New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface Changes

[PPI Brian]

Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has been a speck of light in the largest ground-based telescopes. But NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has now mapped the dwarf planet in never-before-seen detail. The new map is so good, astronomers have even been able to detect changes on the dwarf planet's surface by comparing Hubble images taken in 1994 with the newer images taken in 2002-2003. The task is as challenging as trying to see the markings on a soccer ball 40 miles away.

Here's a link to the article:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/06/

[Damian]

That's amazing!  I'm still getting over Pluto's demotion from planetary status.   (

[PPI Debra]

That's amazing!  I'm still getting over Pluto's demotion from planetary status.   (

Me too. It really caused a ruckus among the astrological community. In the end, astrologers are ignoring the new status. It's still a planet if it's in your chart.
I had a very cool t-shirt that said "The Planet Formerly Known as Pluto." It went missing. 

I love looking at space & planet photos.

[PPI Brian]

I was also dissappointed by Pluto's demotion to a "dwarf" planet. I think the IAU became concerned with the discoveries of Quaoar, Sedna and Xena, which increased the number of planets in our system from 9 to 13, and as more worlds were discovered lurking in the vast expanses of the Kuiper Belt, they decided that it was time to put their foot down. Since 1992 astronomers have discovered over 1,000 Kuiper Belt Objects, and they believe over 70,000 await discovery. 

I don't like the AU's definition of a "dwarf planet" either, but it does make sense:  A dwarf planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting the Sun that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity but has not cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals and is not a satellite. More explicitly, it has to have sufficient mass to overcome its compressive strength and achieve hydrostatic equilibrium. It should not be confused with a minor planet.

A minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is neither a dominant planet nor a comet. The first minor planet discovered was Ceres in 1801. Since then, more than 200,000 minor planets have been discovered, most of them lying in the asteroid belt.

I am looking forward to the arrival of the New Horizons probe in 2015: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

[PPI Brian]

Can't believe it's been 10 years since this incredible mission to asteroid Eros:

 







We actually landed the probe on the surface of Eros on Valentine's Day 2001. This was one of the first unmanned NASA missions I followed on the internet on a daily basis. This mission, and Galileo before it, made the science of interplanetary exploration available for everyone on Earth through the internet. 

Here's a link to the NEAR website: http://near.jhuapl.edu/

[PPI Tim]

Brian,
How are you doing that? Animation? Cool!

[Damian]

I got chills from that!  I can't even imagine the excitement that must have been felt watching that feed in real-time.  Something so mind-blowingly distant, yet still in our own solar system, and so unbelieveably up-close and personal... pardon my French here, that that is so F-ING cool!

[PPI Karl]

I am looking forward to the arrival of the New Horizons probe in 2015: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

I'm so glad I'm not the only JPL geek in this group.  I know there are years to go before New Horizons arrives at its destination, and I still poke in every week to see if there's news.

So far, I've been extremely disappointed with JPL's Kepler website.  Routine maintenance cannot possibly be the only news to come out of that mission on a semi-regular basis.   

[PPI Tracy]

I am looking forward to the arrival of the New Horizons probe in 2015: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

I'm so glad I'm not the only JPL geek in this group. 

"Here"!  [raises hand]

[PPI Brian]

I am looking forward to the arrival of the New Horizons probe in 2015: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

I'm so glad I'm not the only JPL geek in this group. 

"Here"!  [raises hand]

Goes without saying. 

Those are animated GIF files, Tim. I didn't create them, but it probably is something we could do in Adobe Premiere.

Yep. We can do it.