Thursday, February 04, 2021

Impressive Pluto

Image: Academia.edu

I was wondering how a friend that also studied theology and philosophy of religion, from Manchester (1999-2001) was doing. I could only chat with him if I joined academia.edu, so I did and caught up with him. But interesting claims  are being made by the site with my free account.

Independent of any of my actions, one of my quoted PhD thesis scholars confirmed that I had mentioned him in my PhD thesis, posted on that website. As a side issue, I have noted that many if not the majority of my website pageviews may be missed by pageview tracking sites. I am not really very aware of the amount of readers I actually have in reality. As far I know, I am the only Russell Norman Murray. 

I have no firm opinion concerning the accuracy of these claims, whatsoever, and do not have a paid membership to academia.edu.

My PhD was just posted in full on Dr. Russell Norman Murray;  in 2020, but edited versions have existed for years as well as my full MPhil thesis and related articles. It is good to see that to some extent at least, my website work is serving as academic work for peer review.

Photos: Nasa-New Horizons Probe, Pluto Facebook, January 14 2021 

NASA: Oct 8, 2015-New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto 

Cited 

A curious aspect of the detection is that the areas showing the most obvious water ice spectral signatures correspond to areas that are bright red in recently released color images. “I’m surprised that this water ice is so red,” says Silvia Protopapa, a science team member from the University of Maryland, College Park. “We don’t yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto's surface.”

Technically old news, but new and interesting news to me. Thank you to Arne for posting.