Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

"Several mysterious dark spots on the surface of Pluto have caught the attention of NASA researchers as the New Horizons probe makes its final approach to the dwarf planet.

"It's a real puzzle -- we don't know what the spots are, and we can't wait to find out," Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons, said in a statement."===http://news.yahoo.com/horizons-sends-bac...ories.html

He's got the mange. Disney has become a poor caretaker of its most elderly residents.

Last known photo of Pluto...circa 1975...

Pluto is still unhappy that it got demoted from being a planet. It saw all the interest that fellow minor-planet Ceres generated with its small white spots, so Pluto is going with big dark spots.

They might resolve into more conventional features when seen in higher resolution images. My guess is that they are large craters or lunar-like 'seas'.

Unfortunately, we may never know. Reports this morning (Sunday July 5) say that the spacecraft has suffered an "anomaly" and controllers have lost communication with it. They are busily trying to restore contact.

Subsequent edit:

Here's more information on the New Horizons spacecraft "anomaly".

Apparently the main on-board computer is what suffered the 'anomaly', the autopilot program caught it, and switched over to the spacecraft's backup computer. The vehicle was put into 'safe mode' and the autopilot directed it to restore contact with Earth (4 1/2 light-hours away).

So controllers are back in communication with the vehicle, which is supplying them with telemetry as to what the main computer fault is. They say that they won't be able to do science until this is sorted out.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lak...-mode.html

Apparently telemetry indicates no hardware problems with the New Horizons spacecraft main computer.

The 4th of July 'anomaly' seems to have been caused by a 'timing' problem in a software routine that was preparing the vehicle for its Pluto flyby.

(A faulty "app" caused the spacecraft computer to freeze up.)

NASA is saying that the vehicle should be fully functional by tomorrow (July 7).

Here's the spacecraft's latest photo of the Plutonian spots and more details on the 'anomaly' that crashed the spacecraft's computer. (According to some other reports in the news it was trying to do too many things at once and the combined tasks exceeded the capacity of the computer's RAM.)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...ction.html

Quote:According to some other reports in the news it was trying to do too many things at once and the combined tasks exceeded the capacity of the computer's RAM.)

I have the same problem sometimes..Have you ever looked for your carkeys while holding them in your left hand?