Pluto's Odd Dark Spots Continue to Puzzle Scientists (Photos)

[Buster's Uncle]

Pluto's Odd Dark Spots Continue to Puzzle Scientists (Photos)
SPACE.com
By Mike Wall  5 hours ago



The image shows Pluto in color, obtained by New Horizons spacecraft on July 3, 2015, using color data gathered earlier.



New photos by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft show Pluto in tantalizing detail, whetting researchers' appetite for the probe's highly anticipated flyby of the dwarf planet next week.

The images reveal a great deal of variation and complexity across Pluto's surface — including the four large dark patches near the equator first spotted by New Horizons late last month.

The origin and composition of the dark blotches remain mysterious, adding to the intrigue building ahead of the July 14 flyby.

"This object is unlike any other that we have observed," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said during a news briefing today (July 6). "Both Pluto and Charon [its largest moon] are already surprising us."

New Horizons captured the new photos last Wednesday (July 1) and Friday (July 3), shortly before suffering a glitch that sent it into a precautionary "safe mode" on Saturday (July 4).

The problem arose because New Horizons was trying to do two things at once on Saturday — compressing lots of science data and burning into the primary computer the "command load" for the spacecraft's nine days of flyby operations, mission officials said.



Thee high-resolution views of Pluto were by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, obtained between July 1 and 3, 2015.


"The two were more than the processor could handle at one time, so the processor says, 'I'm overloaded,'" said New Horizons project manager Glen Fountain, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

The team lost contact with New Horizons for more than an hour on Saturday, but once communications were restored, it quickly became clear what the problem was, Fountain said.

The spacecraft's handlers shepherded it out of safe mode on Sunday (July 5). New Horizons is healthy and ready to execute the nine-day flyby sequence, which begins on Tuesday (July 7), Fountain added.

Team members decided to focus on recovery and getting New Horizons ready for flyby operations, so the probe hasn't gathered any science data since entering safe mode on Saturday. As a result, New Horizons won't make 30 or so of the 496 observations planned from July 4 through July 16 — but the impact on the mission's science return will be negligible, Stern said.

"We can say that there is zero impact to the Group 1 — or highest-priority — science [objectives for the mission]," Stern said, adding that there will likely be minor gaps in several Group 2 and Group 3 objectives. "This is a speed bump in terms of the total return that we expect from this flyby."

The team isn't worried that the anomaly will recur during the close approach, because New Horizons won't be performing the two procedures involved concurrently again, Fountain said.

Further, the probe has already been in "encounter mode" multiple times during its long flight to Pluto, for preparation purposes. In fact, New Horizons rehearsed the full nine days of close-approach operations back in 2013, Stern said.

"So there's not a new operation tomorrow," he said. "I'm not worried at all about going into encounter mode tomorrow."

The $700 million New Horizons mission launched in January 2006. During the July 14 flyby, the probe will zoom within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto, capturing the first-ever up-close looks at the dwarf planet.


http://news.yahoo.com/plutos-odd-dark-spots-continue-puzzle-scientists-photos-215932895.html

[Geo]

A thought. Is/Are the camera('s) on the probe able to turn backwards to see the Pluto system from behind once it passes? Or is there a plan to turn the probe to keep the instrument package aimed at its science targets?

[Buster's Uncle]

Good question.  All I've ever seen mentioned is vague plans to do a flyby of an interesting trans-plutonian - nothing about aiming the cameras at the dark side of the plutonian system afterwards.  One imagines that it might not be worthwhile with the craft's very tight energy budget and the very short window of useful observations from that angle.

[shrugs]  I bet we'll know before the week is out.

[Unorthodox]

Good question.  All I've ever seen mentioned is vague plans to do a flyby of an interesting trans-plutonian - nothing about aiming the cameras at the dark side of the plutonian system afterwards.  One imagines that it might not be worthwhile with the craft's very tight energy budget and the very short window of useful observations from that angle.

[shrugs]  I bet we'll know before the week is out.

If there's power left and capability to do so, it's a no brainer, this is the mission end game AFAIK.  I'm not sure it can maneuver that quick, though. 

On the dark spots, I'm really not seeing much that wouldn't be explained by sun angle, unless I'm just not understanding something.  In that big colored one, though, is that some artifact of the colorization or is there a haze/ring there just above the planet? 

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmmm.  It's not particularly past mid-summer on Pluto, so it is supposed to have an atmosphere right now - but I can't believe it's been resolved at that distance.
We'll know a lot more in a few days.

[Geo]

On the dark spots, I'm really not seeing much that wouldn't be explained by sun angle, unless I'm just not understanding something.  In that big colored one, though, is that some artifact of the colorization or is there a haze/ring there just above the planet?

Some sort of flare/reflection effect?
Or else maybe what BUncle thinks, an effect of Pluto's condensing 'atmosphere'. Would surprise me though, since its supposed to be so close to vacuum as not to make a significant difference.

[Buster's Uncle]

Naw, I just think the probe, speeding far faster than a bullet and still three weeks out from flyby rendezvous when those pics were taken, wasn't close enough to resolve in good focus, thus a halo effect.

[Mart]

I just have in front of me book by Gregory Benford "The Sunborn"
Their historic mission to Mars made Julia and Victor the most famous astronauts of all time. Now, decades later, they are ordered by the Consortium to Pluto, where they will rendezvous with another starship led by the brilliant, arrogant Captain Shanna Axelrod. ...
I got it already years ago, but haven't read it yet.
It is "hard sci-fi" and really scientific, what they say about the author.
The book though has not so good reviews when compared to "The Martian Race" series.
Anyone here has read it?

[Geo]

Anyone here has read it?

Nope. But the title rings a bell.

[Buster's Uncle]

I have a few years ago, and I may have written it up in The Reading Corner thread. 

I thought it was dreadful.  Worth a read if you have a copy in front of you, but not worth paying for.  The book before it was not as bad, but was not good, either.  -Are you sure it was Bedford and not Bear or Brin?  It wasn't bad in the way I find typical of Benford when he's off his game.

[Mart]

I wonder, how much Benford would be off from the findings of present exploration by New Horizons.
But for that, I would need to read it. And I wonder if it is worth the time. I have so many other books to read and things to do... just life.

[Buster's Uncle]

[shrugs] He's a working cosmologist.  (Plasma physics with a galactic center focus, specifically.)  I don't imagine he was far off the knowledge of Pluto at the time of writing.