BuzzFeed have gotten their hands on how the NH team plans to name features on both Pluto and Charon: http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkasprak/the-vader-crater

The names give some clues for how the science team is interpreting things: you find things named fossa, vallis, cavus, rupes, dorsa and linea - all on Pluto.

EDIT: The maps on the mission website:

Pluto
Sputnik plain and surroundings
Charon

Cousteau Rupes! It's an escarpment!

Charon has Star Trek and Star Wars names...

It's interesting that the Baré and al-Idrisi Montes have been named, even though those areas are vague in the images released so far. Hopefully, we'll get a peak soon (no pun intended)....

I did a map of Charon that I posted earlier in the thread, i.e. here. There isn't a lot of new Charon images since I posted it but nevertheless I may update it later this week.

I've uploaded a version of the Johns Hopkins/SWRI map labeled with feature names at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/135024395@N07...eposted-public/

Edit: Added Charon based on your map, Bjorn: https://www.flickr.com/photos/135024395@N07...eposted-public/

Interesting how they've set up the various schema. Charon's Chasmata are named after fictional vehicles, craters after characters, ect. I can imagine people developing an interest in planetary cartography thanks to what they're doing here.

They have developed a unique naming strategy. At their public naming campaign website, http://www.ourpluto.org/home, there is the full (and wacky) list of names submitted to the IAU for their perusal.

Initial Proposal to the IAU, July 7, 2015
http://www.ourpluto.org/pluto

The Naming of Names at a site is a long and honorable geological tradition. During the delay in getting out preliminary names for the Rosetta mission I managed to go through the Rocky and Bulwinkle pantheon for my informal names...

--Bill

Every time I look at a nicely rendered image of Sputnik Planum, I really want to call it Sputnik Lacus. That sure looks like a frozen shoreline in the northwest quadrant, with the frozen nitrogen flows.

Andy

Nicely done feature names and such on the maps. I wonder if the eastern part of Serenity Chasma on Charon is more of an escarpment, or if that's just a trick of the lighting and resolution?

Just a little cleanup for my Pluto map:

Click to view attachment

Full resolution is here.

Great work as always!
Any chance of filling the bottom of the map with Hubble / occultation data ?

MOD NOTE: One post (& two responses to same) hidden that was less about cartography than it was about IAU complaints & snark re the NH team. See rules 1.9 and 2.6.

An exhaustive treatment of the proposed names from io9's Mika McKinnon, complete with biographies and illustrations: http://space.io9.com/were-actively-creatin...iver-1721448557

Good idea 4throck. Here is a preliminary version at 2K resolution. Full res is at the website in my signature.

Click to view attachment

EDIT: Fixed longitude (hopefully) of FOC image at 2216UTC

Nice to see that they have named large features after Tombaugh and Lowell.

I hope they can find someplace to fit Vesto Slipher and Carl Lampland.

That's awesome, no more of that blank space! With it one can guess that Balrog Macula and Cthulhu Regio to a lesser extent may extend well into the southern hemisphere. Perhaps like Paul Schenk's map of Triton, any Charonshine images could be used to fill further data into this region to confirm it.

With the use of metadata of LORRI frames I clarify trajectory of New Horizons (error is about 0.000002 on distancies to Pluto at snapshots momens). After that it made possible to simulate all frames with subpixel accuracy. As a bonus Pluto radius was determined: R=240.89 km * u, where 'u' is LORRI pixel size in microradians.
If we assume that the under-Charon avarage point has longitude 0°, then the map of Pluto (for example http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...t&id=37374) is offset by 1.6 ° to the east. So I had to make such correction to map, that the image consistent with LORRI frames.
Nevertheless, clear to see that there are still quite a strong distortion in the map.
Another file, which I posted earlier in http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...8071&st=30:
Click to view attachment
There is a general shift of the East, which I removed, but there are still some parts of the motion relative to each other.
To generate frames I used this map:
Click to view attachment
Map was taken from
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&id=37232
and enlarged to the right (eastern) side and manually filled in the southern region based on the map obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope observations.

Rebuilt pictures with the map
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science..._PS723_HR-g.jpg
and obtained with offset = 0
Click to view attachment
Maybe tomorrow I will do a map based on a backward projecting of the LORRI images ...

Interesting in that I had also noticed a North-South in my map compared with the official one near Tombaugh Regio. If we have the lat/lon subpoints readily available for the images (and if they are accurate) we can perhaps check and refine the maps better.

At first I tried to use the data from
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
2457218.000000000 = A.D. 2015-Jul-14 12:00:00.0000 (CT)
NH:
r[km] 1.197739374505814E+09 -4.443897760753548E+09 -1.747680731829689E+09
v[km/s] 5.534336802447741E+00 -1.252001712778965E+01 -4.846832563458260E+00
Pluto:
1.197726655664916E+09 -4.443893298780707E+09 -1.747673432906277E+09
5.379986303470789E+00 8.159673817708096E-01 -1.389030301906091E+00
Charon:
1.197712275411875E+09 -4.443906278626040E+09 -1.747670469452485E+09
5.388459229072444E+00 8.566266433864180E-01 -1.169827709122328E+00

but I found that the position of NH was displaced approximately 120 seconds, so I used the least squares method (with using distances to Pluto, Charon, Nix and Hydra up to 2,000,000 km) to made a correction of 3D position (about 1,665 kilometers) and velocity vector (about 11.6 m/s) so that the simulated distances become coincide to metadata with an error of about 0.1 km.
r0_NH {1.1977391023383e9, -4.44389934311302e9, -1.74768117382772e9}
v0_NH {5.53196172582933, -12.51701129448342, -4.85774060000822}

For the calculation of rotation of Pluto and Charon, I used data from
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10569-010-9320-4
North pole: alpha0=132°.993, delta0=-6°.163, turn: W=237°.305+56°.3625225d
Click to view attachment
but turn does not coincide with data from http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
so I use turn W=304°.155524+56°.3625225d and changed GM=873.22336378 km^3/s^2 for Pluto (instead 872.4 km^3/s^2).
As a result I got the following location of Charon relative Pluto:
Click to view attachment
So if we take the Charon position as the origin point on Pluto, the ambiguity is not more than 0.1 degrees in latitude and 0.01 degrees in longitude. While for the purposes of mapping accuracy it is sufficient.

The main ambiguity is in position of Pluto center in frames. The given in metadata values are too bad, so I adjust it manually.
Only selfconsistent automatic map generation procedure can give accurate parameters...

Now I generate grids for all available LORRI frames. To better quality size is doubled to 2048x2048. Steps are 1,5,10 and 30 degrees.
For example:
Click to view attachment
You can get grids in folder "Grids" from
ftp://gionov:NG@46.45.15.20/_Data/_LORRI/
The source images placed in "Source", simulated images in "Simulate".

Bah, apparently there will be disagreement over the naming.


An IAU press release from March already says something similar:

IAU should have had at least a provisional, if not formal, series of names already in place before the Pluto encounter. The time of the flyby has been known for ten years and many albedo features on Pluto have been known for longer. The surface of Charon was a general unknown, but give what we know of similar bodies there were to be Regios Chasmas and Craters to be named.

Although IAU did have the "exclusion disclaimer" in their Spring 2015 (!!) naming campaign announcement, this was a "shot across the bow" in response to prior discussions with the NH Team.

Informal names are good. I've got many 67P/C-G features named after the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" pantheon. Let me tell you about Fenwick Boulder on Frostbite Falls Planum...

--Bill

Names are always a sign of the times, and Pluto's naming represents a turn towards pop culture that would have been unthinkable when names were being applied to the front/back sides of the Moon, or Mars, Mercury, or the Galileans.

Decades and centuries hence, the names on Pluto will identify who and when the namers were just as the names on the backside of the Moon are an eternal nod to Mother Russia.

It is Sputnik Planum AFAIC. The IAU can't change THAT.

Don't worry too much about names. Anyone can name anything, anyway they like. The only question is whether other people will use those names.

For instance, near my house in London, Ontario, down by the river, there's a big boulder which we (my family) call Mermaid Rock. Nobody else uses the name. That's fine. I could make a map of Europe with my own idiosyncratic names for all the countries and major cities. Nobody else would use them. National Lampoon once published a world map full of humorous names. Anyone can name anything.

The IAU has an important role in deciding official names, but they have no say over unofficial names. The only question is whether anyone will use the names. So most planetary scientists will stick with official names, but you still see references even in refereed papers to Inca City on Mars, or the Schneckenberg on the Moon. And of course all those names of rocks etc. at the Mars landing sites.

As for Pluto, maybe there will be two maps, with official names and unofficial names. That's OK, we can cope with it. Chances are most people will use official names and a few will use the unofficial names that become most well-known. Like Mount Sharp on Mars, not official but we all know what it means.

Phil

I don't agree that names have the capacity to be official. I wouldn't even accept as valid a statement that a person or group considers their names for extraterrestrial features to be official unless they also claimed to have ownership of the features in question. Otherwise, they either don't understand the meaning of the word "official" and that they mean to say they like those names and feel others should adopt them, or are simply speaking a different (though very similar) language than I speak.
I've noticed, throughout my lifetime, that people like to throw the word "official" around, usually affixing it to something to superficially strengthen an argument or to try to build some precedent for future trust. I don't recall reading about the Prime Minister of Pluto or the Plutonian Senate delegating the task of naming features on Pluto to the IAU so they'd have more time for skiing at Norgay Montes.
I recognize that many people (and other entities) adopt IAU naming for extraterrestrial features, and that's perfectly fine; it can be very helpful to have a go-to source for names that you feel confident many other people with whom you communicate will have similarly adopted. That doesn't make those names official, unless you take a more relaxed meaning of that word, allowing for there to be multiple, different, official names for a thing, provided by multiple, different sources. As far as I am aware, however, the IAU has not claimed ownership of Pluto or any geographical subset of it, nor have they been designated the official namers by anyone who does make such a claim of ownership, so the names they assign are not even considered by them to be official (though they may say that; as I said earlier, they'd simply be misspeaking in that case, actually meaning that they like those names and feel others should adopt them).
As Phil said, people will call things whatever they want, and fortunately, usefully, a lot of people will gravitate toward the same names, making communication about those features simple and convenient. I think where Phil and I probably disagree is on the validity of affixing the word "official" to anyone's provided names.

Edit (added 2015-08-31): Note: I do not mean to sound critical of the IAU. As I said, it is very helpful for people to be able to refer to features on other worlds by names that others will understand, and the IAU is (I believe) the most popular source for such names and assigns them with a consistent style/convention. My above comments are merely me engaging in pedantry with regard to how people misuse the word "official". Personally, I'll be using whatever names I'm used to (currently, those the team has come up with) until a time comes when most people are using different names, at which time, on a name-by-name basis, I'll transition to using whatever those are, irrespective of who came up with them, so that I can be understood.

The topic of naming might be considered as an addition to rule 1.9. [MOD- Noted.]

http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Introduction and http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Rules are the most succinct statements of current IAU policy. And yes, IAU uses the word "official" a lot; e.g., from http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/FAQ

MOD NOTE: Recall that Aeolis Mons--as it is officially named by the IAU--at the MSL landing site is unofficially known as Mt. Sharp. Same principle applies here. Feel free to call Plutonian features anything you'd like, and it's extremely likely that some of the informal names will persist indefinitely...but the IAU names will be official.

Debates and/or complaints about the validity of IAU names will not be permitted. Many planetary science pros are in fact IAU members (see rule 2.6) and rants in general are not allowed under rule 2.4. As mcaplinger previously noted, rule 1.9 covers contentious topics that really have no bearing on science; although IAU naming processes and conventions are not specifically cited in this rule, note that a previous IAU action is. That may be indicative.

Nothing wrong with multiple names as long as we stay consistent. Anyone remember Ultreya Abyss aka El Dorado at Gusev?

"Ultreya" was hardly widespread and was an annoying local quirk. And it was more a rant proposing an oddball theory of the nature of the feature than simply an alternate name.

--Bill

The problem with more than one set of names is that it effects communication negatively - the reader will need more familiarity with the subject in order to know which names refer to the same thing.

(I'll make a biased exception for names like the heart, because they are highly intuitive )

A point of comparison:

The various Mars rovers had mission planning that included the use of unofficial names for, e.g., individual rocks, so that science teams could coordinate effectively. This was absolutely necessary for daily rover operations.

The Pluto observations, on the other hand, were all performed according to a pre-programmed script, so there was little to no operational need for unofficial names. It may be useful to have unofficial names in order to begin scientific work, but I don't think there's much hazard of serious problems at this point. Any papers referring to specific features will probably be published after some of the names have been finalized, so in those cases, the authors can perform an edit before final submission.

I once caught an error in the naming of linear features on Europa, where published papers and the USGS map were in conflict. An unfortunate glitch, but also a pretty small and temporary one. And that was due not to unofficial names, but because the continuity of two intertangled linea was hard to track with the human eye.

Unless it becomes a skirmish in a wider war. (Which won't happen here on UMSF, thanks be to mod)

Mod is great!

Kneel Before Mod!

hehe... but anyway, given the pace that the IAU naming process works at, I don't think we have to worry about conflicting names for some time. So I don't expect to see a lot of conflicts.

Icosahedral projection of Pluto map translated from scalbers map:
Click to view attachment
Icosahedral projection of Charon map translated from Bjorn Jonsson map:
Click to view attachment

Color icosahedral projection of Pluto map from scalbers original map http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/pluto/pluto_rgb_cyl_16k.png
Click to view attachment
Color icosahedral projection of Charon map from Bjorn Jonsson original map http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...t&id=37406
Click to view attachment

What an interesting projections. Could it be printed, cut up and folded into a, uh, penta-whatever sphere?

--Bill

Yes, it is possible to glue the icosahedron. I wanted to do it, but in my printer ended magenta cartridge ...
Cut off blue area after printing
Click to view attachment

Printed
Click to view attachment
and glued icosahedron
Click to view attachment
It does not look as good as thought. Not enough sphericity ...
Icosahedral class I wrote for automatic construction of maps from LORRI images but not for making the globe.

HAHA!

Great seeing someone try it out Gennady.

Seems like this could be a really good approximation for a globe. Translating the map into the strip could prove a bit more difficult.

Great, then I'll piddle away some time with it. I have some printable card stock which should do well.

There was someone here (and maybe still is here) who specialized in producing really nice foldable globes of planetary bodies. More faces than an isocktawhatever (sorry, it's been decades since Mineralogy/Crystallography Classes and I don't feel like counting on my fingers in Latin) and really detailed.

Does anyone recall who that was?

--Bill

Might be me.

I made those foldable maps of several asteroids, and Phobos and Deimos that got a bit of attention a few years ago.

World maps with constant-scale natural boundaries, (samples at www.rightbasicbuilding.com).

As well as maps of spherical bodies that also fold to solids.

Trouble is, if trouble it be, that my maps of spherical bodies fold up to condensations of the sphere rather than nice spheres.

Other projection systems based on platonic solids generate better spheres. Some better than others: the icosahedral is pointy; the daisy-hemispheres is pretty good. The "apple-peel" example above is especially nice! I've not seen it before; someone should take a bow.)

So, anyway, mine come out lumpy or misshapen in an irregular manner that is a function of the natural boundary system selected as the map's border. The advantage is not so much the globe as it is the map itself, which is also irregular (sometimes highly irregular) but precisely so to display global patterns. A map of earth using (subsets of) continental divides is nice for contemplating global geomorphology, and can be rearranged for different perspectives on the subject.

I'm highly intrigued by the new information on Pluto, and begin to strategize a boundary system to experiment with, similar to what my coauthor and I did at last year's lpsc with Miranda, Ganymede, Dione and Enceladus.

Consider a bifurcating centroid-tree through Sputnik and then out the white lobes as a starting system. Not sure how far the apparent evidence could take it, perhaps branching again, from there.


It may be possible to identify points of interest and districts of distinction on an unseen hemisphere based on large-scale organization of an observed hemisphere. At least for bodies with shell-like crusts in existence long enough to have attained gross equilibrium. (This worked especially well on Ganymede, and not too bad on Dione, but of course this was reverse engineering because those surfaces are known in entirety or nearly so.) Miranda was another test, but of course the back side will remain unseen for the foreseeable future.

Pluto might be a nice test body for this conjecture, because some information about the hemisphere unobserved by New Horizons is in those 2011 blurry Hubble images, which some maps above have included.

No promises. I may get distracted by 67-P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Or maybe Bennu.

Also JRehling did one for Titan - see here: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j...jCG0CjAYPLR3png

Something like that would be very nice for Pluto.

My knowledge of cartography is pretty limited so apologies if this isn't useful to many frequenting this thread. I was pretty fascinated when I saw that apple-peeling projection and set out to find anything I could. Seems like interest in such a projection is limited, at least from a flat perspective sense but seems pretty useful in making globes. The relevant function to generate the line is called a 'Rhumb Line' I believe which is essentially a line that crosses the longitudinal coordinates at a constant angle. Here's another page also about rhumb lines. Can't seem to find anyone else that has translated this into a physical model though.

I think to create what was in the video I posted earlier, he probably takes a stereographic polar map and then overlays the function line and then does the opposite for the other hemisphere.

Or there's this, a link from the page from the video, which appears to spit out something you can print given the proper input format, although I haven't tested it:

http://print-sphere.com/

If it were that simple, I can promise that I would have posted that. The person running that site does allow a person to upload an equirectangular projected map and and then submit it for purchase. I don't know if purchases are international or Japan only, didn't look that far into it. The function seems like it could be worked out with some time and MapMath for Gimp however.

Yesterday Greg Smyer-Rumsby of Astronomy Now tweeted this printable project. I can report that a ledger-size printout produces a globe (roughly speaking) about 6" across--a nice size for my office, taking a little over an hour to complete (including changing glues and finding thinner forming sticks as it came together).
https://twitter.com/gregsmyerumsby/status/640137468071804929

Update: the result: Click to view attachment (Dali and Schrödinger duly represented with Tombaugh)

No, they don't provide you the flat image file, they only offer you a cut printout of the final image. I uploaded the Pluto proposed names map, here's their simulated shot showing Tombaugh Regio

Click to view attachment

Their price for a 14cm diameter made-to-order sphere is about $10.50 US. They also offer a 9cm for ~$8 and a 6cm for ~$5.50.

I couldn't determine if they ship outside of Japan, maybe Panda or someone else who reads Japanese can check the website for us? Or ask if we can purchase just the output file?

http://print-sphere.jp/hpgen/HPB/shop/policy.html

Hello folks. I've been a lurker for some time now, but I can't resist plugging myself in this thread.

For some time now, I've been using 3d printing to make little astronomical globes, particularly of the most rarely found as a physical globes objects of the solar system.

So for example, here's my Pluto & Charon to scale!

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

If you'd be interested in this sort of stuff you can find Pluto here:
http://shpws.me/J6Ik

And generally all my stuff here:
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/yo3d

I also make custom models and sets which can be of any size between 10-200m. So if you'd like something specific, or making use of a particular map I can upload a model and give you a private link to it!

How neat-- I like your work. I've been interested in a model of the Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

--Bill




EDIT-- and let me add asteroid Ceres to the interest-list.