Here is an updated map now with 3 LORRI images added to the Google Maps color release. Still needs some refinements.

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Trying to sort out the various terrains....

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1. Plains with curved fractures. #7 features present in places.
2. Smooth, featureless plains. #7 features present in places (buried fractures?).
3. Plains with faint mottling. These are slightly 'bluer' in the false color images than #2 plains.
4. Blocky mountains.
5. Billowy highlands.
6. Dark equatorial terrain.
7. Hills and/or albedo features associated with sinuous fractures.
8. Various rolling and hilly terrains.

But where is North and where is South ? It must be inverted, hmm ?
in pck00010.tpc is: "Due to the new definition of planetocentric coordinates for small bodies, and to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet, Pluto's north pole direction has been inverted."

An attempt to see some more details.
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From here.
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"Squares" are artifacts of strong JPEG compression.

Good stuff Gladstoner. My reading of the No. 7 features is that at the margins of Tombaugh they are the outlines/edges of terraces, marking steep elevation changes. Some are exposed and some partially buried under the CO ice cap or other material like Water ice. Certainly the No. 2, "bluer", areas are covered in something different to Carbon Monoxide. The blocky mountains are the Norgay Water ice mountains, which to my eyes look like rubble piles from low velocity, short range impacts, but others may see them differently, so possibly ejecta from an impact.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/th...d-charon-01.jpg

Looking at Scalbers map and closer in at Pluto in this image, the top circular region of the left side of the Tombaugh region, the ice cream blob on top of the cone, has all the hallmarks of a very large impact basin. Your idea of a deep subsurface Carbon Monoxide "aquifer" penetrated by a large impactor, is looking a very good place to start to explain the Tombaugh region. The alignment of Pluto and Charon to create a slightly deeper gravity well at this point, would I think, predispose any impact from a de-orbitting moon to be at this position on Pluto.

Here is some food for thought too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31519875

How many other close encounters have there been and when? Gaia results are going to be very interesting in this regard.

Yes this is a good question in several respects. I think of the north pole as the direction where we look down and see counterclockwise rotation. I thought we were seeing this sense in the progression of features in the daily images. Nonetheless we know the axial tilt is defined as about 120 degrees, so this north pole points to the southern part of the sky. I plotted my map to go with the Google Maps release convention by the NH Team. Another way to think of this question is whether the current subsolar latitude is about +51.5 or -51.5 degrees.

I can parenthetically note that the press conferences are dong a good job of "subtly" taking the opportunities to call Pluto a planet. Maybe this will have an influence on the societal lexicon ?

For comparison, here is the color version of my map with all relevant, released global images. I used the global color image released just before the flyby to colorize other parts of the map. Longitude 0 is at the left edge of the map.

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There are some discrepancies in feature positions but I think my map should be fairly accurate where the resolution is highest.

Pluto cartography is a very confusing subject. Emily has a nice summary of it here.

For a really thorough survey of the coordinate issue, see this paper (links to free download of the PDF):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic...019103514005971

That is the full paper Emily was talking about.


Or you can access it and other papers here:


http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Pluto/Publications...cial-Issues.php

Pluto has a remarkably long and complicated cartographic history already.

Phil

Thanks Bjorn for showing the comparison. I think I spotted something set wrong in my map settings, namely the distances of NH from Pluto used when doing the vertical perspective projection. I'll try again with this set better.

Is there any more speculation from the mission team on these varied terrains? My untutored observations:

1. Plains with curved fractures/grooves, but also several long (and short, at higher rez) linear fractures/grooves
2. Looks for all the world as if "1-like" terrain melted and flowed South
7. Appears as if 1-like terrain partly melted and smeared South, carrying dark material in the curved fractures with it (perhaps also between red 2 and red 3)
3. Red 3 looks like a circular feature, with possible concentric rings?
6. If this is representative of other dark equatorial terrain, it looks like highlands (my impression was that the dark features on Pluto's Charon-facing side were lowlands

I made an animation showing the rotation of Charon between 11 and 13 July. Before 11 July, some surface features can be identified but the resolution is too bad for a good animation.

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Here is a revised version of my map. This one uses 4 LORRI images only. It is approximately colorized from this image.

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The navigation is more consistent now between the individual images. Generally the Whale's tail shows up south of where it was in the earlier Google Maps release. The Heart is navigated similarly to Bjorn's map.

EDIT: Coverage south of the Heart was expanded a bit (as of July 19 1935UTC)

I have borrowed BJ's excellent map and added my own highlighted areas. I apologise for the terrible freehand drawing in advance.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124013840@N06...eposted-public/

The green circle is the outline of the proposed impact basin. It is pretty obvious and amazingly circular.

The purple outline shows the area of serious surface deformation and resurfacing from the impact event and it's aftermath.

The red circles show possible impact craters, which could be from secondary ejecta impacts.

The yellow area is the approximate area of Carbon Monoxide already highlighted by the team.

The blue lines outline the areas where other volatiles liquified during the impact have flowed away from the crater. (Roughly the pale blue/cyan coloured parts of the false colour image.)

Further thoughts are on the speculation thread.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=224219

Here I had some fun with adding the 3 frame LORRI mosaic from the press conference to the 4 raw LORRI image map. To show the details better the map size is upped to 4K. Still some rough edges. Thanks Marvin (and Gladstoner) for posting the mosaic.

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Nice one Scalbers.

The pitted areas of the Sputnik plain are on the slopes of the partially buried side of the crater wall it would seem. The polygonal patterns are mostly within the crater boundary, some of the smaller polygons just "spilling" over the crater rim. It suggests the areas of "mounds in dark troughs" follows the line of the crater rim and are related to the thinness of the Carbon Monoxide ice covering it, that is, bits of rim material are showing through.

Interesting analysis Sherbert. Given this correlation between the polygonal terrain and the crater, I wonder if the somewhat Europa-like triple bands could possibly hint at a lake underneath? Maybe we can inspect the flyover video in more detail to assess the distribution of the banded polygonal features.

As for the spilling over you mention, it looks like shallow leftover polygonal features could have flowed more extensively to the south as we see with the detached markings.

I was about to do exactly that, watch the video I mean.

I think "wind" blown erosion and deposition is a significant factor here too. The prevailing atmospheric flow from North to South across the surface of the CO icecap is "moving" CO ice, either directly as tiny crystals, or via sublimation and later deposition, pushing material over the Southern crater rim, to add to the plume like cone. It might explain the covering over of the Southern crater rim only. Others have suggested the polygon's are a feature of wind blown ice landscapes. It certainly suggests a mechanism of erosion to expose the underlying rim material.

As to the possibility of a lake under the ice cap, partially filling the basin, that, although possible, might not be possible to confirm without higher res data, or more images of the rest of the basin. I would reckon nearer the time of the impact a Nitrogen or Methane lake would be almost certainly under the ice.

What do we make of the little bright crater right in the centre of the impact basin? I had not spotted it before seeing it on this map.

Sherbert, I think you'll find that this is just a hot pixel.
It's more obvious on the original LORRI image.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x632_sci_1.jpg

You might be right Astro0, probably why I've not noticed it before.

Summary of LORRI images anticipated downlinked before September of which nothing has been released thus far:

• Charon: 2 frames at 0.38 km/px, part of high-resolution mosaic [downloaded Thursday 16 July]
• Hydra: 1 frame at 1.2 km/px, ~48x28 pixels across disk [downloaded Friday 17 July]
• Pluto: 1 frame at 2.2 km/px, part of a 2x2 mosaic that will show Pluto filling a corner of the image [downloaded Friday 17 July]
• Pluto: 1 crescent frame at 1.8 km/pix, departure shot in which Pluto fills the frame [downloaded Saturday 18 July]
• Pluto: 4 frames at 0.4 km/px, part of the high-resolution mosaic that we've seen 3 frames of already [downloaded Monday 20 July (soon)]

(usual source: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda...ons-pluto.html)


(removed the 3.9 km/px image as the raw image has now been released)

Thanks to Scalbers' upscaling when making his map, I have been able to get a good look at that white dot.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124013840@N06...eposted-public/

It appears to be real, possibly a hollow, which might mean it is a sublimation pit. The bright white colouring suggests though it is fresh material, Carbon Monoxide ice presumably. It is also angled in a similar direction to the dark wind blown deposits mentioned by the team. So I'll go out on a limb and suggest it might be a Carbon Monoxide Cryovolcanic vent, or small geyser. Hey nothing ventured nothing gained, we should get a high res view of it on Friday anyway.

EDIT:- Ignore the above, a judgement made using inferior equipment.

Any idea when these images will be released or shown during a press conference?

Some new SOC jpegs out, up to Tuesday, including Charon:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x632_sci_3.jpg

Funny, then, how it stays at exactly the same pixel location, not the same location on Pluto, between these two frames:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x632_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x632_sci_1.jpg
It was clear even before this latest frame came down that this was a hot pixel - it was not at all PSF-like.

Thanks fredk. That will teach me to make posts from work during my lunch break, using a computer with a 10 year old monitor. I shall edit the post accordingly.

Cross-eye stereo view of Pluto approach images. Not much of a 3d effect. jpeg and flatfield effects, on the other hand...

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The SOC site (as pointed out by FredK) has some new images. One is the frame where the NH team presented a really blocky blowup of Hydra. A few dozen posts ago I try to work with that blocky image, but it was really rough.

Here is a 9X deconvolved image from the SOC (jpg) release.

I don't think Hydra is that severely 'bent'. I think we are only seeing the illuminated side. I think the top of Hydra is in shadow. We shall see when the NH Team releases closer images

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What fun! Thanks.

A new press release tomorrow, apparently. Maybe a new pic or two then.



https://twitter.com/CarlyHowett/status/623197520563273728

Good! I need my Pluto fix!

Me too!

I took the two Pluto LORRI images (the one that's been sitting in there and the one that showed up recently), leveled them, and scaled, rotated, and translated the earlier one to line up with the later one. Animation blinks between them.

Click for animation.
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I lined up the central features rather than the visible disks, to minimize the movement of features. Consequently, the limbs don't align.

_{^{Plot twist: Tombaugh Regio turns out to be a giant cloud. =P}}

2x2 LORRI Pluto released early in stereo images, you can see it on the left. There's an interesting crack-y canyon-y terrain north west of the heart that we will be getting better images of in september.



The boundary between the heart and Cthulu that will be hopefully revealed in Friday's images is looking sharper than ever. What could be causing such a distinct change? Topography?

2015-7-14 Charon @ 0.5M km

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Tried cleaning this image up a bit. It is extremely compressed. Very lossy.

Looking back again at Phil Stooke's edit to the press release, its clear his version is much better than this attempt.

Wow! For those who haven't yet noticed, the resolution of the left image is amazing, and 'new' terrain to the west is revealed.

There are several clear impact craters in this new image, especially to the west. This could help constrain the extent and temporal sequence of resurfacing on Pluto.

Anyone have a link to this new high resolution image from its source?

Source is here. The previous post links to the full res version at that website.

Dr. May called the new high res image "highish res", does that mean we will see even higher resolution views of "Last Look"? I was under the impression that we wouldn't get better quality images showing the whole disk than what we had seen, so I'm already pretty surprised by this image.

-kap

Edit: Upon re-reading it looks like the high res on the left is a stiching of 4 LORRI images in a 2 by 2 with color data added leading to the higher res.

It's evidently observation called P_LORRI_TIMERES_3, 2×2 images with resolution 2.2 km/pix.

There's topography on the eastern limb, alright.


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Thought we were only supposed to have one of these frames down, though?

It's nice, but the 4000x8000 pixel inline image in post #935 is killing my browser. Could we moderate that?

odd?????

my main machine is busy crunching numbers so i am using a 15 YEAR old ( old box)
a 15 year old P4 cpu an a 15 year old Gforce2 card and ONLY a tiny 1 gig of ram

current Seamonkey on SL6.6 32 bit

and i am having NO problems with that 4000 x 8000 image
-- it looks great
even middle clicking to get the up/down & left / right AUTO scroll mouse arrow works fine

Version of the 2x2 mosaic with fisheye distortion removal, to bring out features at the limb:

http://s14.postimg.org/99ow9crtr/Pluto_2x2_LORRI_Fisheye.jpg

For your viewing ease (and pleasure), I cropped the image from post #935 and reduced it to 50%:

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Outstanding work, all!

There's so much happening here it's hard to take it all in. Think it's safe to say that there are enough craters visible now to start determining relative ages between regions with some degree of confidence.

Contrast-adjusted greyscale and high pass filter variants of the new mosiac:

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"Think it's safe to say that there are enough craters visible now to start determining relative ages between regions with some degree of confidence."

Quite possibly! Another thing we can say with confidence - this surface is much more heavily cratered than Triton's, by a wide margin. At the resolution of this new mosaic (taking JPEG mutilation into account), very few craters would be visible on Triton.

Phil