Friday, July 31, 2015

Pluto, Earth 2.0, and Life in the Universe

Pluto may have nitrogen glaciers, and the planet's air pressure is much lower than scientists expected.

Kepler 452b, "Earth 2.0," isn't the first roughly Earth-size planet found in a star's habitable zone: but the star, Kepler 452, is remarkably similar to our sun.

Another planet, HIP 11915b, is the first we've found that's around Jupiter's size: and orbiting its star at about the same distance as Jupiter. This is the first other planetary system that 'looks like' our Solar system.

Scientists still haven't found life elsewhere in the universe: but the odds seem to be getting better that we will, eventually.
  1. Pluto's Probable Glaciers
  2. Kepler 452b: 'Earth 2.0?'
  3. HIP 11915b: An Extrasolar Jupiter
I put a quick look at New Horizons' current status, and an afterword about life, faith, and space aliens, toward the end of this post:
A 'science threatens faith' op-ed got my attention this week, so I wrote about beliefs, reasonable and otherwise, before getting around to the interesting stuff. Feel free to skip ahead to Pluto's Probable Glaciers, take a walk, or whatever suits your fancy.

Oh Ye of Brittle Faith


Since that's a snarky paraphrase of Matthew 8:26, I'd better explain a few things.

Back in my youth, the more loudly-Christian folks probably realized that Jesus isn't English. But the way they insisted that the only 'real' Bible was one using an archaic dialect of my language could easily give that impression.

They also seemed to believe the Almighty had decreed that the dress code and musical taste of a particular middle-class American subculture, from about 1945 to 1954, should forever be observed by all.

I didn't agree, but their rants and rigid faith helped me learn to love rock 'n roll — and become a Catholic. (May 3, 2015; August 26, 2012; August 20, 2012)

Many of these folks also seemed convinced that God created the universe in 4004 BC. I'll get back to that.

As a Catholic, I must take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously, and read it often. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 77-82, 101-133)

But I don't assume that folks knew everything there is to know when the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was assembled, more than two dozen centuries back.

Some Catholics may believe that a 17th century Calvinist must be right: but that's not what the Church teaches. Poetry isn't science, and ignorance is not a virtue. (July 17, 2015; March 29, 2015; October 10, 2014)

Imaginative "History"


I'm a Christian, a Catholic: one of those "superstitious and idolatrous" papists Ussher wrote about. (February 5, 2014)

More recent descriptions of our beliefs and history are occasionally — much more imaginative. (January 11, 2015)

Then there's grand old American tradition of believing that Catholics aren't — or weren't — allowed to own or read Bibles.

There's a very tiny bit of truth in that notion. Before Gutenberg's movable type made mass-produced books possible, very few Europeans could afford Bibles.

I talked about Bibles, medieval Europe, and the price of helicopters, a few years back. That remains one of this blog's most-visited posts. (January 27, 2009)

If you're waiting for a rant about folks who don't share my faith: you'll have a long wait. As a Catholic, must respect folks who don't believe what I do.1

That's not always easy, but remembering how long it took for me to become a Catholic helps.

Having grown up in the 1960s helps, too. I was one of 'those crazy kids' who thought seeing everyone as a neighbor made sense. I still do, and now have more understanding of why it's a good idea. (March 27, 2015; January 18, 2015)

Back then, I didn't think learning more about this fascinating universe was a bad idea; and I still don't.

Science, Truth, and God


Studying this astounding creation is more than allowed: it is part of being human. (Catechism, 159, 2293-2295)

Scientific discoveries are invitations "...to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator...." (Catechism, 283, 341)

The Catholic Church's view of science shouldn't be surprising — We're told that truth is very important. (Catechism, Prologue, 27, 74, more under Truth in the index)

Faith, in the Catholic sense, is not reason: but it's not unreasonable.

Since I believe that the things of faith come from God, that God created the world, and is Truth — fearing knowledge of God's world would be illogical.

Truth cannot contradict truth. (Catechism, 156-159)

That's why I'm not bothered when we discover some new facet of reality.

Deliberately disbelieving facts isn't a good idea. At all. "Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience...." (Catechism, 1849)

Bottom line: Seeking truth and seeking God are compatible. So are faith and reason. I thought this was true before I became a Catholic, and still do.

More importantly, that's what the Church says. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 35, 50, 154, 274, 1706)

Earth 2.0, Aristotle, and All That


I'll be talking about "Earth 2.0," Kepler 452b, later. It's a planet that might, maybe, support life.

One of the first "Earth 2.0" headlines I saw was by scientist and former White House Senior Policy Analyst, Jeff Schweitzer, who has a Ph.D. in marine biology/neurophysiology.

He probably knows his field very well, and made some remarkable assumptions about Christianity:
"Earth 2.0: Bad News for God"
Jeff Schweitzer, Huffington Post (July 23, 2015)

"...Let us be clear that the Bible is unambiguous about creation: the earth is the center of the universe, only humans were made in the image of god, and all life was created in six days. All life in all the heavens. In six days...."
I've known Christians who apparently agree with Dr. Schweitzer — that Christianity depends on believing that one of the Genesis creation narratives is literally true.

I don't, but like I said: I'm a Catholic.

Oddly enough, I've yet to encounter a Christian who insists that Earth is flat, based on Job 9:6-7. International long distance telephone service may have something to do with that. (October 10, 2014; October 3, 2014)

Dr. Schweitzer may have read Dante's "The Divine Comedy," and assumed that the poem's geocentric cosmology was a vital tenet of Christian faith.

As for the 'creation took six days' thing: I think it's hard to live in America and not hear that vehemently asserted.

Let's remember that Dante Alighieri was a poet, not a natural philosopher: although "The Divine Comedy" included references to science/natural philosophy of the early 1300s.

However, as Tennyson's imperfect knowledge of Victorian railroad technology in "Locksley Hall" shows,2 Poets focus on poetry and art: not science and technology. (July 18, 2014)

A few decades before Dante finished his poem, some European scholars had insisted that Earth had to be the only world like ours: because Aristotle said so.

Although the 219 Propositions of 1277 were later annulled, the principle of Proposition 27/219 is still valid. God's God, Aristotle's not. (February 23, 2014)

If Christianity depended on believing that Earth is only slightly over six millennia old, our faith would have begun crumbling shortly after 1778.

That's when Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, published "Les époques de la nature." He had carefully measured how fast iron cools, extrapolated from that data, and found that Earth was about 75,000 years old. He was wrong by several powers of ten.

Another scientist used similar methods in 1862, getting an age of Earth at somewhere between 20,000,000 and 400,000,000 years.

Since then, we've learned about heat from radioactive decay, convection currents in Earth's mantle: and some folks still insist that Ussher must be right.

Like I said, I'm a Catholic: and figure part of my job is admiring God's creation, not telling the Almighty how it should have been made. (March 29, 2015; September 19, 2014)

Predictably, Dr. Schweitzer's op-ed got a response:
Since looking for life in the universe may become 'political,' I'll repeat what I've said before. "Liberal" and "conservative" aren't the only possible positions, and thinking is not a sin:

Mapping Pluto



(From NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI, used w/o permission.)
("Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this sharper global view of Pluto. (The lower right edge of Pluto in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage.) The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away from Pluto, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers). That’s twice the resolution of the single-image view captured on July 13 and revealed at the approximate time of New Horizons’ July 14 closest approach."
(Tricia Talbert, NASA))

I posted the lower-resolution version of this image, released July 14, Two weeks ago. (July 17, 2015)

Some places on Pluto will probably have other names, after the IAU decides which ones they like. For now, here's a closer look at Pluto's landscape, northeast of Cthulhu Regio — that dark patch called The Whale earlier — from a previous post. (July 24, 2015)


(From NASA/JHU/APL/SWRI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("The mission team says the ice appears to flow around the mountains and collect in craters"
(BBC News))


(From Mika McKinnon, NASA/JHUAPL; via Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.)
("Map of Pluto, with (informal) names for some of the largest surface features"
(Mika McKinnon, New Horizons Scientist, NASA/JHUAPL))


(From Mika McKinnon, NASA/JHUAPL; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(A closer look at The Brass Knuckles.)

More about places on Pluto:

1. Pluto's Probable Glaciers



(From NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("Just a small amount of heat from below could be enough to enable the very cold nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ices to flow"
(BBC News))
"New Horizons: Pluto may have 'nitrogen glaciers' "
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (July 24, 2015)

"Pluto would appear to have glaciers of nitrogen ice, the latest pictures from the New Horizons probe suggest.

"Scientists believe they see evidence of surface material having flowed around mountains and even ponding in craters.

"The activity is certainly recent, they say, and may even be current.

"But the mission team cautions that it has received only 4-5% of the data gathered during 14 July's historic flyby of the dwarf planet, and any interpretations must carry caveats.

" 'Pluto has a very complicated story to tell; Pluto has a very interesting history, and there is a lot of work we need to do to understand this very complicated place,' said Alan Stern, the New Horizons principal investigator...."
"Recent," in this case, means geologically recent. Washington University's William B. (Bill) McKinnon said that "recent" in this case is "no more than a few tens of millions of years."

That image shows the edge of Sputnik Planum, a large plain on the west half of Tombaugh Regio — Pluto's "heart."

Like the BBC News article says, if these are glaciers, they're frozen nitrogen. Water ice would be too hard, too brittle, to flow at Pluto's temperatures. Scientists figure that Sputnik Planum's ice is a mix of frozen nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane.

New Horizons will keep 'looking' at Pluto for several days. Then it'll be spun up, giving it stability without draining power for its thrusters. That gives the spacecraft more power for transmitting data back to Earth. It'll take about 16 months to send the uncompressed data back.

By then New Horizons should be heading for a Kuiper belt object: probably 2014 MU69 (in January 2019) or 2014 PN70 (in March 2019).

Plutonian Air Pressure: Dropping?



(From NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("New Horizons has sped past Pluto and is continuing to image the dwarf planet to study its tenuous atmosphere backlit by the Sun"
(BBC News))
"...This statement comes from measurements made by the probe as it was looking back at Pluto following the flyby.

"It could tell from the passage of sunlight and radiowaves through the Plutonian 'air' that the pressure was only about 10 microbars at the surface (1 microbar is about a millionth of the air pressure on Earth at sea level).

"The other key detection was of hazes in the atmosphere. These are likely the consequence of high-up methane being broken apart and processed by sunlight into simple hydrocarbons like ethylene and acetylene, which then fall, cool and condense to form a mist of ice particles.

"Some of this material will probably be further processed into more complex chemistry that rains on to the surface to give certain regions their characteristic reddish hue...."
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News)
Pluto's atmosphere is very thin, but was getting thicker: probably because frozen gas on its northern polar 'ice cap' was evaporating. (July 24, 2015)

That was last week. Last Friday, NASA announced that Pluto's atmosphere may be changing rapidly:
"New Horizons Reveals Pluto's Atmospheric Pressure Has Sharply Decreased"
Lillian Gipson, NASA (July 24, 2015, updated July 30, 2015)

"Pluto's atmosphere may be changing before our eyes. Measurements with NASA's New Horizons spacecraft have revealed that Pluto's atmosphere has an unexpectedly low surface pressure compared to that derived from previous observations. One explanation for the low pressure is that about half of Pluto's atmosphere may have recently frozen onto the planet's surface. If confirmed, it could indicate that further decreases in pressure may soon be in store.

"The pressure measurement is the first ever obtained for the surface of Pluto. It was made by REX, the spacecraft's radio experiment, about one hour after New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto on July 14. In a carefully-planned observation that had never before been attempted, two radio dishes on Earth--part of NASA's Deep Space Network-- beamed radio waves precisely timed to reach Pluto just as New Horizons passed behind the dwarf planet.

"The radio waves traveled through Pluto's atmosphere en route to the spacecraft and were bent, or refracted, by the atmospheric gases. The amount of bending -- which appears as a shift in the frequency of the radio waves -- revealed that the gas pressure at Pluto's surface was only 1/100-thousandth that of the pressure on the surface of Earth. That's about half the amount calculated from previous Earth-based observations.

" 'For the first time we have ground truth, measuring the surface pressure at Pluto, giving us an invaluable perspective on conditions at the surface of the planet,' said New Horizons researcher Ivan Linscott of Stanford University. 'This crucial measurement may be telling us that Pluto is undergoing long-anticipated global change.'

"New Horizons is expected to transmit a wider variety of REX measurements of Pluto’s atmospheric pressure in the next few weeks."
It's quite possible that Pluto's air pressure dropped sharply since the last Earth-based observation. Or maybe observing starlight as Pluto passes between the star and Earth shows one phenomenon, and observing radio signals sent through Pluto's atmosphere shows another.

Either way: we have more data now than we did before New Horizon's flyby, with much more coming. There's a great deal left to learn about Pluto.

2. Kepler 452b: 'Earth 2.0?'



(From ESO, used w/o permission.)
("The orbital period of Kepler 452b (shown in this artist's impression) is very similar to that of Earth"
(BBC News) )
" 'Earth 2.0' found in Nasa Kepler telescope haul"
Paul Rincon, BBC News (July 23, 2015)

"A haul of planets from Nasa's Kepler telescope includes a world sharing many characteristics with Earth.

"Kepler-452b orbits at a very similar distance from its star, though its radius is 60% larger.

"Mission scientists said they believed it was the most Earth-like planet yet.

"Such worlds are of interest to astronomers because they might be small and cool enough to host liquid water on their surface - and might therefore be hospitable to life.

"Nasa's science chief John Grunsfeld called the new world 'Earth 2.0' and the 'closest so far' to our home.

"It is around 1,400 light years away from Earth...."
This isn't the first time scientists spotted a planet that may support life as we know it, and Kepler-452b certainly isn't the closest. It is, however, remarkable in that it's orbiting a star that's a great deal like ours.

It's even at about the right distance from the star for our sort of life — and quite possibly a ball of rock and metal, like the planet we're living on.

Ten other somewhat-Earth-like planets are within 50 light-years of us. I've at least mentioned several of them in earlier posts:
These aren't Star Trek's "class M" planets, with surface gravity that's close to Earth's, and a shirtsleeve climate curiously similar to southern California's. We're learning that planets are far more varied than the our Solar System's selection.

So far we've found none quite like Earth, but there's a vast number of places we haven't studied yet. (November 7, 2014; June 27, 2014; May 16, 2014)

More about possibly-habitable planets:
One more item, a discovery announced yesterday:

3. HIP 11915b: An Extrasolar Jupiter



(From ESO/M. Kornmesser, used w/o permission.)
("An artist's rendering shows an exoplanet called HIP 11915b around the Sun-like star HIP 11915. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser."
(Sci-News.com))
"HIP 11915b: Jupiter Twin Found Orbiting Sun-Like Star"
Megan Bedell, University of Chicago; Jorge Meléndez, Universidade de São Paulo; Richard Hook, ESO Public Information Officer; via Sci-News.com (July 15, 2015)

"Using the HARPS planet-hunting instrument on the 3.6-m telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory, Chile, astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-mass exoplanet orbiting the Sun-like star HIP 11915 at almost exactly the same distance as Jupiter.

"Although many exoplanets similar to Jupiter have been found at a variety of distances from Sun-like stars, the newfound planet, HIP 11915b, in terms of both mass and distance from its host star, and in terms of the similarity between the host star and our Sun, is the most accurate analogue yet found for the Sun and Jupiter.

"HIP 11915 is not only similar in mass to the Sun, but is also about the same age. To further strengthen the similarities, the composition of the star is similar to the Sun's.

"The star is located in the constellation Cetus, about 200 light-years away. It is too faint to be seen without optical aid, but can be picked up with binoculars...."
This is at least as exciting as finding Kepler-452b.

As of yesterday, scientists have found 1,938 planets orbiting in 1,227 planetary systems other than ours. 485 of those planetary systems have more than one planet. (The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia)

"HIP" in HIP 11915 stands for Hipparcos, an ESA satellite launched in 1989. Hipparcos is the name of an ancient Greek natural philosopher — and stands for High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite.

Abbreviations like HIP, BD, Gl, and SAO, tell astronomers which star catalog the designation number comes from.

Making things a bit more complicated, one star often appears in several catalogs: like Gliese 667, that's also called 142 G. Scorpii, CD−34°11626, GJ 667, HD 156384, HIP 84709, HR 6426, LHS 442/442/443, and SAO 20867.

Where was I? Acronyms, ancient natural philosophers, catalog numbers, HIP 11915b. Right.

I don't think HIP 11915b supports life. It's a gas giant, like Jupiter. Writers have imagined life existing in Jupiter's atmosphere, like the featured creature in Arthur C. Clarke's "A Meeting with Medusa."

I enjoy stories like that, but realize that Jupiter's atmosphere is almost certainly too turbulent to support life: no matter how exotic. (December 19, 2014)

Getting back to HIP 11915, it looks like there isn't another Jupiter-size planet orbiting the star closer than HIP 11915b. There could be Earth-size planets orbiting the star, maybe in the habitable zone. That's a lot of "could be" and "maybe."

There's been scientific speculation that Earth is habitable because Jupiter orbits where it does.

Most planets in the Solar System have orbits closer to Jupiter's orbital plane than our star's equatorial plane. Mercury is an exception.

It's very likely that Jupiter acts as a shield for the inner Solar System, attracting and getting hit by comets that would otherwise have struck Earth or another inner planet. It's possible that Jupiter also caused the Late Heavy Bombardment, some 4,100,000,000 to 3,800,000,000 years ago.

Or maybe the Late Heavy Bombardment didn't happen. The last time I checked, scientists still aren't all convinced that it's a real event, not a misinterpretation of data.

That doesn't mean that Ussher was right, after all. Scientists are, and have been for some time, convinced that Earth is about 4,540,000,000 years old: give or take 50,000,000. They're also quite sure that this universe started 13,798,000,000 years back; give or take 37,000,000.3

More about HIP 11915b and Jupiter:

Current Status


(From NASA/APL/Southwest Research Institute, used w/o permission.)
(New Horizons position at 1700 UTC/1200 Central Daylight Time. (CDT) (July 23, 2015))

As I said before, this is a blog, not a news service. These folks have been updating fairly often, if you're looking for current information:

"The Universe is .... Queerer than We Can Suppose"


Now and then I get to the end of a post, and have something to say that doesn't quite fit in. (April 24, 2015; April 17, 2015; August 29, 2014)

This is one of those times.

Dr. Schweitzer's "Earth 2.0: Bad News for God" op-ed reminded me of assumptions I run into about life, the universe, and all that.

An op-ed from last year, "Habitable Exoplanets are Bad News for Humanity," reflected — my opinion — Cold War angst and disenchantment with the 19th century's silly optimism about science, technology, and inevitable progress.

That gave me an opportunity to discuss the Fermi paradox, and the possibility that space aliens may not be human. (May 9, 2014)

I think Haldane was most likely right about at least one thing:
"I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
(J. B. S. Haldane, Wikiquote)

The Martians Are Coming! The Martians Are Coming!


I don't believe that we're alone in the universe: or that we'll find life on other planets. So far, we don't know.

I'd be surprised if we find unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrial life in the next few months: but I'd be very surprised if we are standing on the only life-bearing world.

Finding any sort of life, the equivalent of pond scum or bacteria, would be a momentous discovery: and would probably upset some folks.

But let's imagine that we hit the jackpot later this year.

A spaceship — obviously not from Earth — arrives, and settles into orbit around Earth's moon.

In this hypothetical situation, I'm pretty sure that some folks would panic. Others would start waving 'beam me up' signs at the sky, and the usual gaggle of experts would have dignified conniptions.

On the faith front, folks like the regrettable Westboro (Kansas) Baptist Church would probably declare that God hates us and/or that doom is nigh. Others would write op-ed pieces like Dr. Schweitzer's: and some might feel that 'science was right all along,' and despair.

About despair, it's a really bad idea and we're not supposed to do it. (Catechism, 2091)

I don't think either the familiar "War of the Worlds" or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" scenarios are likely, by the way. And that's another topic. Topics. (April 18, 2014; November 15, 2013)

Meanwhile, in this hypothetical 'space aliens have arrived' situation, I figure that the Pope would say something low-key and sensible about the events; and some monks, like Jesuit Guy Consolmagno, would join other scientists in collecting and analyzing data about the new arrival.

Some of the world's billion-plus Catholics would, I'm pretty sure, be much less calm.

Drawing a line through the last half-century's goofiness, some would probably set up their own little 'Catholic Church of Just Us Humans,' or decide that the aliens are some kind of government plot.

As I've said before: like any big group, we've got our share of crazies.

"...Our Cousins in the Cosmos...."


It's been some time since I quoted Brother Guy Consolmago's personal opinion about our neighbors in the universe, if any. (November 7, 2014)

This is one man's opinion, not official Church policy, but I think he makes sense:
"...Frankly, if you think about it, any creatures on other planets, subject to the same laws of chemistry and physics as us, made of the same kinds of atoms, with an awareness and a will recognizably like ours would be at the very least our cousins in the cosmos. They would be so similar to us in all the essentials that I don't think you'd even have the right to call them aliens."
("Brother Astronomer;" Chapter Three, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? — Brother Guy Consolmagno (2000))
Finally, if — and this is a very big if — we do share this universe with other folks: we may be working on the job outlined in Matthew 28:19 for a very long time. And that's yet another topic.

More about Pluto, a comet, and the universe:
1 Truth and respect are important:
" 'All men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace it and hold on to it as they come to know it.'26 This duty derives from 'the very dignity of the human person.'27 It does not contradict a 'sincere respect' for different religions which frequently 'reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men,'28 nor the requirement of charity, which urges Christians 'to treat with love, prudence and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith.'29"
(Catechism, 2104)
2 Tennyson wrote "...the ringing grooves of change..." in "Locksley Hall" before learning why railroads are called rail roads:
"...Tennyson himself later wrote that his striking, though peculiar, metaphor for change (both visual and aural) arose from a misperception during his own first journey by rail: 'When I went by the first train from Liverpool to Manchester (1830), I thought that the wheels ran in a groove. It was a black night and there was such a vast crowd round the train at the station that we could not see the wheels. Then I made this line.'..."
("Lucy on the Earth in Stasis" Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections on Natural History. Stephen Jay Gould, Harmony Books (1995). Cited in " 'Ringing down the grooves of change:' Tennyson's mistaken railway analogy;" George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History Emeritus, Brown University; victorianweb.org )
3 Some quantum phenomena are easier to explain if we're not in the only space-time continuum:
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Sunday, July 26, 2015

Why Make a Universe?


(From NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); ESA/Hubble Collaboration; used w/o permission.)
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft."
(Psalms 19:2)
Genesis 1:1-31 says that God created the universe, and us, and found everything "very good."

Psalms 19:2 says that the celestial light show declares the glory of God.

Who is this message being directed at?

Us, apparently.

St. Bonaventure said that God's creation communicates the Almighty's glory, St. Thomas Aquinas said that God creates because the Almighty is good and loving, and I think they're right.1 (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 293)

God created the universe, and humanity, because God loves us and wants to adopt us. It's that simple. (John 3:17; Catechism, 27-30, 52, 1825)

Perspective


Of course, it's not simple, too.

For one thing, we're starting to realize that we may have neighbors: other creatures like us, with bodies and free will, but not from Earth.

Then again, maybe we don't. Either way — as Porky Pine said — "it's a mighty sobering thought." (November 7, 2014; June 27, 2014)

We've learned a bit since the Psalms were written, about two dozen centuries back, give or take a quarter-millennium.

Living in a universe that's immensely bigger and older than Ussher's tidy little version of a Mesopotamian model upsets some folks.

I figure part of my job is appreciating God's creation: not telling the Almighty how it should be made. (March 29, 2015)

Scientific discoveries are invitations to "...even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator...." (Catechism, 283)

I've talked about faith, reason, science, and getting a grip, before. Often. (June 14, 2015; April 10, 2015; December 19, 2014)

"As a Grain from a Balance"



(From NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); ESA/Hubble Collaboration; used w/o permission.)
"4 Indeed, before you the whole universe is as a grain from a balance, or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.

"But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook the sins of men that they may repent.

"For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.

"And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?"
(Wisdom 11:22-25)
God isn't merely big and strong. God is "...infinite ... almighty and ineffable ... infinitely greater than all his works...." (Catechism, 202, 300)

What we're learning about the scale of this universe doesn't, I think, make God 'more infinite.' But I think it adds emphasis to verses like these:
"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place -

"4What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?

"5Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor."
(Psalms 8:4-6)
I also think remembering who and what we are is important. And that's another topic.

More about faith and using my brain:
1 From the Catechism, about God, creation, and love:
"Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: 'The world was made for the glory of God.'134 St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things 'not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it',135 for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: 'Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand.'136 The First Vatican Council explains:
"This one, true God, of his own goodness and 'almighty power', not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel 'and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . .'137
"The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us 'to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace',138 for 'the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man's life is the vision of God: if God's revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word's manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God.'139 The ultimate purpose of creation is that God 'who is the creator of all things may at last become "all in all", thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude.'140 "
(Catechism, 293-294)
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Friday, July 24, 2015

Pluto's Unexpected Terrain; SETI, Radio, and Drums

Pluto's still in the news, as New Horizons starts sending data from its July 14 flyby. That will take more than a year, but there have already been surprises: including "not easy to explain terrain" near Pluto's equator.

Meanwhile, the DSCOVR Solar weather monitor sent back a snapshot of Earth; and Professor Stephen Hawking is supporting a new search for intelligent life in the universe.

I think the Royal Society in London's Breakthrough Initiatives group will collect interesting facts while listening for extraterrestrial radio broadcasts. But I also think that our neighbors, if any, could easily have been using wireless telegraphy when Oldowan tools were our high tech.
  1. Pluto: More Mountains
  2. DSCOVR's Blue Marble Picture: I Can See the Clouds Over My House
  3. Intelligent Life in the Universe: Still Searching
  4. "Not Easy to Explain Terrain"
  5. Like Drying Mud, a Lava Lamp: or Something Completely Different

Current Status



(From NASA/APL/Southwest Research Institute, used w/o permission.)
(New Horizons position at 1700 UTC/1200 Central Daylight Time. (CDT) (July 23, 2015))

NASA's New Horizons home page announced that they'll have a news conference/science update at 2 p.m. EDT (6:00 p.m. UTC) Friday, July 24 — five hours after this post shows up. As I said last week, this is a blog, not a news service. These folks have been updating fairly often, if you're looking for current information:
If you already know why I'm sure thinking isn't a sin, feel free to skip to Pluto: More Mountains, or Intelligent Life in the Universe: Still Searching — or get a cup of coffee, take a walk, whatever.

Earth Isn't Flat, Poetry isn't Science, and Curiosity isn't a Sin


I think the universe is billions, not thousands, of years old; Earth isn't flat; Adam and Eve weren't German; poetry isn't science; and thinking is not a sin. I say that a lot.1

Then there's the notion that Dante stuck Ulysses in Hell because Christians think curiosity is bad.

Sure enough, an English translation of Dante's "Inferno" has Ulysses saying that he passed "the bound'ries not to be o'erstepp'd by man." (Canto 26)

But Dante didn't add 'thou shalt not inquire' to the Decalog.

Ulysses is in Malebolge, Dante's eighth circle of Hell. It's where the narrator runs into panderers and seducers, then folks guilty of excessive flattery. Next come simonists, followed by those guilty of divination, grafters, hypocrites, and thieves.

Ulysses and Diomedes are in the category after that: deceivers, those who gave false or corrupted advice for personal gain. They apparently wound up in the eighth circle's subdivision for fraudulent counselors because of their Trojan horse strategy. (August 1, 2014)

The last two parts of Dante's Malebolge is for scandalmongers and forgers. Curiosity isn't punished anywhere, or Dante would never have made it out of the pit: he kept asking questions. Anyway, although Dante's epic poem is great literature: that's all it is. It's not a "Church" document. (January 23, 2015; August 1, 2014)

Mapping Pluto


The Whale, that dark feature on Pluto's equator, has a new name: Cthulhu. It's anyone's guess what it'll be called, a few years from now.

I'm not even sure whether the "Cthulhu" label got submitted to the IAU: the International Astronomical Union, today's internationally recognized authority for the names of stars, planets, and anything else we find off-Earth. It's UAI, Union astronomique internationale, in French.

I talked about how TUC and CUT morphed into UTC, and that's another topic. (July 10, 2015)

I think the basic idea — cooperation across national borders — makes sense. But I wouldn't mind if the folks who are analyzing data from New Horizons, or their supervisors, had the final say.

I think The Donut and The Brass Knuckles will almost certainly get re-named.

Even if folks having conniptions over the unhealthy lifestyle implied by The Donut, or the frightfully violent Brass Knuckles, don't put the kibosh on those names — the IAU brass might not think they're stodgy enough. I don't know if they were even submitted to the IAU

Folks pick place names for quite a few reasons.

Dublin, for example, is what happened to dubh linn ("black pool") when the English tried pronouncing it. The city's name is Baile Átha Cliath ("town of the hurdled ford").

It's a fine, descriptive name; like Rockford, Grünwald (green forest), Death Valley, Round Prairie, and various Elbow Lakes.

Comstock, Minnesota, is named after Solomon Comstock, a big name in real estate, politics, and farm implement manufacturing about a century back now. Bolivia gets its name from Simón Bolívar, and San Francisco is named after St. Francis of Assisi. And I'm drifting off-topic.

For now, though, we've got unofficial names for an increasing number of features on Pluto. These maps, and links, may help you keep track of what's where. Then again, maybe they won't.


(From NASA/JHU-APL/Southwest Research Institute, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(Pluto's surface visible from New Horizons, June 27 to July 3. Tombaugh Regio is the bright spot near the equator, 180 degrees East. The Whale/Cthulhu is the big dark patch on the equator, left/west of Tombaugh Regio.)


(From NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute, used w/o permission.)
(A closer look at The Whale/Cthulhu, that dark patch on Pluto's equator.)


(From Mika McKinnon, NASA/JHUAPL; via Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.)
("Map of Pluto, with (informal) names for some of the largest surface features"
(Mika McKinnon, New Horizons Scientist, NASA/JHUAPL))


(From Mika McKinnon, NASA/JHUAPL; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(A closer look at The Brass Knuckles.)

More about places on Pluto:

Space Aliens, H. P. Lovecraft, and All That


Lovecraft's aliens, like the Great Race of Yith we meet in "The Shadow Out of Time," aren't at all like the cute little fellow in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial."

Lovecraft seemed to understand that non-human people might be quite unlike us. He also had a much firmer grasp than many writers of speculative fiction, on how big and old the universe is. (June 27, 2014)

I'd be astounded if we find solid evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in the next few years: but I won't insist that we can't have neighbors, or that we must.

God's God, I'm not, and I'll take reality 'as is.' (June 27, 2014; November 7, 2014)

As a Catholic, I believe that God creates a good, ordered, and beautiful world. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 32)

Not that spider crabs and goblin sharks are pretty.

Studying this world and thinking about what we find is part of being human. We can, using reason, see God's work in the universe: or not. We've got free will, and can decide what we do or don't believe. (Catechism, 35-36, 301, 303-306, 311, 1704, 1706, 1731)

I've been over that before. (November 21, 2014)

Bottom line: scientific discoveries are opportunities for greater admiration of God's greatness. (Catechism, 283)

1. Pluto: More Mountains



(From NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI, used w/o permission.)
("A newly discovered mountain range lies near the southwestern margin of Pluto's Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), situated between bright, icy plains and dark, heavily-cratered terrain. This image was acquired ... July 14, 2015 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) and sent back to Earth on July 20. Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible."
(NASA))
"NASA's New Horizons Finds Second Mountain Range in Pluto's 'Heart' "
Tricia Talbert, NASA (July 21, 2015)

"Pluto's icy mountains have company. NASA's New Horizons mission has discovered a new, apparently less lofty mountain range on the lower-left edge of Pluto's best known feature, the bright, heart-shaped region named Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region).

"These newly-discovered frozen peaks are estimated to be one-half mile to one mile (1-1.5 kilometers) high, about the same height as the United States' Appalachian Mountains. The Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) discovered by New Horizons on July 15 more closely approximate the height of the taller Rocky Mountains.

"The new range is just west of the region within Pluto's heart called Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain). The peaks lie some 68 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of Norgay Montes.

"This newest image further illustrates the remarkably well-defined topography along the western edge of Tombaugh Regio...."
Rebecca Morelle, BBC News, wrote about this on Wednesday: combing NASA's article with "New Horizons probe zooms into Pluto's plains." (Jonathan Amos, BBC News (July 17, 2015))

I'll get back to Pluto's plains.

There's something going on where Sputnik Planum, the left/west part of Tombaugh Regio, on that picture's right, and the dark Whale/Cthulhu meet. Scientists aren't sure what's going on: no surprise, since we didn't know about these features a month ago.

They're pretty sure that the bright stuff is filling in old craters: like that circular feature, down and to the left of center.

Scientists think the bright area is new, geologically speaking: maybe under 100,000 years old. That's because it's got so few craters. Crater counting gives scientists a rough idea of how old a surface is.

Samples from Earth's moon tell us how old different spots on the surface are there: and assuming that cratering happened at about the same rate everywhere in the Solar System is reasonable. We'll know more about Pluto, when we've got physical samples from its surface. That could take a while.

2. DSCOVR's Blue Marble Picture: I Can See the Clouds Over My House



(From NASA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
"New 'blue marble' picture delights"
BBC News (July 21, 2015)

"A new, full snapshot of our planet has been captured by a Nasa satellite.

"Such images, which show the Earth in its entirety, are known as 'Blue Marbles'...."
This image is from Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), at the the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point, 930,000 miles/1,500,000 kilometers from Earth. Lagrangian points are a special solution to the three-body problem, and that's yet another topic.

DSCOVR's job is monitoring solar wind conditions, giving early warning of approaching coronal mass ejections, and observing Earth's atmosphere and surface. Plus, we get the occasional spectacular picture, like this one, taken July 6, 2015.

The Apollo 17 crew took the first "Blue Marble" photo December 7, 1972, on their way to Earth's moon. That's it, to the right: "among the most widely distributed images in human history." (Wikipedia)

More about DSCOVR, and pictures of Earth:

(From NASA, used w/o permission.)
(A closer look at part of the DSCOVR image. My house is under clouds, above the picture's center. July 6, 2015.)

3. Intelligent Life in the Universe: Still Searching



(From BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("Prof Hawking says intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos could already be aware of us"
(BBC News))
"Prof Stephen Hawking backs venture to listen for aliens"
Pallab Ghosh, BBC News (July 20, 2015)

"Prof Stephen Hawking has launched a new effort to answer the question of whether there is life elsewhere in space.

"The venture is said to be the biggest yet in support of the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

"The 10-year effort will listen for broadcast signals from a million of the stars closest to Earth.

"The £64m ($100m) initiative was launched by the Breakthrough Initiatives group at the Royal Society in London.

"Speaking at the launch, Prof Hawking said: 'Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean.

" 'Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos - unseen beacons, announcing that here, on one rock, the Universe discovered its existence. Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer - to search for life beyond Earth.

" 'We are alive. We are intelligent. We must know.'..."
Professor Hawking is a very smart man, but I think "we must know" is overstating it. The universe is a big place, and we may not have time to thoroughly explore every part of it.

For one thing, it looks like there's only enough stuff left to keep star formation going for about 1,000,000,000,000 to 100,000,000,000,000 years. After the last stars burn though their fuel supply, we'll likely have a very serious energy crisis.

If this isn't the only habitable space-time continuum — and we can move between continua — the deadline might be extended, but we'd have a whole lot more territory to cover.

Some phenomena make more sense if we assume that there's more than one "universe," and I've been over that before. (September 26, 2014)

On the other hand, I think looking for life on other worlds makes sense.

Studying this universe is part of being human: so in that sense, we must keep looking around. (Catechism, 159, 283, 286-287, 2293)

Broadcast Signals: Slit Gongs, AM Radio, and Whatever is Next


Earth's moon and planets in the Solar system were as unreachable in the 19th century as planets circling other stars are today. Scientists were learning more about these other worlds, though, and thought they might be inhabited.

Humans are chatty creatures, so pretty soon folks were thinking up ways to communicate with Martians.

Carl Friedrich Gauss, or maybe someone else, suggested planting enormous square fields of rye or wheat, outlined in pine forests, forming a giant triangle in Siberia: visual proof that we knew about the Pythagorean theorem.

Joseph Johann von Littrow had pretty much the same idea, except he figured the Sahara would be a better 'blackboard.' von Littrow's proposal was to dig giant trenches, drawing 20-mile-wide shapes. Filled with water, topped off with kerosene, and ignited, these trenches could send a different signal each night. (Wikipedia)

Remember: radio and environmental impact statements hadn't been invented yet.

I think the Breakthrough Initiatives group's Breakthrough Listen project, scanning a fraction of the sky for "broadcast signals," will collect interesting data.

The assumption that our neighbors, if they exist, use modulated radio signals for long-distance communications — is an assumption. A big one.

As I said last month, Earth has been around for about 4,540,000,000 years, and the universe is about three times older. On that scale, a million years isn't much: 1/13,798th the age of the universe, or 1/4,540th Earth's age.

I'm in my mid-60s, so that fraction of my life is roughly one and three quarters to five days. Someone who had been born within a week of me would be almost exactly my age.

Even if our neighbors are only a million years 'older' or 'younger' than we are, their cutting-edge tech might be almond-shaped stone hand axes — or whatever we'll be developing a million years from now. (June 19, 2015)

I seriously doubt that talking drums, slit gongs, and the Inmarsat network are the ultimate communication technologies.

Earth's atmosphere is transparent at radio, and 'visible light,' frequencies, so it's a convenient part of the spectrum for ground-based astronomers. We might pick up radio signals from other folks.

Klemperer Rosettes?


However, I think we'd be better-advised to not assume that our neighbors are almost exactly our age. My guess, given how old the universe is, and the tiny fraction of that age we've been around, is that if we do have neighbors: they'll have been around for a very long time.

I know about the Fermi paradox, by the way, and don't think that civilizations self-destruct as soon as they develop steam power and credit cards. (April 24, 2015)

Folks with a somewhat less conventionally-pessimistic view of humanity's survivability have been thinking about what advanced civilizations might be like. Really advanced civilizations: not beginners like us, puttering along with fusion research and neurosynaptic cores.

The Kardashev scale, developed by astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, defines civilizations by how much energy they use. We're not quite in Kardashev's Type I, using all available energy on Earth. Type II civilizations use all energy emitted by their home world's star, a Type III civilization uses all energy emitted by its galaxy.

That sounds grandiose: but we've come a long way since Oldowan tools and wireless telegraphy were the latest thing in high tech; and I don't think we've reached the end of what's possible. (June 19, 2015; January 30, 2015)

Freeman Dyson gets credit for thinking of the "Dyson sphere:" a shell that surrounds a star, collecting all its energy. His "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation," published in 1960, deserves mention, but the idea is older:
"...Not only was every solar system now surrounded by a gauze of light traps, which focused the escaping solar energy for intelligent use, so that the whole galaxy was dimmed, but many stars that were not suited to be suns were disintegrated, and rifled of their prodigious stores of sub-atomic energy...."
("Star Maker," Chapter X A Vision of the Galaxy, Olaf Stapledon (1937), via gutenberg.net.au)
I think a serious search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe should include listening for radio signals. But I think we could also look for evidence of civilizations that are a tad further along than we are.

An obvious "WE'RE HERE" beacon would be a stellar Klemperer rosette: "a gravitational system of heavier and lighter bodies orbiting in a regular repeating pattern around a common barycenter." (Wikipedia)

A system of three class O and three class M stars, orbiting in a neat circle, couldn't be a natural phenomenon. Klemperer rosettes aren't stable. The slightest nudge will break their balance.

We can't move stars around, and keep them flying in formation: but someone out there might know how, and be willing to make it happen.

"Dyson spheres" wouldn't be particularly visible: but they'd be 'bright' in longer wavelengths, radiating energy that's been used on its way out from the central star.

Looking for anything that's fairly small, and not acting like a natural phenomenon, might be our best bet for finding neighbors.

There'll be false alarms, too, like the discovery of pulsars. (September 26, 2014)

4. "Not Easy to Explain Terrain"



(From NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("The mission team has so far released three close-up views, tied together in this mosaic for context by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo "
((BBC News))
"New Horizons probe zooms into Pluto's plains"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (July 17, 2015)

"The American space agency's New Horizons probe has returned further images of Pluto that include a view of the dwarf planet's strange icy plains

"A region, which has been named after the Soviet Sputnik satellite, displays a flat terrain broken up into polygons.

"At the edges of these 20-30km-wide features are troughs filled with dark material and even small mounds.

"Scientists say it could be evidence of the surface bulging due to gentle heating coming from below.

"But it could just as easily be the result of some contraction process as materials vaporise into the atmosphere - not unlike how mud cracks form on Earth.

"Science team members say they are trying not to jump to early conclusions in their interpretations - certainly, not until they get more data down from the spacecraft.

" 'When I first saw the image of Sputnik plain I decided I was going to call it "not easy to explain terrain",' said Jeff Moore, who leads the geology, geophysics and imaging team on New Horizons...."
We could call the "not easy to explain terrain" NEET, but it'll probably have another name when scientists figure out what we're looking at.

A picture of Nix, one of Pluto's smaller moons, isn't as spectacular. Nix is about 15 pixels across. That picture, and a few others, gave scientists enough data to estimate its shape and size: about 40 kilometers.

Besides, before May 15, 2005, we didn't know Nix was there — and only recently got this good a look at Pluto.

As for Pluto's unexpected geography: I enjoy living in a universe where we keep finding new facets of reality. It's as if God created a world loaded with puzzle games for us to solve. (May 8, 2015; July 4, 2014)

A Carbon Monoxide Equatorial Ice Patch



("New Horizons detects a strong carbon monoxide signal in Pluto's 'heart' region"
(BBC News))
"...Other measurements by the probe concern its observations of Pluto's nitrogen-rich atmosphere, which models suggest it is probably losing at a rate of about 500 tonnes per hour. It is being stripped away by the stream of energetic, charged particles coming off the Sun.

"Pluto's diminutive size (2,370km diameter) means it does not have the gravity to hang on to the atmosphere - in the same way that a bigger world like Earth or even Mars can - and it flows into space, forming a long ionised tail going in the same direction as all those solar wind particles. New Horizons has sent back some early data on this process....

"...Other fascinating observations include a concentration of carbon monoxide ice in the western sector of the light-coloured region on Pluto that looks like a heart; and also some surface streaks that appear similar to the kind of erosion or deposition marks you get behind an obstacle when it sits in the path of a persistent wind...."
(BBC News)
That big patch of carbon monoxide ice isn't the only oddity on Pluto:
"Pluto: The Ice Plot Thickens"
NASA (July 15, 2015)

"The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto.

" 'We just learned that in the north polar cap, methane ice is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice resulting in strong absorption of infrared light,' said New Horizons co-investigator Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona. In one of the visually dark equatorial patches, the methane ice has shallower infrared absorptions indicative of a very different texture. 'The spectrum appears as if the ice is less diluted in nitrogen,' Grundy speculated 'or that it has a different texture in that area.'..."
Tombaugh Regio was identified six decades back, as a bright spot on Pluto. It's not as bright now. That could be a seasonal change: about a quarter of Pluto's 'year' has elapsed since the first observation. Or maybe the fading is permanent: or part of a longer cycle.

Pluto's surface ranges in color from charcoal to white: as much contrast as Saturn's moon Iapetus.

Iapetus is an oddball moon in other ways, too. It's more than two dozen kilometers thicker across the equator, than pole-to pole: almost five percent of its average diameter. There's a 13-kilometer-high ridge running along part of its, too. And that's another yet again topic.

5. Like Drying Mud, a Lava Lamp: or Something Completely Different



(From NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute, used w/o permission.)
(Pluto's Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain). This image was taken July 14 at a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers), showing features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across. "The blocky appearance of some features is due to compression of the image."
(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute))
"NASA's New Horizons Discovers Frozen Plains in the Heart of Pluto's 'Heart'"
Dwayne Brown, Laurie Cantillo, NASA; Mike Buckley, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland; Maria Stothoff, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio (July 17, 2015)

"...In the latest data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto's icy mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named 'Tombaugh Regio' (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

" 'This terrain is not easy to explain,' said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. 'The discovery of vast, craterless, very young plains on Pluto exceeds all pre-flyby expectations.'

"This fascinating icy plains region — resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth — has been informally named 'Sputnik Planum' (Sputnik Plain) after the Earth's first artificial satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments, roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs. Some of these troughs have darker material within them, while others are traced by clumps of hills that appear to rise above the surrounding terrain. Elsewhere, the surface appears to be etched by fields of small pits that may have formed by a process called sublimation, in which ice turns directly from solid to gas, just as dry ice does on Earth...."
(BBC News)
"The blocky appearance of some features ... due to compression of the image..." mentioned in NASA's caption is a sort of thing you'll occasionally see in a digital television image. It's not in the original image, stored in New Horizons' memory.

Since the "blocky appearance" makes Sputnik Planum look like farmland, and will disappear when/if we get the uncompressed image — we may see claims of a "NASA coverup."

Remember the Face on Mars thing?

There really is a feature on Cydonia, between Arandas Crater and Bamberg Crater. From above, at a particular time of day, it looks a little like a face.

Much as I'd like to be around when — or if — we learn that we have, or had, neighbors: the Cydonian Face on Mars disappears in higher-quality pictures, and other times of day.

I'm quite sure it's no more artificial than the now-collapsed Great Stone Face on New Hampshire's Cannon Mountain: or Galle Crater's happy face. We're starting to trace some of the neural circuitry humans use for pattern recognition, and that's still another topic.

Getting back to Pluto's Sputnik Planum, scientists aren't sure how those irregular shapes formed. They've got two working theories, so far.

We may be looking at what happened when surface material shrank, leaving a pattern like the cracks in drying mud.

Or convection currents in a mix of frozen carbon monoxide, methane and nitrogen could form those patterns: like a very slow-motion lava lamp. The convection would be driven by comparative warmth deep inside Pluto.

We'll know more, as New Horizons sends in more data. This image was taken when New Horizons was still 48,000 miles, 77,000 kilometers, from Pluto. It got within 7,800 miles, 12,500 kilometers, during the flyby: so there's much more to be seen.

Scientists spotted what look like dark streaks on Pluto's plains. They're a few miles long, and apparently point in the same direction. An obvious explanation is that they're made by wind.

Again, we'll know more as more data comes in.

New Horizons: Headed Toward the Stars



(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Diagram showing solar wind interacting with Pluto's atmosphere.)
"...The New Horizons Atmospheres team observed Pluto's atmosphere as far as 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) above the surface, demonstrating that Pluto's nitrogen-rich atmosphere is quite extended. This is the first observation of Pluto's atmosphere at altitudes higher than 170 miles above the surface (270 kilometers).

"The New Horizons Particles and Plasma team has discovered a region of cold, dense ionized gas tens of thousands of miles beyond Pluto — the planet's atmosphere being stripped away by the solar wind and lost to space.

" 'This is just a first tantalizing look at Pluto's plasma environment,' said New Horizons co-investigator Fran Bagenal, University of Colorado, Boulder...."
(NASA/APL/SWRI)
Pluto's orbit takes it from 4,400,000,000 to more than 7,300,000,000 kilometers — 2,700,000,000 to 4,500,000,000 miles — from the Sun. Sunlight on Pluto isn't particularly bright — only about 150 to 450 times the light of the full Moon seen from Earth, under 1/800th as much as Earth's.

Although Pluto is receding from our sun now, its atmosphere is getting thicker. That's because Pluto's north polar regions are seeing sunlight for the the first time in 120 years.

A frozen nitrogen 'ice cap' is sublimating, turning to gas. It'll take decades to blow across Pluto and refreeze on Pluto's south pole. Not all the nitrogen atoms will get to the south pole. Some will escape Pluto's weak gravity, get ionized by sunlight, and blow away in the Solar wind.

We should keep getting data from New Horizons for years, as it passes through the Kuiper Belt, headed toward the stars.

There's much more left to learn:
1 As a Catholic, I must take Sacred Scripture seriously. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101-133)

That emphatically does not mean I must believe that a long-dead Calvinist was right, about the moment of creation being nightfall before October 23, 4004 BC:
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Marian Apparition: Champion, Wisconsin

Background:Posts in this blog: In the news:

What's That Doing in a Nice Catholic Blog?

From time to time, a service that I use will display links to - odd - services and retailers.

I block a few of the more obvious dubious advertisers.

For example: psychic anything, numerology, mediums, and related practices are on the no-no list for Catholics. It has to do with the Church's stand on divination. I try to block those ads.

Sometime regrettable advertisements get through, anyway.

Bottom line? What that service displays reflects the local culture's norms, - not Catholic teaching.