11 awesome facts about Pluto that you probably don’t know

[BoFox]

http://www.geek.com/news/11-awesome-fact...o-1629287/

So exciting to finally "see" Pluto up close, and learn details about it!!!

I feel like I'm in a Mass Effect game, probing a new planet!


An error there in that article about rotating:  uranus, not neptune.



That image still seems way too bright for Pluto, don't you think??  40x the distance, should be 40x less light!

[BoFox]

Don't be surprised if New Horizon discovers something completely unexpected in the Kuiper Belt!  Bound to happen, if there are thousands of tiny planet systems, with the main TNO even smaller than Ceres, perhaps (too small for us to detect them from here).

Today's article about Pluto's atmosphere:
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/new-horizon...beginning/

For 25 years, scientists have known that Pluto has an atmosphere. But in this image, the New Horizons team could pull out discrete layers of haze—small particles in the atmosphere, scattering sunlight. First off, the entire haze layer is at least 100 miles high, five times higher than the team predicted. And that layer seems to be broken into layers, one up about 30 miles and the other about 50 miles up.

[ocre]

Wow,

Great read. bofox

[SteelCrysis]

Thanks for hunting down the first article.

[BoFox]

Some images are much darker than others, see:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oursolarsy...621671984/

Camera exposure, clouds in the sky reflecting sunlight, etc..

Now that makes sense. I'd love to see what the sun looks exactly like 40 times the distance.

[BoFox]

Is Pluto's atmosphere about to COLLAPSE? New Horizons spacecraft may have made it to dwarf planet in the nick of time

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...-time.html

[RolloTheGreat]

I don't know, Pluto seems pretty sketchy to me.