Pluto, the once and future planet

[GDS_Starfury]

the 'stache could be an alien.

[Staggerwing]

the 'stache could be an alien.

I, for one, welcome our new 'Stache Overlords...

[JasonPratt]

Still not a planet...  >:D  :D ;D

http://go.nasa.gov/1KXuW8e

Our New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and highest resolution images yet of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. This moon was thought to be a monotonous, crater-battled world; instead, it's covered with mountains, canyons, landslides and more!

Uh, it's still a crater-battered world, NASA. Just not as monotonous as you were expecting.  ::)

[Nefaro]

Nice!

Charon looks like it's had the sheeot beat out of it for quite awhile.   

That massive fissure is crazy.   :o  Looks like it almost cracked the whole thing in half!

[Sir Slash]

I think I see a waterpark down there. And Starbucks, of course.

[LongBlade]

That massive fissure is crazy.   :o  Looks like it almost cracked the whole thing in half!

You're right. I missed that.

Wowzers.

[LongBlade]

Water ice and a blue sky have been confirmed on the planet.

Just 10 days after confirming that liquid water has been found on Mars, the US space agency revealed the amazing dwarf-planet has both ice and a 'gorgeous' blue sky.

A Nasa spokesman said: "New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto.

"The discovery was made from data collected by the Ralph spectral composition mapper on New Horizons."

There has been repeated speculation Pluto may have a liquid sea under its surface, and confirmation of water ice on the surface adds to this theory.

source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/610802/ICE-ON-PLUTO-Frozen-water-and-blue-skies-found-on-dwarf-planet

[Sir Slash]

Sounding better than LA already.

[Rekim]

Just in...The dark side of Pluto. Check out that atmosphere.

[Centurion40]

Huh.

[JasonPratt]

I was wondering how they were inferring a gorgeous blue sky. Huh!

Whoever it was who wrote the Space Battleship Yamato / Star Blazers story must be randomly fist-pumping for a minute every day: subterranean oceans, blue sky...

[Pete Dero]

I was wondering how they were inferring a gorgeous blue sky. Huh!

The haze particles themselves are likely gray or red, but the way they scatter blue light has gotten the attention of the New Horizons science team. "That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles," said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI. "A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles. On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger — but still relatively small — soot-like particles we call tholins."

Source : http://www.nasa.gov/nh/nh-finds-blue-skies-and-water-ice-on-pluto

[mirth]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html

[LongBlade]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html

Cool. We're up to ten!

[Nefaro]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html

Very cool.

There's been regular estimation of a large body out beyond the Kuiper belt for awhile.  Likely with an extremely long and somewhat erratic orbit, which occasionally upsets the comets out there and sends some toward the inner system.   

I think that original estimation was due to them not being able to mathematically explain the high number of comets & asteroids being sent into the system only by distrubing each other in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. 

There was also some speculation that the outer planets couldn't have settled into their current orbits long ago without at least one other planet's gravitational effects, and it/them being ejected out of the solar system to some degree.

Nice that they're getting more detailed evidence of it.   O0