Sharpest images of Pluto's surface show Best View of Pluto’s Craters, Mountains and Icy Plains

Just found the mosaic that combines all currently available images into one long strip:



Only two frames are missing to complete it.

I wish we had these images in colour.

Source: www.unmannedspaceflight.com...

a reply to: wildespace

It is such a shame I was not born in around 500 years...I would have looked upon those amazing pictures and hopped in my Cutlass light cruiser space ship and gone and licked pluto.
I suspect it will taste lovely.
Joking aside what a time we live in .

How can they take such pictures with no source of light?

At this point, in time, "they" can tell us ANYTHING and we'll believe it as truth.

originally posted by: JuJuBee
How can they take such pictures with no source of light?

At this point, in time, "they" can tell us ANYTHING and we'll believe it as truth.

What on Earth do you mean? Surely, the Sun is shining its very bright light all across the Solar System!

Just because space is dark, doesn't mean it's dark in space.

a reply to: JuJuBee

There is a source of light, but it is not visible light from the Sun. It is from the UV fluorescence of tholins (or other molecules) in the atmosphere of Pluto. Solar UV emissions will travel indefinitely with no loss of energy, whereas visible light falls of with the inverse square rule and would be extremely weak out there.


astronomynow.com...
astronomynow.com...

a reply to: GaryN

Nice story, bro...

If you wrote science fiction stories, I'd probably read them. But your theories have nothing to do with the current scientific knowledge.

But your theories have nothing to do with the current scientific knowledge.

Well if you do some research you will probably find that current scientific knowledge recognises the emission of blue tinted light from UV excited tholin molecules. Ain't the Internet wonderful?

originally posted by: GaryN

But your theories have nothing to do with the current scientific knowledge.

Well if you do some research you will probably find that current scientific knowledge recognises the emission of blue tinted light from UV excited tholin molecules. Ain't the Internet wonderful?

But does Pluto glow, and does it glow blue? The answer is no. Pluto is reddish, due to visible sunlight reflected off tholins.

a reply to: wildespace

But does Pluto glow, and does it glow blue? The answer is no. Pluto is reddish, due to visible sunlight reflected off tholins.

Earths clear sky is definitely blue, but the deserts can still look red/brown from orbit. Colour perception is complex, and without knowing how the images are processed and colour balanced, we could disagree till the cows came home.
One other thing about the hires pluto images is where the Sun was at the time? Very little shadowing evident, so the Sun was overhead, the contrast has been played with, or a diffuse light source such as a glowing sky?

originally posted by: GaryN
a reply to: JuJuBee

There is a source of light, but it is not visible light from the Sun. It is from the UV fluorescence of tholins (or other molecules) in the atmosphere of Pluto. Solar UV emissions will travel indefinitely with no loss of energy, whereas visible light falls of with the inverse square rule and would be extremely weak out there.

That's a very confused post.

None of the individual photons of any frequency lose much energy (a probably unmeasurably small amount due to gravitational red-shifting). But as the photons get further from the sun the same number of photons gets spread over a larger area (like the surface area of a sphere), so there's a smaller number of photons per square meter. That's why the watts per square meter is lower, it's not because individual photons have lower energy. That applies to visible light and UV so this distinction you're trying to make about UV is complete fiction.

Now in beautiful colour! pluto.jhuapl.edu...

The images form a strip 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide, trending (top to bottom) from the edge of “badlands” northwest of the informally named Sputnik Planum, across the al-Idrisi mountains, onto the shoreline of Pluto’s “heart” feature, and just into its icy plains. They combine pictures from the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) taken approximately 15 minutes before New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto, with – from a range of only 10,000 miles (17,000 kilometers) – with color data (in near-infrared, red and blue) gathered by the Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) 25 minutes before the LORRI pictures.

More eye-candy from New Horizons: www.nasa.gov...



This mosaic of images covers the area to the west of the previously posted view.