New Horizons Update: Methane Detected; New Images of Pluto and Charon | Hacker News Reader

New Horizons Update: Methane Detected; New Images of Pluto and Charon

nasa.gov

43 pointsarmab4 comments

Today I learn that Pluto and Charon are tidally locked to each other.

    > Charon always presents the same face to Pluto, and
    > Pluto always presents the same face to Charon: from 
    > any position on either body, the other is always at 
    > the same position in the sky, or always obscured

http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/8427/are-there-...

Just to be clear: this is not a new discovery. The mutual tidal locking has been known experimentally for quite a while, and can be predicted with high confidence based on their sizes and distance.

A couple of other updates from yesterday:

"NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Stays the Course to Pluto"

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20...

"New Horizons Color Images Reveal Two Distinct Faces of Pluto, Series of Spots that Fascinate"

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20...

Wow! The imagery is very quickly getting better now.

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