8 ms·

‘X’ Marks a Curious Corner on Pluto’s Icy Plains

79 points by japaget 11y ago

mrfusion 11y ago
I think the "snail" in the middle of the picture is more curious than the x. What is that?
- japhyr 11y ago
  > The darker patch at the center of the image is likely a dirty block of water ice “floating” in denser solid nitrogen, and which has been dragged to the edge of a convection cell. I love that we (the public) are still getting regular updates about what scientists are finding from the Pluto flyby.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Some water ice farmer out late. :-)
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Reminding us once again how cool it would be if we could "easily" send robotic probes to go and stay on various solar system "places of interest." Something I hope that comes out of SpaceX's reusability of boosters is a way to put a mission package into orbit, then launch a boost unit with the necessary engine and fuel that then docks with it, and then puts it into the necessary orbit to get to its destination.
- Diederich 11y ago
  This...but. We need to gain the ability to make more of these things (or equivalent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
  - ridgeguy 11y ago
    We're doing that. Production of Pu238 (the RTG isotope) is being restarted. http://www.universetoday.com/100875/u-s-to-restart-plutonium-production-for-deep-space-exploration/ http://www.universetoday.com/100875/u-s-to-restart-plutonium...
    - Diederich 11y ago
      That's exciting news! Thank you so much for sharing that.
- joedrew 11y ago
  Pluto in particular would be a problem, though, because it is a) very small, and b) very far away. In order to get there in a realistic time, your probe has to be going _very quickly_; in order to stay in Pluto orbit, the probe has to be going _very slowly_. So, unfortunately, to stay in Pluto orbit, either you carry a lot of fuel with you to slow down (which makes launch incredibly difficult, because you need more fuel to accelerate the fuel you need to slow down, and then you need more fuel to accelerate _that_ fuel, and so on), or you wait a long time to get there. The bigger, closer planets and planetoids, though, will see a lot more exploration as the cost of launch decreases.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    Or you send some self replicating stuff on the moon, build some factories and solar panels, and build and launch robots from there. We have the technology to do this right now if we are willing to put the money. And if we polish the moon we could beam excess energy to earth.
    - japhyr 11y ago
      What do you mean by "polish the moon"?
      - whoopdedo 11y ago
        Chrome the moon?
      - yebyen 11y ago
        I can only assume it means creating a large, vigorously reflective surface. Not the whole moon, but presumably making a reflective, concave part large enough to send a focused beam of directed energy. (NB: this doesn't sound like a good idea to me, or necessarily realistic, I'm just guessing that's what is meant.)
      - venomsnake 11y ago
        Cover it with solar cells.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  It'd be even cooler if we built some nuclear-engined robotic spacecraft and sent them to nearby star systems like Alpha Centauri. We really need much faster propulsion to do serious exploring; it took a decade to get New Horizons to Pluto, and that was the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched.
  - Zikes 11y ago
    Safely getting that much nuclear material into orbit is tricky. What if the launch rocket fails and explodes in the atmosphere?
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      Ok, fine. We'll just stay on this planet and stop all space exploration because an accident may happen. Besides, I'm pretty sure this has been addressed many times before. It's not that hard to secure nuclear material; we've dropped nukes in accidents before and they didn't detonate because they were so well-built. Even if you intentionally dispersed some nuclear fuel at high altitude, the concentration would be so low it wouldn't make a difference. And what do you mean about "that much nuclear material" anyway? We safely launch tons of cargo all the time. How much nuclear material do you think it takes to power a rocket? Do you have any clue how little nuclear material is in a full-fledged bomb?
      - milesskorpen 11y ago
        The nukes which were dropped were not attached to massive rocket engines that have a disturbing tendency of blowing up spectacularly >1% of the time.
        mikeash 11y ago
        Yes, they were just wrapped in large amounts of high explosive. Which sometimes exploded. And don't forget about the hundreds of nuclear bombs deliberately exploded in the atmosphere last century.
      - 11y ago
sandworm101 11y ago
It isn't really a capital 'X'. It looks more like the stylized, more wide than tall, X of a spaceX landing pad. Compare with this:http://i.space.com/images/i/000/045/531/i02/spacex-rocket-landing-drone-ship.jpg?1423529560 http://i.space.com/images/i/000/045/531/i02/spacex-rocket-la...
kleer001 11y ago
Looks to me like conditions ripe for life. Not necessarily life we're familiar with, mind. And maybe not necessarily clicking all of the check boxes of "Life", but structures far more interesting than dumb rocks.
chaosfox 11y ago
kind of OT but, "Its surface is separated into cells or polygons 10 to 25 miles" reminds me of glimmervoid: http://magiccards.info/mma/en/223.html http://magiccards.info/mma/en/223.html
graycat 11y ago
Okay, as expected, Pluto is a very cold rock. No surprise. What the heck is NASA looking for out there, some evidence of trash left by ET, a big, black, rectangular parallelepiped with some strange audio and electronic signals pointing to Jupiter? Don't think they will find it. We have to expect that in the universe, both near and far, there are a lot of really cold rocks orbiting a lot of stars, "billions and billions". To get something "curious" on one of those will be really rare. Want to see what one of the really rare ones looks like? Okay, three guesses, the first two don't count. Hint: Look at where you are standing. IMHO, NASA needs to find some more important questions to ask. Mars? Okay, if there is good reason to go to Mars, then, first, do a lot in robotics: Net, send robots that can build a colony, make rocket fuel from whatever is there on Mars, fuel a rocket, sent it back to earth successfully. Iterate several times. Build a bigger and bigger colony that is more and more capable. The colony should be really good, and safe for humans -- food, water, heat, comforts, safety, etc., and a rock solid, highly reliable, very well tested way home. Then test a lot more -- much, much more testing. Then maybe send some humans.
- betenoire 11y ago
  gotta take pictures first, don't ya?
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  That's a 'couch explorer' way of doing it - explore as long as you sleep in your bed at the end of the adventure. There are very many people that would go without the need for a way home. And that would be a heck of a lot cheaper.
  - graycat 11y ago
    To do much on Mars, just must send a lot of robots. The robots have to be relatively autonomous if only because the time for radio communications is so long. Sending a lot of suicidal people is not so good. One reason is have a lot of dead people up there could in some respects corrupt the site under study. Generally, if we are going to do much in exploration on rocks other than earth, then we need some good autonomous robots. So, we might as well get with building the robots. For sending humans to Mars, we really will be very interested in getting them back safely. One way to have confidence that we can is what I outlined: Let robots do essentially all of the needed work first so that by the time humans go they are really just guests of the robots that have long since been very successful -- lots of trips back and forth with no mistake-ys.

79 points by japaget 11y ago

mrfusion 11y ago

I think the "snail" in the middle of the picture is more curious than the x. What is that?

japhyr 11y ago
> The darker patch at the center of the image is likely a dirty block of water ice “floating” in denser solid nitrogen, and which has been dragged to the edge of a convection cell. I love that we (the public) are still getting regular updates about what scientists are finding from the Pluto flyby.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Some water ice farmer out late. :-)

ChuckMcM 11y ago

Reminding us once again how cool it would be if we could "easily" send robotic probes to go and stay on various solar system "places of interest." Something I hope that comes out of SpaceX's reusability of boosters is a way to put a mission package into orbit, then launch a boost unit with the necessary engine and fuel that then docks with it, and then puts it into the necessary orbit to get to its destination.

Diederich 11y ago
This...but. We need to gain the ability to make more of these things (or equivalent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
- ridgeguy 11y ago
  We're doing that. Production of Pu238 (the RTG isotope) is being restarted. http://www.universetoday.com/100875/u-s-to-restart-plutonium-production-for-deep-space-exploration/ http://www.universetoday.com/100875/u-s-to-restart-plutonium...
  - Diederich 11y ago
    That's exciting news! Thank you so much for sharing that.
joedrew 11y ago
Pluto in particular would be a problem, though, because it is a) very small, and b) very far away. In order to get there in a realistic time, your probe has to be going _very quickly_; in order to stay in Pluto orbit, the probe has to be going _very slowly_. So, unfortunately, to stay in Pluto orbit, either you carry a lot of fuel with you to slow down (which makes launch incredibly difficult, because you need more fuel to accelerate the fuel you need to slow down, and then you need more fuel to accelerate _that_ fuel, and so on), or you wait a long time to get there. The bigger, closer planets and planetoids, though, will see a lot more exploration as the cost of launch decreases.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Or you send some self replicating stuff on the moon, build some factories and solar panels, and build and launch robots from there. We have the technology to do this right now if we are willing to put the money. And if we polish the moon we could beam excess energy to earth.
  - japhyr 11y ago
    What do you mean by "polish the moon"?
    - whoopdedo 11y ago
      Chrome the moon?
    - yebyen 11y ago
      I can only assume it means creating a large, vigorously reflective surface. Not the whole moon, but presumably making a reflective, concave part large enough to send a focused beam of directed energy. (NB: this doesn't sound like a good idea to me, or necessarily realistic, I'm just guessing that's what is meant.)
    - venomsnake 11y ago
      Cover it with solar cells.
Grishnakh 11y ago
It'd be even cooler if we built some nuclear-engined robotic spacecraft and sent them to nearby star systems like Alpha Centauri. We really need much faster propulsion to do serious exploring; it took a decade to get New Horizons to Pluto, and that was the fastest spacecraft we've ever launched.
- Zikes 11y ago
  Safely getting that much nuclear material into orbit is tricky. What if the launch rocket fails and explodes in the atmosphere?
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    Ok, fine. We'll just stay on this planet and stop all space exploration because an accident may happen. Besides, I'm pretty sure this has been addressed many times before. It's not that hard to secure nuclear material; we've dropped nukes in accidents before and they didn't detonate because they were so well-built. Even if you intentionally dispersed some nuclear fuel at high altitude, the concentration would be so low it wouldn't make a difference. And what do you mean about "that much nuclear material" anyway? We safely launch tons of cargo all the time. How much nuclear material do you think it takes to power a rocket? Do you have any clue how little nuclear material is in a full-fledged bomb?
    - milesskorpen 11y ago
      The nukes which were dropped were not attached to massive rocket engines that have a disturbing tendency of blowing up spectacularly >1% of the time.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Yes, they were just wrapped in large amounts of high explosive. Which sometimes exploded. And don't forget about the hundreds of nuclear bombs deliberately exploded in the atmosphere last century.
    - 11y ago

sandworm101 11y ago

It isn't really a capital 'X'. It looks more like the stylized, more wide than tall, X of a spaceX landing pad. Compare with this:http://i.space.com/images/i/000/045/531/i02/spacex-rocket-landing-drone-ship.jpg?1423529560 http://i.space.com/images/i/000/045/531/i02/spacex-rocket-la...

kleer001 11y ago

Looks to me like conditions ripe for life. Not necessarily life we're familiar with, mind. And maybe not necessarily clicking all of the check boxes of "Life", but structures far more interesting than dumb rocks.

chaosfox 11y ago

kind of OT but, "Its surface is separated into cells or polygons 10 to 25 miles" reminds me of glimmervoid: http://magiccards.info/mma/en/223.html http://magiccards.info/mma/en/223.html

graycat 11y ago

Okay, as expected, Pluto is a very cold rock. No surprise. What the heck is NASA looking for out there, some evidence of trash left by ET, a big, black, rectangular parallelepiped with some strange audio and electronic signals pointing to Jupiter? Don't think they will find it. We have to expect that in the universe, both near and far, there are a lot of really cold rocks orbiting a lot of stars, "billions and billions". To get something "curious" on one of those will be really rare. Want to see what one of the really rare ones looks like? Okay, three guesses, the first two don't count. Hint: Look at where you are standing. IMHO, NASA needs to find some more important questions to ask. Mars? Okay, if there is good reason to go to Mars, then, first, do a lot in robotics: Net, send robots that can build a colony, make rocket fuel from whatever is there on Mars, fuel a rocket, sent it back to earth successfully. Iterate several times. Build a bigger and bigger colony that is more and more capable. The colony should be really good, and safe for humans -- food, water, heat, comforts, safety, etc., and a rock solid, highly reliable, very well tested way home. Then test a lot more -- much, much more testing. Then maybe send some humans.

betenoire 11y ago
gotta take pictures first, don't ya?
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
That's a 'couch explorer' way of doing it - explore as long as you sleep in your bed at the end of the adventure. There are very many people that would go without the need for a way home. And that would be a heck of a lot cheaper.
- graycat 11y ago
  To do much on Mars, just must send a lot of robots. The robots have to be relatively autonomous if only because the time for radio communications is so long. Sending a lot of suicidal people is not so good. One reason is have a lot of dead people up there could in some respects corrupt the site under study. Generally, if we are going to do much in exploration on rocks other than earth, then we need some good autonomous robots. So, we might as well get with building the robots. For sending humans to Mars, we really will be very interested in getting them back safely. One way to have confidence that we can is what I outlined: Let robots do essentially all of the needed work first so that by the time humans go they are really just guests of the robots that have long since been very successful -- lots of trips back and forth with no mistake-ys.