back to article SPOOKY new Pluto snaps will make the HAIR RISE on the back of your neck

NASA boffins have released a new batch of pictures beamed back from the New Horizons probe, barrelling into the emptiness of the far outer solar system. The pics were actually taken some time ago as the probecraft zoomed past icy dwarfworld Pluto. But the linkup between Earth and New Horizons isn't exactly the fattest of …

  1. Youngone Silver badge
    Pint

    Weather? Wow!

    As our weather is pretty much driven by the Sun, and Pluto is (on average) 5,906,380,000 kilometers away from said Sun, I would not have picked weather as a thing on Pluto.

    I wonder what drives it?

    And now the wait until New Horizons gets to it's next target and who knows what it will find there?

    Great time to be alive.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Weather? Wow!

      I'm sure the Sun drives its weather too, but the 'ice' they're talking about flowing is not water ice, but CO2 or something else that freezes at much lower temperatures. This is Pluto's balmy summer, since it is much nearer the Sun than it is on average.

      Water ice is probably indistinguishable from granite at several hundred degrees below zero.

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Weather? Wow!

      It can still drive it there. It just needs to operate on something which will condense, freeze and thaw at those temperatures. Most likely Nitrogen.

    3. Sleep deprived

      Re: Weather? Wow!

      What could be the level of Sun illumination over there? Cameras obviously compensate for the dimness, but what would it be like to our eyes standing on the surface? Night-like forever?

      1. HelpfulJohn

        Re: Weather? Wow!

        Pluto is currently about 40 Au from Sol, just past Neptune. Earth is one A.U. out. Everyone here knows the squared distance law. So sunlight at daytime on Pluto is about 1/1,600th so bright as it is here in good old UKland.

        That's way brighter than moonlight from a full Moon.

        So it isn't "night". It is just not very bright daylight.

        But it's probably not bright enough to grow sun-ripened tomatoes.

        It may not be quite *warm* enough, either. :)

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge
          Trollface

          Re: Weather? Wow!

          You have sunlight in good old UKland?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    One Way Mission to Dwarf Planet X

    It's nice that this rock actually appears to resemble those mountainous movie backdrops from the 50's, where the rocket ship crew has just disembarked upon the surface of the unimaginably distant solar planet called Pluto.

    It even has eerie fog! Sweet.

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Holmes

      Re: One Way Mission to Dwarf Planet X

      It's more than a coincidence, those 50's SiFi movies were a HOAX! They only pretended to shoot them in deserts and studios on earth, the really secretly sent the entire film crew to Pluto!! This was a cunning plan to fool THE ENEMY that we were far more technologically backward than was the case!!!

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        In that case

        I look forward to NASA discovering that one bit of Pluto that looks uncannily like a quarry in Wales. (Or possibly the roof of an office building in Basingstoke.)

    2. Bert 1
      Happy

      Re: One Way Mission to Dwarf Planet X

      It's also fantastic that in front of the mountainy rocks is a flat studio floor like plane :-)

      It clearly was done for technical accuracy, not cost saving.

    3. JLV

      Re: One Way Mission to Dwarf Planet X

      Me I keep on expecting CGI flames to come sweeping in from over that horizon.

    4. LINCARD1000
      Alien

      Re: One Way Mission to Dwarf Planet X

      Queue the theremin sound-track! :-)

  3. Mark 85

    Just when you get comfortable with what's been explored and discovered lately.... there's more. Pluto has weather.. who would have ever thought this except as Big John points out, some movies from the 50's.

    1. Rich 11

      And I still can't work out what the dexitroboper is doing.

      1. Graham Marsden
        Coat

        @Rich 11

        Dexitroboping, of course!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Rich 11

          "Oweeoooo!"

          "Enterprise"

          "Kirk here. Give me Dr. McKoy. I need a dexitroboper, stat!"

          1. Alister

            Re: @Rich 11

            Dexitroboping pre-dates Star Trek by about 20 years, or maybe more - I can't be arsed to look up when that particular book was published.

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    Weather on Pluto?

    And I'll bet it still beats an English summer!

    1. D@v3

      Re: Weather on Pluto?

      I dunno, I thought our one day in August was quite pleasant this year.

  5. Someonehasusedthathandle

    Can we please now refer to it as a planet again, surely it's proved that it's not just a little rock on the edges of the playground.

    1. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Sure, as long you're happy for Charon, Sedna, Eris, Quaoar and maybe a couple of hundred other objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud to be planets as well

      1. RayG
        Thumb Up

        What would the problem with that be?

        Absolutely nothing.

        (I don't think it would be hundreds more, maybe a dozen or two)

        The definition-wriggling they did to demote pluto is much more ambiguous than the old "it's round under its own weight, it orbits the sun, it's a planet". So welcome Planet Charon!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          kind of

          the Barry point between Pluto and Charon is several kilometers above Pluto's surface meaning Pluto and Charon are a binary system and not a planet/planetoid and moon, so you're technical right Charon is not a moon , it is classed the same as Pluto as a planetoid/dwarf planet.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: kind of

            They must be called "plunuts". That would satisfy everyone.

  6. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Sure you didn't mix up the pictures of Kim Kardashian's cellulite ar$e here? Same size and texture as Pluto you know.

    1. HelpfulJohn

      <quote>Sure you didn't mix up the pictures of Kim Kardashian's cellulite ar$e here? Same size and texture as Pluto you know.</quote>

      ... but nowhere near as bright.

      1. Mpeler
        Paris Hilton

        Kimulite

        Or, as a classmate of mine used to refer to it, wafflebutt.....

        Ahhh, the Cardassians..... (hey, her ears look normal).....

  7. Lobrau

    Not to get too gushy...

    ..but these images are really awe-inspiring. I'm not sure how the decision-makers of this world can see something like that and not think "That's cool, we should spend more money exploring stuff like that" instead of, say, claiming for moat cleanings and the like.

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: Not to get too gushy...

      While agreeing entirely with your sentiment, I have to say that you can probably clean a lot of moats for the cost of an interplanetary mission. Besides, we wouldn't want to be caught with our moats dirty when the aliens pay us a return visit.

  8. Jedit Silver badge

    "it has taken this long for the snaps to be sent and processed."

    So, time for another holiday then?

    1. Darryl

      Re: "it has taken this long for the snaps to be sent and processed."

      It's not that bad... At least New Horizons didn't get back home before the postcards that it sent.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "it has taken this long for the snaps to be sent and processed."

        Next time we call it "Event Horizons" and it will go where WE NEED NO EYES.

    2. Mpeler
      Alien

      Re: "it has taken this long for the snaps to be sent and processed."

      Quicker than Boots or Tescos, though.....

  9. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Alien

    "That's not our system."

    "Scan!"

    "This is commercial vessel Nostromo. Registration number 180246. Do you read me. Over."

    "...Nothing."

    "Keep trying!"

  10. thondwe

    Not a Proper Planet

    So Pluto's got weather, geology and moons - so can it be a Planet again please?

  11. ravenviz Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Aghast! Agog! Agape!

    1. launcap Silver badge

      > Agape!

      Philio!

      Eros!

      :-)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cool set of images.

    With an ever increasing number probes being sent to the farther reaches, I wonder whether bandwidth couldn't be improved by positioning a relay station "out there, somewhere".

    Obviously not going to improve transmission time, but cutting the distance in half and using a high power transmission from the relay might help with signal attenuation?

    1. cosymart
      Boffin

      Re: Cool set of images.

      So which relative orbit would you put the relay station in? There would be times when the relay station could be further away distance wise than Earth. Might need more than one :-)

  13. Dylan Fahey

    Where's Fox Mulder

    Hey, I'm sick and tired of NASA taking pictures of the open spaces on planets and moons. They always hide the cites and highways that the aliens use.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Where's Fox Mulder

      Today at the UNEarth General Assembly, Grey Alien Representatives would neither deny nor confirm that they have indeed a set of cities on Pluto but called it an "affront" to be even asked such a question as long as Anunnakis were allowed to keep roads on the far side of the Moon as this would inevitably lead them to city-building capacity. Earth President Dartha Vadora declared that "There is no daylight between us and the Greys! If Anunnaki will not immediately stop building roads, we will attack them with our glorious military in the middle of the lunar night! I already had to wire 30 billion Earth Union Credits to the Greys to keep them calm, something must be done!" Greys did not want to comment on whether they would eventually consider pre-discussion talks about signing the Non-Citybuilding-Treaty that the Annunaki have signed a few years ago. Rawteurs is still trying to ascertain the authenticity of grainy black-and-white photographs that have surfaced from HEXAGON offices showing alleged Annunaki roads on the far side of the Moon which may be in violation of the Non-Citybuilding-Treaty.

      In other news, Swiss Representatives have declared that they will continue to play a role as neutral observers, being the only non-aligned Earth entity.

  14. Gob Smacked
    Boffin

    Just a comet, what's new...

    It's a bit big, but it's just a slowly evaporating body as any other comet.

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