Clouds on Pluto?

Looking at the latest available images from the New Horizons site, I am starting to think I see clouds.
pluto.jhuapl.edu...

"Even though the latest images were made from more than 30 million miles away, they show an increasingly complex surface with clear evidence of discrete equatorial bright and dark regions—some that may also have variations in brightness," says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern

pluto.jhuapl.edu...
Very light and very dark regions, and some in-between. But surely it should be so dark out there that such variations in brightness would not exist. Is that because of the very high dynamic range of the camera, that those differences are just very dark and slightly less dark, and not really bright and dark as our eyes would see?
If Pluto did have clouds, then that would explain why there have been no more recent images. The boys in the back room would all be sitting around doing some serious head scratching indeed.

a reply to: garyn

All those other images are back to back images almost one per day. Stopped at June 2nd 2015. This leaves us 2 weeks of data not on that particular page you linked, and the story was from only 5 days ago..

How long does light take to get from Pluto to earth?

Looks like it takes about 5 hours for a transmission to make it to Earth. Then of course your throughput tells you how long the transmission has to be to get a picture back.

I should expect to see newer pictures.. Hmm...


Also Clouds would not surprise me. Keep in mind that the images in your link are not of the same angle of Pluto. Different Longitudes, though the pictures are aligned vertically so the spin access is 0 degrees, or exactly left and right in the pictures.

a reply to: garyn

I have a question , how come they can get such beautiful pictures of deep space with the hubble . but not good pics of Pluto and other distant planets ?

originally posted by: Kapusta
a reply to: garyn

I have a question , how come they can get such beautiful pictures of deep space with the hubble . but not good pics of Pluto and other distant planets ?

It could be that the planet is spinning, so even with a spacecraft locked on and following the orbit of pluto, it can only take a short image before pluto turns too much to become blurred.

Whereas deep space pictures... The galaxy over there isn't going to change much in a day or in a year..

That's what they say anyway. Makes some sense to me, and imagining the scaling of just how small and far away pluto is.. I would have to do some math to see if I can trust there story on the visibility of pluto. I bet it's really hard to see.



That being said.. I Cannot trust NASA.. Just can't do it.

a reply to: garyn

Some researchers think the dark and light splotches seen on Pluto are different surface materials. The darker areas are thought to be tars and hydrocarbons and the lighter areas could be frozen carbon monoxide.

Pluto is believed to have an atmosphere, but that atmosphere may freeze and fall to the surface like snow during Pluto's 125-year cold season (when it is farthest from the Sun during its 250-Earth-year orbit), but thaw again and rise up as an atmosphere during Pluto's 125-year warm season.

Here's an article from several years ago on the splotches:
Strange Spots on Pluto May be Tar and Frost

Excerpt:

he Hubble images, released in February, revealed Pluto as a molasses-colored world on the fringe of the solar system with surprising variations in brightness across its surface. Based on closer analysis, scientists say the darker spots may represent parts of the ground covered in a tar of primordial organic compounds.

"We know there's methane on Pluto," said dwarf planet expert Mike Brown of Caltech. "Here's what we think happens: Sunlight hits the methane and breaks it apart into its chemical components ??hydrocarbons. Over millions of years this process makes a dark reddish-brown oil or tar-like substance that sticks to the ground. These darker areas spread larger as they absorb more sunlight and cause additional frost to sublimate."

The bright spots, in turn, are thought to be related to areas covered in carbon monoxide frost.

a reply to: garyn

It seems the pictures are very deceiving at this point!

These images show dramatic variations in Pluto's surface features as it rotates. When a very large, dark region near Pluto's equator appears near the limb, it gives Pluto a distinctly, but false, non-spherical appearance. Pluto is known to be almost perfectly spherical from previous data.

pluto.jhuapl.edu...

a reply to: Kapusta

Well, if you take a look through a basic tripod mounted, 76mm refracting telescope, and use it to observe Mars, or another near planet, and then try to get a look at a blade of grass on the ground with it, you will have your answer.

originally posted by: Kapusta
a reply to: garyn

I have a question , how come they can get such beautiful pictures of deep space with the hubble . but not good pics of Pluto and other distant planets ?

Resolution.

The objects that Hubble takes images of in deep space (IE Nebula, other galaxies, etc) are HUGE. They are measured in light years.

Planets on the other hand are small. Very small compared to those other bodies.

It's like looking at the Empire State building from 10 miles away, with a small coin next to it. The building would be like the nebula. The small coin would be the planet.

Even though the planets in our solar system are quite close compared to those larger objects, they are still very tiny compared to the distance they are from us.

If you wanted to see a 2 foot wide rock on the moon from the Earth, even though it's only 250,000 miles away, you'd need a telescope with a primary mirror about 5 football fields wide.

However, if you can get a camera a lot closer to something, then you can take much better pictures of it.

a reply to: eriktheawful

ok fair enough . Thanks for the explanation .

Maybe in the near future they will be able to build a telescope capable of capturing HD images .

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Kapusta

Well, if you take a look through a basic tripod mounted, 76mm refracting telescope, and use it to observe Mars, or another near planet, and then try to get a look at a blade of grass on the ground with it, you will have your answer.

originally posted by: eriktheawful

originally posted by: Kapusta
a reply to: garyn

I have a question , how come they can get such beautiful pictures of deep space with the hubble . but not good pics of Pluto and other distant planets ?

Resolution.

The objects that Hubble takes images of in deep space (IE Nebula, other galaxies, etc) are HUGE. They are measured in light years.

Planets on the other hand are small. Very small compared to those other bodies.

It's like looking at the Empire State building from 10 miles away, with a small coin next to it. The building would be like the nebula. The small coin would be the planet.

Even though the planets in our solar system are quite close compared to those larger objects, they are still very tiny compared to the distance they are from us.

If you wanted to see a 2 foot wide rock on the moon from the Earth, even though it's only 250,000 miles away, you'd need a telescope with a primary mirror about 5 football fields wide.

However, if you can get a camera a lot closer to something, then you can take much better pictures of it.

Very well stated. Star for you.

a reply to: Kapusta

Well Hubble images are hugely detailed, and have a massive pixel count. I think they qualify as being High Definition.

However, a pixel in a Hubble image can be lost in amongst the huge breadth of one of those images, and furthermore, depending on the region of space being viewed, be several solar systems across in terms of the area it depicts.

So the terminology you use here is really inappropriate for this discussion.

What you are after is a ground, or orbit mounted scope, which can resolve any object of near planetary significance, between here, and the edge of the Oort cloud, and with that, I wish you the very best of luck, because I have not even heard of such a thing being proposed, let alone being spitballed by the kind of folk who have the clout and connections to make it happen. The fact is, that there just is not enough scientific value in such an object, to make it worth doing at this time, especially since far better images could be gotten by the trusted method of sending orbiter satellites to image the surface in much finer detail, from much closer range.

2 images from the 6th and 9th of June here:

An enigmatic line across Pluto: Plutonian canali!?
www.planetary.org...

At first, they said Hubble couldn't take pics of the planets of our solar system because they were too bright and would cause damage, then we got to see pics from Hubble of the planets of our solar system.

Mars pictures made with Hubble

Here is one of the Moon

A link to an ATS thread about pictures of Pluto made with Hubble.

Apparently, it took 20 computers 4 years of non-stop work to dither the picture composed of only a few pixels... Hum... Talk about lost ressources... lol

originally posted by: GaryN
2 images from the 6th and 9th of June here:

An enigmatic line across Pluto: Plutonian canali!?
www.planetary.org...

That's probably just a portion of the dark and light patches that have been seen on Pluto's surface for several years now, beginning with images from the Hubble telescope.

As I mentioned in a post above, some people think the dark patches could be tars and hydrocarbons, while the light patches could be frozen carbon dioxide. It is also thought that Pluto's nitrogen and methane atmosphere will soon freeze (as Pluto's orbit takes it farther from the Sun) and will drop to the surface like snow, covering the surface in an icy layer.

There are some who have speculated on the possibility that there may be rivers of liquid neon or liquid nitrogen flowing on Pluto, but that's just speculation and supposition, and there is no direct evidence of this.

originally posted by: Kapusta
a reply to: eriktheawful

ok fair enough . Thanks for the explanation .

Maybe in the near future they will be able to build a telescope capable of capturing HD images .

It's possible to do, with a very large array built in orbit. There have been plans to do something like that to see exo-planets.

For our own planets in our solar system, it's still better to send something to them. You can have much more on the platform of a probe than just a camera to help do more science. We can reach other planets in our solar system within months to years.

Planets around other stars would take centuries to millennium to get to with our present proven technology of space craft. Hopefully that will change down the road.

I thought you guys might like this animation:

originally posted by: Kapusta
a reply to: garyn

I have a question , how come they can get such beautiful pictures of deep space with the hubble . but not good pics of Pluto and other distant planets ?

SIZE of objects being photographed look here to give you an idea.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

From above post



That's how Andromeda Galaxy M31 would look like if it was BRIGHT enough.

It's all about Angular Diameter

a reply to: wmd_2008

ty for enlightening me