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New Horizons reveals new Pluto mysteries
NASA has released more findings from the New Horizons Pluto probe; revealing new discoveries and mysteries about the dwarf planet and its moons. The images and instrument readings taken before and during the unmanned spacecraft's flyby on July 14 show a planet that is more active than previously expected, with some of the youngest features in the Solar System.
The centerpiece of the new findings is an image taken on July 14 at a distance of 48,000 mi (77,000 km) using New Horizon's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) that shows a plain of carbon monoxide ice that already has scientists scratching their heads. Known informally as the Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), the craterless plain is located in the equally informal Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region); the vast heart-shaped feature north of the Plutonian ice mountains that's named after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.
The plain resembles mud flats on Earth and consists of irregularly-shaped segments about 12 mi (20 km) across that are bordered by narrow troughs; some of which have darker material inside them. There are also groups of mounds and fields of small pits that may have been formed by sublimation.
Carbon monoxide ice region on Pluto
According to NASA, this region is only a 100 million years old, as is indicated by the lack of impact craters, and may have formed according to one of two working hypotheses. One is that the segments may have been produced by the icy surface contracting and cracking, as when a mud puddle dries in the sun. The other is that the plain is subject to convection with relatively warm, though still frozen, carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrogen circulating to the surface – indicating that there is enough heat inside Pluto to support such a mechanism.
Pluto's atmosphere
During the flyby, New Horizons took a close look at the extremely tenuous Plutonian atmosphere; taking remote measurements of altitudes up to 1,000 mi (1,600 km) above the surface. The nitrogen-rich atmosphere turns out to extend far into space and the probe detected cold, dense ionized gas tens of thousands of miles from the planet. Scientists are particularly interested in Pluto because the way that the solar winds are stripping away the atmosphere is similar to how it's believed the early atmosphere of Earth was thinned out after it was formed.
Another image that NASA released was a higher resolution composite of Pluto and its largest moon Charon that was made of images taken on July 13 and 14. The bodies were tweaked so that the color, relative reflectivity, size, separation, and orientations are realistic.
Charon
An image taken by LORRI at 6:30 am EDT on July 14 shows an area of the moon Charon about 240 mi (390 km) long showing a depression with a peak in the middle.
"The most intriguing feature is a large mountain sitting in a moat," says Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons’ Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team. "This is a feature that has geologists stunned and stumped."
Smaller moons also got a look in as NASA released a LORRI picture of the moon Nix taken on July 13 from a distance of 360,000 mi (590,000 km). It shows an end-on view of the elongated satellite about 25 mi (40 km) in diameter.
NASA says that the images that have been sent back so far have undergone data compression, so many features have a blocky appearance. When higher-resolution and stereo images now in New Horizons' memory are returned, scientists should have a better understanding of Pluto's mysteries.
New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V-551 rocket. It's the fastest spacecraft ever launched, reaching the distance of lunar orbit in only nine hours.
After a February 2007 gravity assist from the planet Jupiter, it reached a speed of 83,600 km/h (52,000 mph) relative to the Sun. On July 14 this year, following a nine and a half year voyage through deep space, it passed Pluto at a distance of 7,750 mi (12,500 km) and a speed of 14 km/sec (31,000 mph), making it the final classical planet to be visited by a spacecraft.
"With the flyby in the rearview mirror, a decade-long journey to Pluto is over – but the science payoff is only beginning,” says Jim Green, NASA Director of Planetary Science. "Data from New Horizons will continue to fuel discovery for years to come.”
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/new-horizons-new-findings-mysteries/38501/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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