a higher-resolution Charon and a similar resolution
picture of Pluto. The incredible Emily Lakdawalla has a full list of what's
coming when:

[http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2015/0624055...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2015/06240556-what-to-expect-new-horizons-pluto.html)

~~~
ashmud
Nice "not-planets" montage by Emily Lakdawalla here:

[http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2015/0714133...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2015/07141338-the-not-planets.html)

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zapdrive
It would be awesome if artificial structures are discovered on Pluto. What
would be mankind's next step, if say life is discovered on Pluto?

~~~
rz2k
That's an interesting idea. On one hand I would think that something
intelligent living with that little energy available per square meter would
operate very slowly, such that we could communicate with it like a
correspondence chess game. However, on the other hand that it alternates
between pretty different climates every 250 years suggest the type of
pressures that lead to different eras in Earth's history where life was
predominantly smaller or more 'simple' before becoming bigger and more complex
again. Maybe at low temperatures though, 250 years is a short hibernation.

~~~
soperj
This implys that the only way that organism can obtain energy would be from
the sun, and not from some internal process on Pluto.

~~~
rz2k
I was actually thinking of the evidence of tectonic forces, too. Like a long
inhale and exhale collected by the mass of the body and realized at the
borders of geologic transformation every plutonic year? There's something
beautiful about the image.

An even more exotic arrangement, beyond electrochemical processes, to somehow
'metabolize' matter directly into energy would exceed the definition of life
in my opinion, as though it would be life 2.0 or something, and also have a
pretty fascinating impact on the universe.

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ChrisGranger
That infographic appears to have the colors for Mars and Jupiter reversed...

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feelnaren
Gaint leap

