back to article Hubble peers closely at Pluto

NASA has released "the most detailed and dramatic images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto", captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, which reveal an "icy, mottled, dark molasses-colored world": Hubble views of Pluto. Pic: NASA NASA explains that Pluto's overall hue is "believed to be a result of ultraviolet …

COMMENTS

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  1. hplasm
    Heart

    Pluto is-

    The best of the planets!

    And a much better dog than Goofy- who is certainly not a planet, nor a dwarf.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Which reminds me

      Judge: I'm sorry Mr. Mouse, but you can't divorce Minnie Mouse just because of her buck teeth.

      Mickey Mouse: I didn't say she had buck teeth. I said she's f***ing Goofy!

  2. Jimboom
    Pint

    Thats all very well and good

    But who cares about pictures of some dwarf planet.. the masses want detailed pictures of Uranus!

    I'll get me coat.

  3. EXAFLOPS'R'US
    FAIL

    Handful of pixel, dithering, etc

    Yeah, I guess that's why it looks like a 4x4 grid of brown and orange squares blurred and wrapped around a ball. FFS, you can't get interpret information from the equivalent of less than a 9 pin dot matrix printer output. This is more what you'd call 'ART'.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Is it just me or...

    Do these images look completely CRAP considering the supposed power of Hubble and length of time it has taken to create them..?

    How is it that a telescope that can give us incredibly detailed images of objects that are thousands of light years away can only produce pictures 'a few pixels wide' of a body within our own solar system?! And take 20 computers 4 years to generate these blurred blotches!!!!!

    1. Annihilator
      Boffin

      I thought that

      But then I also thought, it's like seeing a building from a mile away. I can see Canary Wharf quite clearly from Tower Bridge. But I would probably struggle to see the detail of an ant on the pavement.

      The majestic pictures that Hubble shows, and that you're used to, are pictures of objects that are hundreds of light years across.

    2. mwk

      It's tiny, it's far away

      and it's also cold. It's emitting fuck all radiation for Hubble to work with, so almost everything it has to go on is reflected. Again, it's tiny, and far away, so there's really not a lot of that.

      You can only work with the radiation that's available.

      1. asdf
        Flame

        pluto not worth the effort

        Why spend much time and effort looking at an object 1/5 th the size of the moon that seems to have few interesting properties. Sure good to know everything out there but NASA resources are very limited.

  5. deshepherd
    Stop

    Planetary Objects

    Under the IAU ruling Pluto is now a "dwarf planet" so is still a planetary object.

  6. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    Coat

    Can I be the first to say...

    welcome to our new dwarf, mottled, dark molasses-colored methane producing overloards (well it is a dwarf planet )

    NASA explains: "Pluto has become significantly redder"; due to the support of readneck residents of Illinois.

    NASA elaborates: "The Hubble images are a few pixels wide. But through a technique called dithering"

    NASA have been dithering for years, but it serves them right they should have used the web safe pallete to avoid dithering effects....

    I just get my coat......

  7. Annihilator
    Coat

    Dithering

    It's weird, but when I was little my mum used to tell me to stop dithering. Now it seems NASA encourages it!

    How times change...

  8. ravenviz Silver badge
    Coat

    Dithering

    I thought this view had better resolution:

    http://tinyurl.com/yd9feky

    Mine's the one with the interference pattern

  9. Eugene Goodrich
    Paris Hilton

    Probably is a favorite

    ["arguably one of the public's favorite planetary objects". We'd argue that this is only true for some residents of Illinois, ]

    I think Pluto's probably in the top-ten for most people in terms of local planetary objects.

  10. Number6

    Turning Red

    The reason it's turning red is because it recently heard the news that it's been downgraded from planet status and is getting angry about it.

  11. DJ
    Alien

    OMG! Our climate changing ways are affecting Pluto!

    Does this mean George Jetson will have to trade in his jet for a bicycle?

    Will Rosie have to rub sticks together to cook the family dinner?

    Oh, the humanity!!!

  12. David 45

    Designation?

    Thought Pluto had been down-graded from planet status?

  13. Stevie

    Bah!

    Next up: So-called "scientists" re-name molasses on account of you can't have any in gaseous form on a -p-l-a-n-e-t- dwarf planet like Pluto is (since about two years ago) while everyone else wonders why we don't just go and have a look for ourselves close-up.

    Oh wait, that's right. We spend so much time faffing about renaming stuff we don't have time to do any real science. Like actually getting out to some of the things whizzing around the sky.

  14. Bad Beaver

    four years for that?

    We'll see how much redder it got when the probe arrives in five years. I'm dithering at the mere thought!

  15. Laurel Kornfeld

    Many Reject Controversial IAU Demotion

    It's not just Ilinois that does not accept the controversial IAU demotion of Pluto. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Stern and like-minded scientists favor a broader planet definition that includes any non-self-luminous spheroidal body in orbit around a star. The spherical part is important because objects become spherical when they attain a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning they are large enough for their own gravity to pull them into a round shape. This is a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects. Pluto meets this criterion and is therefore a planet. At the very least, you should note that there is an ongoing debate rather than portraying one side as fact when it is only one interpretation of fact.

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