Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Pluto at Night

NASA ^ | Thursday, June 09, 2016 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. The spacebased view with the Sun behind the distant world was captured by New Horizons last July. The spacecraft was at a range of over 21,000 kilometers, about 19 minutes after its closest approach. A denizen of the Kuiper Belt in dramatic silhouette, the image also reveals Pluto's tenuous, surprisingly complex layers of hazy atmosphere. The crescent twilight landscape near the top of the frame includes southern areas of nitrogen ice plains informally known as Sputnik Planum and rugged mountains of water-ice in the Norgay Montes.

[SunkenCiv]

[Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Institute]

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

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[Flick Lives]

Looks chilly.

[Verginius Rufus]

What's with the kilometers? Pluto was discovered by an American. It should be 12,600 miles.

[SunkenCiv]

Same goes for the Soviet-era names of surface features — pure BS!

[Rinnwald]

Wider view of previous detail

[webheart]

Uranus!

[FredZarguna]

What's with the kilometers? Pluto was discovered by an American. It should be 12,600 miles.

So ... Americans should use a system formalized by an imperial power we cast off in 1776, rather than an international system we use in physics, chemistry, biology, electrical engineering (and many others) first introduced by our first ally in 1799?

Kinda reminds me of those feminists who "fight the patriarchy" by hyphenating their husband's names with their father's...

[Organic Panic]

[TheOldLady]

That image is simple, but elegant. It’s actually quite spellbinding.
It’s hard to tear one’s eyes away, at the APOD site and the picture
of The Big One.

Thank you for the post and ping, Mr. Civilizations. It is quite the
stark beauty of our Solar system.

[r_barton]

You can’t fool me. That’s just a picture of the night side of earth’s moon taken through a dusty lens. ;-).

[FredZarguna]

Bah! Nuthin' compared to my car:

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't know why the English-language version of the Wikipedia article implies that the metric system dates to 1799. The German-language and Spanish-language versions both say 1793.

France was not our ally in 1799--that was during the period of the so-called Quasi-War or Undeclared Naval War with France. The French government in 1793 wasn't exactly friendly either--they had chopped the head off of King Louis XVI, our ally in the Revolutionary War. Washington had proclaimed US neutrality in the war France was fighting in Europe.

The metric system is based on earth measurements--a kilometer was originally one ten-thousandth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. That is meaningless in cosmic terms.

In any case, my original comment was tongue-in-cheek.

[FredZarguna]

Since we're being pedantic, I didn't write that France was our ally in 1799, I said the system was first proposed then, and it was largely pushed by our first ally, even if they weren't our allies at that moment. The British were certainly not out friends.

The metric system is based on earth measurements--a kilometer was originally one ten-thousandth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. That is meaningless in cosmic terms.

Because the distance walked by some Roman in a thousand paces is so much more "cosmic."

In any case, my original comment was tongue-in-cheek.

Mine was intended lightly also, but the fact remains that the US adopted a metric system of money during the 18th century, and should long ago have ditched the idiotic system of English distances and weights.