Pluto // Current

The new face of Pluto: changing color and ice sheet

Spurned Pluto is changing its looks, donning more rouge in its complexion and altering its iceball surface here and there.

Color astronomers surprised.

Newly released Hubble Space Telescope photos show the distant one-time planet - demoted to "dwarf planet" status in 2006 - is changing color and its ice sheets are shifting.

The photos, released by NASA Thursday, paint a Pluto that is significantly redder than it had been for the past several decades. To the layman, it has a yellow-orange hue, but astronomers say it has about 20 percent more red than it used to have.

The pictures show icy frozen nitrogen on Pluto's surface growing and shrinking, brightening in the north and darkening in the south. Astronomers say Pluto's surface is changing more than the surfaces of other bodies in the solar system. That's unexpected because a season lasts 120 years in some regions of Pluto.

"It's a little bit of a surprise to see these changes happening so big and so fast," said astronomer Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "This is unprecedented."

From 1954 to 2000, Pluto didn't change in color when it was photographed from Earth. But after that, it did. The red levels increased by 20 percent, maybe up to 30 percent, and stabilized from about 2000 to 2002, Buie said. It's not as red as Mars, however, Buie said.

Buie said he can explain the redness, but not why it changed so dramatically and so recently. The planet has a lot of methane, which contains carbon and hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen gets stripped off by solar winds and other factors, leaving carbon-rich areas on the surface, which tend to be red and dark.

The Hubble photos were taken in 2002 and the analysis took a few years. But why Pluto changed so quickly was such a mystery that Buie held off for years on announcing what he had found, worried that he might be wrong. However, since Pluto's moon Charon hadn't changed color in the same telescope images, he decided the Pluto findings weren't an instrument mistake.

His analysis also found that nitrogen ice was shifting in size and density in surprising ways. It's horribly cold on Pluto with, paradoxically, the bright spots being the coldest at about -382 degrees Fahrenheit. Astronomers are still arguing about the temperatures of the warm dark spots, which Buie believes may be 30 degrees warmer than the darker areas.

Part of the difficulty in figuring out what is going on with Pluto is that it takes the dwarf planet 248 years to circle the sun, so astronomers don't know what conditions are like when it's is farthest from the sun. The last time Pluto was at its farthest point was in 1870, which was decades before Pluto was discovered. Unlike Earth, Pluto's four seasons aren't equal lengths of time.

Buie's explanation makes sense, said retired NASA astronomer Stephen Maran, co-author of a book on Pluto. "Pluto is interesting and poorly understood, whether it qualifies as a planet or not," he said.Spurned Pluto is changing its looks, donning more rouge in its complexion and altering... more

pandaman2105
added this
4 days ago
|
2 comments

What is Redshift?

If the lines in the spectrum of the light from a star or galaxy appear at a lower frequency (shifted toward the red) than where they are observed in the spectrum of the Sun, we say this object exhibits 'positive redshift'. The accepted explanation for this effect is that the object must be moving away from us. This interpretation is drawn by analogy with the downward shift in the pitch of a train whistle as it passes through a railroad crossing and then speeds away from us. The question is: Is recessional velocity the only thing that can produce a redshift, as modern astrophysicists presume? It has become clear that the answer to that question is an emphatic NO!

But a high redshift value does not necessarily mean the object is far away. There is another, more important cause of high redshift values.

Halton C. Arp is a professional astronomer who, earlier in his career, was Edwin Hubble's assistant. He has earned the Helen B.Warner prize, the Newcomb Cleveland award and the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award. For years he worked at the Mt. Palomar and Mt. Wilson observatories. While there, he developed his well known catalog of "Peculiar Galaxies" that are misshapen or irregular in appearance.

Arp discovered, by taking photographs through the big telescopes, that many pairs of quasars (quasi-stellar objects) which have extremely high redshift z values (and are therefore thought to be receding from us very rapidly - and thus must be located at a great distance from us) are physically associated with galaxies that have low redshift and are known to be relatively close by. Arp has photographs of many pairs of high redshift quasars that are symmetrically located on either side of what he suggests are their parent, low redshift galaxies. These pairings occur much more often than the probabilities of random placement would allow. Mainstream astrophysicists try to explain away Arp's observations of connected galaxies and quasars as being "illusions" or "coincidences of apparent location". But, the large number of physically associated quasars and low red shift galaxies that he has photographed and cataloged defies that evasion. It simply happens too often

Because of Arp's photos, the assumption that high red shift objects have to be very far away - on which the "Big Bang" theory and all of "accepted cosmology" is based - is proven to be wrong! The Big Bang theory is therefore falsified.If the lines in the spectrum of the light from a star or galaxy appear at a lower... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Hubble sees Pluto changing color, ice sheet cover

WASHINGTON – Spurned Pluto is changing its looks, donning more rouge in its... more

inspirationseeker
added this
5 days ago
|
0 comments

The Electric Universe 4

Part 4 of 4 Theory of Electric Universe easily explained in this documentary.

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Movie: Thunderbolts of the Gods

"Challenge yourself, your peers, your teachers. Participate in a revolution in... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
1 comment

The Electric Universe 1

Part 1 of 4 Theory of Electric Universe easily explained in this documentary.

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Cosmology in Crisis - Again

“Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could.” —from The Sound... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Planetary storm over status of Pluto

Campaign seeks to overturn ruling that split the world of astronomy. The number... more

pjacobs51
added this
1 year ago
|
2 comments

The Electric Universe 2

Part 2 of 4 Theory of Electric Universe easily explained in this documentary.

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Science in Turmoil - Are We Funding Fraud?

"There can be little doubt in the minds of those who are involved in attempting to disseminate research results among the entire scientific community that major problems exist. It is well documented that adopting certain stances will result in an inability to publish in the majority of the so-called high impact academic journals.

There are also well documented cases of people experiencing grave difficulties in their place of work and even, on some occasions, being driven out. Amazingly, there are even cases of attempts being made – some successful – to deny research students their doctorates because their theses contain material which may cause embarrassment for some person with an inflated sense of his/her own importance. Again, more and more academics, certainly in British universities, are coming under increasing pressure to draw funds into their establishments. Note the emphasis is not on good research, or even just research, but rather on attracting more and more money.

Remember though that as one university official told an academic member of staff, “I don’t pay you to think”! With this attitude, what hope is there unless people read books such as Against the Tide and learn from them?

Scientific truth, that is the actual answer to a scientific problem, is of paramount importance. Personal position and advancement on the back of a scientific untruth should never be tolerated and deliberately covering up inconvenient results by pseudo-scientific argument – such as has happened with at least some of Halton Arp’s work for example – should be treated for what it is and the perpetrators dealt with accordingly by the entire scientific community.

Occasionally, blatant examples of scientific fraud become public and are treated with horror by those who read of them – scientists and non-scientific laymen alike. However, is the suppression of scientific results and ideas such as are discussed in the articles included in this book ethically any different? This is a serious question which must be answered individually by each and every scientist. For myself, I see no difference and feel the treatment meted out to such as Halton Arp amounts to nothing less than academic fraud.

Let the public which ultimately pays the bill, know all the facts and judge accordingly!""There can be little doubt in the minds of those who are involved in attempting... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Plasma Volcanoes

"The recent eruption of Mt. Redoubt in Alaska calls to mind the skeptical... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

The Numbers Game: From Cosmology to the Credit Crunch

"While many people are aware of the increasing role of mathematical modeling in... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

The Electric Universe 3

Part 3 of 4 Theory of Electric Universe easily explained in this documentary.

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Really absorb the Universe

A look at what is out there.

whyitis
added this
6 months ago
|
1 comment

Billions Sucked into Black Holes

by Dr. Jeremy Dunning-Davies "As more and more money is being requested for... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Pluto a Planet Again -- On Friday the 13th, in Illinois

It took about three minutes for members of the Illinois state senate to make the... more

pjacobs51
added this
11 months ago
|
10 comments

Black Hole at Heart of Astronomy

The so-called “queen” of the sciences, cosmology, is founded upon the myth... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Stars in Collision: Part 1

"Astronomers have recently discovered a band of energetic neutral atoms around... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

The Science Cartel vs. Immanuel Velikovsky

"In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky culminated decades of research with a book titled Worlds in Collision that "proposes that many myths and traditions of ancient peoples and cultures are based on actual events." His approach was interdisciplinary, a rarity in the 20th century, taking into account astronomy, physics, chemistry, psychology, ancient history, and comparative mythology.

While recognized as "neither crank nor charlatan," Velikovsky and his ideas were denied a hearing in what same to be known as the "Velikovsky Affair."

Immanuel Velikovsky was too eminent a scholar to be dismissed outright as a kook, and he counted some respected people among his friends. (See The Einstein-Velikovsky Correspondence). Nevertheless, his Catastrophism was rejected outright by a scientific establishment that couldn't stomach an interdisciplinary challenge to its dogmatic Uniformitarianism, even after Velikovsky's predictions about the temperature of Venus and radio activity from Jupiter were proven true.

Say what you will of Velikovskian cosmology, more scientists themselves are questioning whether it is right to dismiss outright celestial events as described in ancient texts, as this article suggests – The Odyssey astronomically accurate? And exciting news just today that the largest planet of our solar system "snared a passing comet in the middle of the last century, eventually releasing it 12 years later," rings a Velikovskian bell – Jupiter had temporary moon for 12 years.

Whatever conclusions one may come to on this matter, it raises interesting questions about the tyrannical conformity of thought that plagues not only the scientific but also the economic and political spheres as well. Are not proponents of the Austrian School of Economics similarly marginalized by the academic cartel, as are advocates the traditional United States non-interventionism by the political cartel? Alternative medicine's long history of suppression by the American Medical Association is also a parallel.

Like Velikovskianism, both Austrianism and Non-interventionism touch on more dimensions of the human experience than do the "mainstream" approaches to economics and foreign policy they oppose. Velikovskianism appeals to the traditional authority of ancient texts; Austrianism appeals to the traditional authority of the discoveries of the School of Salamanca, and Non-interventionism to the traditional authority of the Founders.

Fascinating as the cosmological speculations detailed above are, they are far less convincing than the economic and political ideas mentioned in the last paragraphs. It is nothing less than scandalous that these are denied a hearing."

Rumor has it that Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" was the book found on Einstein's nightstand when he died. It was also a #1 best seller until the science mafia assassinated his character (less bloody than regular assassination)."In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky culminated decades of research with a book titled... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Electric Sun Verified

"NASA's IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) spacecraft has made the first... more

rodstradamus
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

TAGS

tagged w/ Pluto

The new face of Pluto: changing color and ice sheet

What is Redshift?

Hubble sees Pluto changing color, ice sheet cover

The Electric Universe 4

Movie: Thunderbolts of the Gods

The Electric Universe 1

Cosmology in Crisis - Again

Planetary storm over status of Pluto

The Electric Universe 2

Science in Turmoil - Are We Funding Fraud?

Plasma Volcanoes

The Numbers Game: From Cosmology to the Credit Crunch

The Electric Universe 3

Really absorb the Universe

Billions Sucked into Black Holes

Pluto a Planet Again -- On Friday the 13th, in Illinois

Black Hole at Heart of Astronomy

Stars in Collision: Part 1

The Science Cartel vs. Immanuel Velikovsky

Electric Sun Verified

current videos

Top 5 "I Love You's" in the Movies

Taboo: Forbidden Television

The Super Bowl Sucks!

Top 5 Grammy Moments

Sexiest R&B Jams

Douchey-Doo! Pool Party Mystery

about current

watch current

the people are talking

the basics

take us with you

tools

stay in touch

© 2010 Current TV, LLC
All Rights Reserved