Pluto flashes its unusual pits • The Register Forums

Monday 19th October 2015 10:34 GMT Arthur the cat

Aligned pits and troughs? It's a DVD.

18 0 Reply
1. Monday 19th October 2015 11:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  "Aligned pits and troughs? It's a DVD."
  
  Its a digital message from Aliens! It'll probably read "Its an offence to decode this copyrighted material without express permission from General Zog at Galactic Command. You civilisation is now forfeit and your planet will be confiscated and sold to pay the fine."
  
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  1. Monday 19th October 2015 11:41 GMT BlartVersenwaldIII
    
    I don't fancy General Zog's chances against Disney's lawyers.
    
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  2. Monday 19th October 2015 23:01 GMT Mpeler
    
    It's the pits
    
    It's the EULA for Windows 10.1 - the only full copy.....
    
    Or,
    
    It's the last loo (aka Pit Stop) for 4.2 light years.....
    
    0 0 Reply
2. Monday 19th October 2015 11:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  It's a DVD
  
  You should see the unit that plays it!
  
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  1. Monday 19th October 2015 11:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: It's a DVD
    
    Do you need a pulsar beam to read it?
    
    0 0 Reply
  2. Monday 19th October 2015 15:06 GMT Graham Marsden
    
    Re: It's a DVD
    
    > You should see the unit that plays it!
    
    It's obvious, we have to build the Sun Beam from Doc Smith's Lensman books (which concentrates the sun's output into a single concentrated beam), then we'll be able to read it!
    
    (Or we fry Pluto, I'm not sure...)
    
    2 0 Reply
3. Monday 19th October 2015 17:04 GMT Grikath
  
  Any odds that after analsys and decoding it will produce the Emperors' Theme?
  
  0 0 Reply
Monday 19th October 2015 10:35 GMT Voland's right hand

Shuddering

We shudder to think what the potential implications for humanity might be were Pluto weird in a bad way.

We can start with Lovecraft : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuggoth

Or we can go to something even weirder: "The Illegal Planet" - https://fantlab.ru/work58537

3 1 Reply
1. Monday 19th October 2015 11:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Shuddering
  
  O well, it's still named after the god of inferi, and may not be happy to know it was demoted to a "dwarf"... hope New Horizon didn't let him know....
  
  1 0 Reply
2. Monday 19th October 2015 14:46 GMT g e
  
  Re: Shuddering
  
  Fhtagn Fhtagn, Yuggoth and so forth
  
  I for one will NOT be welcoming our tentacle-faced overlords
  
  0 0 Reply
  1. Tuesday 20th October 2015 08:31 GMT Pascal Monett
    
    Ooh, you'll be going to the pits for sure when they get here.
    
    0 0 Reply
Monday 19th October 2015 11:07 GMT Anonymous Coward

Womp rats

"I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters."

―Luke Skywalker

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1. Monday 19th October 2015 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Womp rats
  
  These are more than 250m large, we knew Skywalker was making it up....
  
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Monday 19th October 2015 11:08 GMT RockBurner

Looks more like meteorite debris on a snowfield to me.....

1 1 Reply
1. Monday 19th October 2015 11:47 GMT Stoneshop
  
  Pancake batter
  
  I doubt that meteorite debris would be as regular sized as these pits. To me it looks like the dimples in a pancake when you're baking them and they're halfway done.
  
  2 0 Reply
  1. Monday 19th October 2015 12:06 GMT Voland's right hand
    
    Re: Pancake batter
    
    I doubt that meteorite debris would be as regular sized as these pits.
    
    In the mess hall of the Start Destroyer Vindicator, in a galaxy far, far away.
    
    Appalling performance from the 1st, 3rd and 7th turrets gunnery squads. You are all assigned to garbage collector maintenance for the next week. You are lucky that Lord Vader wasn't around to witness the spread of your volleys, he is nowhere as forgiving as I am.
    
    Stop grumbling and say thank you, I am doing you a favor. If that was a Mon Calamari cruiser and not a target practice range in some obscure system's Coupier belt we would all be dead by now.
    
    4 1 Reply
    1. Tuesday 20th October 2015 12:23 GMT dotdavid
      
      Re: Pancake batter
      
      "some obscure system's Coupier belt"
      
      Calling it a croupier belt sounds like a gamble to me.
      
      0 0 Reply
2. Monday 19th October 2015 11:52 GMT Kingston Black
  
  Could they be...
  
  Footprints?
  
  6 0 Reply
  1. Monday 19th October 2015 12:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Could they be...
    
    Yeah, I thought the local kids have been out playing in the (nitrogen) snow.
    
    1 0 Reply
  2. Monday 19th October 2015 15:09 GMT Fink-Nottle
    
    Re: Could they be...
    
    Wormsign
    
    6 0 Reply
Monday 19th October 2015 12:11 GMT Your alien overlord - fear me

"the absence of impact craters is evidence of the area's geographical youth, NASA notes."

However, on closer inspection Pluto is a planet. Er, I mean Pluto has been shot-gunned by a high altitude meteor burst.

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Monday 19th October 2015 14:38 GMT Jimmy2Cows

Never mind the pits...

It's the lighthouse/beacon/antenna/point-singularity-projector looking thing in the upper left corner of the first image they should be interested in...

4 0 Reply
1. Monday 19th October 2015 15:00 GMT Quip
  
  Re: Never mind the pits...
  
  quite, and why are there so many footprints trudging toward it?
  
  1 0 Reply
2. Tuesday 20th October 2015 08:00 GMT Chris 239
  
  Re: Never mind the pits...
  
  I can't believe I got this far down the comments before someone noticed the mobile cell tower! From the foot prints it has had a recent maintenance visit . Where can I sign up with Pluto Mobile? I might get a decent signal!
  
  3 0 Reply
Monday 19th October 2015 16:59 GMT spot

pits?

They're not pits and troughs, they're trees.

0 0 Reply
1. Tuesday 20th October 2015 06:03 GMT Vladimir Plouzhnikov
  
  Re: pits?
  
  Seriously, they don't look like pits at all, morer like snowballs lying on the surface. And it's not the usual inversion illusion - before anyone tries to correct me... If you see the lighting on nearby cellular subsidence - it's opposite to that on the "dimples". And the sun light is coming from the upper right quadrant...
  
  1 0 Reply
  1. Tuesday 20th October 2015 08:35 GMT Pascal Monett
    
    Re: the sun light is coming from the upper right quadrant
    
    Unless they are not snowballs but actual pits, and the sunlight is coming from the left, which would explain why all pits are shaded on the left side and have a brightness on the right.
    
    Plus there's the fact that NASA scientists are talking about pits. I tend to give them a bit of credence on interpreting interstellar pictures.
    
    1 0 Reply
    1. Tuesday 20th October 2015 12:55 GMT Vladimir Plouzhnikov
      
      Re: the sun light is coming from the upper right quadrant
      
      Please tell me what you think - the cells in the left part of the picture - are they ridged depressions or bumps surrounded by troughs?
      
      Not a loaded question - just want to compare my own perception of the image with yours...
      
      Thanks.
      
      1 0 Reply
Monday 19th October 2015 17:32 GMT imanidiot

No need to be rude about it

It's not polite to point out someones cellulite you know...

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Monday 19th October 2015 18:50 GMT Triboolean

Conway's game of life, planetary scale.

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Monday 19th October 2015 20:02 GMT Anonymous Coward

It's really just what happens when .....

God spits coffee out his nose, laughing at mankind and our collective stupidity. Or reading El Reg; whichever is most amusing.

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Tuesday 20th October 2015 08:56 GMT Anonymous Coward

Sand people?

0 0 Reply
1. Tuesday 20th October 2015 17:14 GMT Swarthy
  
  Sand people?
  
  Nah, they travel in single-file, to hide their numbers.
  
  1 0 Reply