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| Nasa unveils 'surprise' Pluto photos and New Horizons discoveries – live | |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| 3.25pm ET20:25 | |
| “This is the first time we’ve seen an icy world that isn’t orbiting an icy planet,” he continues. | |
| “There is no giant body that can be deforming Pluto on an ongoing regular basis to heat the interior,” he says, “so this is telling us you don’t need tidal heating to power” change on icy worlds – “this is a really big discovery that we’ve just made this morning.” | |
| Stern takes over: “we now have an isolated, small planet that’s showing activity after four and a half billion years.” | |
| “We’ve settled the fact that these very small planets can be active for a long time, and I think that’s going to send a lot of geophysicists back to the drawing board.” | |
| 3.22pm ET20:22 | |
| Another researcher says that the team is named the heart-shaped region on Pluto after the discoverer of the planet, Clyde Tombaugh. | |
| “While [the heart] was a good name, we wanted to honor the discoverer,” he says. | |
| They zoom into one part of the yesterday’s photo of Pluto with the first very high resolution image. He says surprisingly that they have not found a single impact crater on this image. | |
| “Probably less than 100 million years old, which is a small fraction” of the age of the solar system, he says. “These mountains we’res seeing are quite spectacular, they might be up to 11,000ft high.” | |
| He says the surface is covered with a lot of nitrogen, ice, methane ice – “you just can’t make mountains out of that stuff, so we’re seeing the bedrock.” | |
| 3.17pm ET20:17 | |
| Cathy Olkin is now describing a new image of Charon, the largest of Pluto’s moons, named for the ferryman of Greek mythology who carried the dead across the river Styx. | |
| She says that the team has been describing the dark region near the pole as Mordor, and that the dark area may be a veneer and the brighter regions craters. “Going from the north-east to the south-west is a series of troughs and cliffs,” she says. “It’s amazing ot see this image.” | |
| “The extend about 600 miles across the planet, so this is a huge area and it could be that it’s due to internal processes.” | |
| She says below that region is a region where “it’s relatively smooth,” suggesting “it’s geologically active or resurfacing” in that area. | |
| Near the top – “at about the two o’clock position” she points out a canyon. “That canyon is really quite deep, it’s about four to six miles deep. I find that fascinating.” | |
| “So it’s a small world with deep canyons, troughs, cliffs, small regions that are still quite mysterious to us.” | |
| “There’s so much interesting science in this one small image alone.” | |
| 3.13pm ET20:13 | |
| Will Grundy from the composition team is now showing photos from some of New Horizons’ instruments. He talks about the different regions – polar caps and the high active region (the red toward the bottom), for instance – and says that there will be quite a lot of information to come. | |
| 3.09pm ET20:09 | |
| Hal Weaver, another investigator, says that “Pluto and Charon are going to steal the day” but that there are the first well resolved images of Hydra – one of Pluto’s moons. | |
| He describes its elongated, “surprisingly large” dimensions and jokes: “Hydra’s not a planet”. It’s primarily composed of water ice, he adds, and some higher resolution images are on their way. | |
| 3.06pm ET20:06 | |
| Stern starts off coy: “Well I had a pretty good day yesterday, how about you?” | |
| The spacecraft is “now more than a million miles on the other side of Pluto,” Stern says. “The spacecraft is in good health it communicated with Earth for a number of hours this morning. | |
| He says the team will report some of the results but “we’re just skimming the top of that.” | |
| Stern adds that there are “mountains in the Kuiper belt,” that “Charon is active” and that the team has gained the first photos of one of Pluto’s moons. | |
| 3.05pm ET20:05 | |
| With the new Pluto photo over the auditorium, Nasa spokesman Dwayne Brown says that the team has brought “what was once a blurred light” into focus. | |
| He turns the mic over to Alan Stern, lead researcher of New Horizons. | |
| 3.02pm ET20:02 | |
| The briefing has just begun at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland – Nasa’s Dr John Grunsfeld, associate administrator, is first up at the podium. | |
| “Anybody get any sleep last night?” he asks – “I’m not going to ask the team,” he adds, saying he knows the answer. | |
| He starts running through photos of Mercury, Venus, Earth… | |
| 2.48pm ET19:48 | 2.48pm ET19:48 |
| Alan Stern, lead scientist on the New Horizons project, has been working on a mission to Pluto for more than two decades – he’s expressed a lot of elation over the past few days as the spacecraft flew by Pluto and then re-established contact with Earth hours later. | Alan Stern, lead scientist on the New Horizons project, has been working on a mission to Pluto for more than two decades – he’s expressed a lot of elation over the past few days as the spacecraft flew by Pluto and then re-established contact with Earth hours later. |
| But posterity (or at least the internet) will not soon forget his reaction to the soon-to-be-released photos, the best ever taken of Pluto. | But posterity (or at least the internet) will not soon forget his reaction to the soon-to-be-released photos, the best ever taken of Pluto. |
| ENHANCE! Amazing @alanstern reaction to #PlutoFlyby pics h/t @b0yle @NASANewHorizons pic.twitter.com/0tlxsLAOfd | ENHANCE! Amazing @alanstern reaction to #PlutoFlyby pics h/t @b0yle @NASANewHorizons pic.twitter.com/0tlxsLAOfd |
| Updated at 2.49pm ET | Updated at 2.49pm ET |
| 2.41pm ET19:41 | 2.41pm ET19:41 |
| The New Horizons spacecraft traveled more than three billion miles to reach Pluto, and is now heading off into a range known as the Kuiper belt – the frontier of our solar system, where all kinds of icy fragments, Pluto-sized dwarf planets and other objects are swirling in their various orbits. | The New Horizons spacecraft traveled more than three billion miles to reach Pluto, and is now heading off into a range known as the Kuiper belt – the frontier of our solar system, where all kinds of icy fragments, Pluto-sized dwarf planets and other objects are swirling in their various orbits. |
| 2.29pm ET19:29 | 2.29pm ET19:29 |
| Welcome to our continuing live coverage of Nasa’s New Horizons mission, which on Tuesday successfully brought mankind closer to Pluto than ever before and will reveal more about the mysterious dwarf planet over the next 16 months. | Welcome to our continuing live coverage of Nasa’s New Horizons mission, which on Tuesday successfully brought mankind closer to Pluto than ever before and will reveal more about the mysterious dwarf planet over the next 16 months. |
| On Wednesday at 3pm ET (8pm in London, 5am in Sydney) the New Horizons team is expected to unveil and describe new high-resolution photographs sent from the spacecraft, the most detailed ever of Pluto. Earlier this week Nasa published the best photos yet of the former ninth planet, revealing a heart-shaped stretch of terrain and icy polar caps. | On Wednesday at 3pm ET (8pm in London, 5am in Sydney) the New Horizons team is expected to unveil and describe new high-resolution photographs sent from the spacecraft, the most detailed ever of Pluto. Earlier this week Nasa published the best photos yet of the former ninth planet, revealing a heart-shaped stretch of terrain and icy polar caps. |
| “It’s going to be a surprise,” Nasa planetary scientist David Grinspoon told the Guardian of the new images to be revealed. “There’s a lot of data coming in, and the real question is what’s going to be released.” | “It’s going to be a surprise,” Nasa planetary scientist David Grinspoon told the Guardian of the new images to be revealed. “There’s a lot of data coming in, and the real question is what’s going to be released.” |
| He added: | He added: |
| Given what we’ve seen, we know something of the areas we’re going to be imaging. There are large areas of this very bright, seemingly smoother terrain that makes this feature that they’re calling the heart. | Given what we’ve seen, we know something of the areas we’re going to be imaging. There are large areas of this very bright, seemingly smoother terrain that makes this feature that they’re calling the heart. |
| Then to the west of that the contact abruptly seems to change to this darker material, so it’ll be very interesting to look at the contact between those different kinds of terrain and see if we can infer from that the geological history. | Then to the west of that the contact abruptly seems to change to this darker material, so it’ll be very interesting to look at the contact between those different kinds of terrain and see if we can infer from that the geological history. |
| From the photos Grinspoon said he hoped that the team would be able to begin learning about what Pluto’s surface is like and how it formed: whether we can spot dunes or snow drifts, craters or erosion, signs of age. | From the photos Grinspoon said he hoped that the team would be able to begin learning about what Pluto’s surface is like and how it formed: whether we can spot dunes or snow drifts, craters or erosion, signs of age. |
| We’ll be updating the blog with the news from Nasa, analysis from its scientists, and all things Plutonian and plutoid. | We’ll be updating the blog with the news from Nasa, analysis from its scientists, and all things Plutonian and plutoid. |
| Updated at 2.46pm ET | Updated at 2.46pm ET |