Maybe Pluto is just an Alien Billboard

[deluxestogie]

How weird is this? Maybe it's just me, but I see huge, dark glyphs on this view of Pluto from today.

This is from about 1.5 million miles away from Pluto. These particular features will have rotated out of view during the close fly-by in 3 days. Maybe it says something else on the other side of the planet.

Bob

EDIT: Each "symbol" is about 300 miles across.

 

[Knucklehead]

I'm glad you still call it a planet. I was beginning to feel like the Lone Ranger.

What is taking the photo? Satellite? Hubble?

 

[deluxestogie]

The photo is from New Horizons, which will zoom past Pluto in 3 days, then continue on into the Kuiper Belt. (It's going way too fast to go into orbit around tiny Pluto.) It launched in January of 2006. It's so far away from Earth that a signal, at light speed, takes 8 hours to make a round trip. And the transmission bit rate is so limited that it will require about 16 months to transmit all the data that it gathers during the few days of the fly-by. Truly amazing.

If I were an alien wishing to leave a message for Earth, I would post it on Pluto--in great big glyphs.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/index.php

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

NOVA had a one hour show about a month ago of Hubble history and photographs. I'm looking for a book of Hubble photographs for a coffee table book. The photos are absolutely beautiful.

 

[deluxestogie]

NOVA had a one hour show about a month ago of Hubble history and photographs. I'm looking for a book of Hubble photographs for a coffee table book. The photos are absolutely beautiful.

Hubble has taken over a million photos. That would require a purpose-built coffee table.

http://www.amazon.com/Expanding-Universe-Photographs-Hubble-Telescope/dp/3836549220/

Bob