NASA's Hubble Reveals Possible New Moons Around Pluto

This news is dated 2002. Never heard of it. The image is specially interesting since it's difficult to tell all those grainy objects apart

Ref: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2005/19/image/g/

-- Frutty

Pluto: The Most Changeable Surface in the Solar System

The significance of the changes was put into perspective by astronomer Mike Brown, who was not involved in generating the maps: "If you look around the entire solar system, the only things that change their surfaces by any really noticeable amount are the Earth and Mars, where ice caps come and go. That's it. And then there's Pluto, which has even more dramatic changes. You're looking at the surface in the solar system which has the biggest changes of anything we've ever seen."

Comparison between 1994 and 2002-3 maps of Pluto
This animation blinks back and forth between two maps of Pluto's surface derived from Hubble Space Telescope observations. One map was generated from four images captured in 1994 using Hubble's Faint Object Camera, while the other was generated from 192 images captured in 2002 and 2003 using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. During the time that separated the two sets of observations, Pluto's surface changed noticeably. Also, the season advanced, bringing more of the south pole into winter darkness. Credit: NASA / ESA / M. Buie (SwRI) / animation by Emily Lakdawalla


ref: http://planetary.org/news/2010/0204_Hubble_Photos_Reveal_Dramatic_Surface.html

On top, the best visual infromation of Sharon, Pluto's twin planet (or Moon), available on the internet.

Below is my approach to the interpretation of the same pixilated information.

-- Frutty

I had to look this one up - occultation data.

There is a good image showing how the data is obtained at this link:

Occultation data in wiki

Radio occultation (RO) is a remote sensing technique used for measuring the physical properties of a planetary atmosphere. It relies on the detection of a change in a radio signal as it passes through the planet's atmosphere i.e. as it is occulted by the atmosphere. When electromagnetic radiation passes through the atmosphere it is refracted. The magnitude of the refraction depends on the gradient of refractivity normal to the path, which in turn depends on the gradients of density and the water vapour. The effect is most pronounced when the radiation traverses a long atmospheric limb path. At radio frequencies the amount of bending cannot be measured directly, instead the bending can be calculated using the Doppler shift of the signal given the geometry of the emitter and receiver. The amount of bending can be related to the refractive index by using an Abel transform on the formula relating bending angle to refractivity. In the case of the neutral atmosphere (below the ionosphere) information on the atmosphere's temperature, pressure and water vapour can be derived, hence radio occultation data has applications in meteorology.

When current radio occultation missions rely on radio signals from GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites, the technique is then known as GPSRO. The GPS signals are received on low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

Could Pluto had been really demoted from it's condition of being a planet because they found it was not really a planet? lol ...

Be ready for a sham ...

 

Officially this is "the most accurate" photograph of Pluto by Hubble telescope to date ... (note the blurring and a big bulge in the lower part)

 

However the image below belies the truthfulness of the above statement as it shows (though still artificially blurred) many times as much detail

 

 

The Pluto photomap comparison. Top panel shows the surface features during a 1994 observing campaign and the bottom panel shows the same surface during a 2002/2003 observing campaign. Notice the changes in shading in the north and south poles (click to enlarge).

 

-- Frutty

Source

OBrien wrote:

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fruitnut1 wrote:

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Perhaps you can come up with an official clean close up by the hubble telescope or a probe passing by ... who knows?

 

-- Frutty

 

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If you wait five years, I'm sure I can get one for you.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

 

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I am not in a hurry, though I am sure detailed pics are already available, not for the public however ...

-- Frutty

OBrien wrote:

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fruitnut1 wrote:

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Only the one at the bottom. Although attributed to Pat Rawlings, Science Applications International, there are others that look very similar. Analysis shows there are also hidden stars in the viewport of the image.

The source of this material is Windows to the Universe, at http://windows2universe.org/ from the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA)

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Check your own sources. The images you have posted are all paintings, artists' interpretation suggested by the occultation data, but not actual data.

 

 

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Well I think you are too "official", so no opinions we can exchange will lead to concensus.

If you read what I wrote I am saying they are "attributed" to artists but there is more behind. Even if they were  100% paintings, they all could not account for the donut shaped Pluto portrayed in all of them and similar accidents on its surface.

Perhaps you can come up with an official clean close up by the hubble telescope or a probe passing by ... who knows?

 

-- Frutty

 

 

Only the one at the bottom. Although attributed to Pat Rawlings, Science Applications International, there are others that look very similar. Analysis shows there are also hidden stars in the viewport of the image.

The source of this material is Windows to the Universe, at http://windows2universe.org/ from the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA)

 

 

Resized 

 

 

-- Frutty