At Plutonian Shores by BLPH

"You have reached the very far edges of our solar system. No human has ever been further away from Earth! A truly remarkable moment for mankind, coming to think that more than a decade went into this endeavor. The same way we reached Earth's companion almost a century ago, we are now ready to repeat the process for the Transneptunian objects.
A pity that your two comrades did not make it. You are now the only one to see the far outskirts of the cradle of any lifeform as we know it.
It is sad that life's extent will soon shrink to Earth again. During the Jovian incident, you lost too much fuel to make it back now. We warned you but you wanted to reach Pluto at all costs. An irony that the planet named after the God of death will be your final destination.
Rest in peace. Over."

The base-render to this piece is actually fairly old: it dates back to 1 Jan, 2011. Just recently, I rediscovered it on my hard drive and decided to touch it up (read: overpaint). Hope you like it!

Hit download to get a wallpaper-pack of this image. It comes in three sizes:

4:3 — 1600x1200

16:9 — 1920x1080

16:10 — 1920x1200
Smaller monitor? No problem, just pick the right ratio. It should fit without any problems

Enjoy

_{Facts, tasty facts:
* Original working size: 6000x3750 (Print size)
* Terrain rendered with Vue, post-work in Photoshop}

rhunel Featured By Owner Mar 17, 2016 General Artist

Awesome!

BLPH Featured By Owner Mar 18, 2016 Digital Artist

Thank you!

morbiusx33 Featured By Owner Jan 3, 2014 Hobbyist Photographer

My only technical problem with the artwork is that I believe the Sun would appear much smaller and less intense as you pictured it.

BLPH Featured By Owner Feb 16, 2014 Digital Artist

You are right, I probably went a little overboard with the size of it. However, I just did the math, the Sun on Pluto is still around 250 times brighter than a full moon on Earth. That'd mean that the other stars would probably just hardly be that visible

morbiusx33 Featured By Owner Feb 16, 2014 Hobbyist Photographer

Mmm, where did you get that info?

BLPH Featured By Owner Feb 16, 2014 Digital Artist

Well, I can't remember which values I took in the beginning, so I'm just doing it again. Might turn out with slightly different numbers

Sources cite the the solar power as something around P ~ 4*10²⁶ W. The intensity at any distance is proportional to the power over the surface of a sphere: I(r) = P/(4*pi*r²). Plugging in Earth's distance to the sun, assuming it is a point light source (which we can certainly do at those distances), yields something around 1500 W/m². Doing the same for Pluto (neglecting its elliptical orbit and just taking the mean) results in an intensity of 0.85 W/m².

For the intensity of the moonlight, I couldn't find any reliable sources in terms of actual intensity. Wikipedia just gives the values in lux, which would be (0.2 - 1) lux. However, they mention the moon being "about 500,000 times fainter than the Sun" which is something we can work with. So the intensity of the moonlight is roughly 1500 W/m² / 5*10⁵ = 0.003 W/m².

The scaling factor f between the intensity at Pluto's surface I_P and the moonlight intensity I_M is simply the quotient between these two:
f = I_P / I_M ~ (0.85 W/m²) / (0.003 W/m²) ~ 280.

Turns out that you could probably read a book on Pluto's surface

morbiusx33 Featured By Owner Feb 16, 2014 Hobbyist Photographer

Hey, good research on your part! Many textbooks got it wrong.

But that would not be enough to make solar power devices practical?

NASA's New Horizons' July 2015 flyby will hopefully gain us many more Plutonian details. I have some thoughts about the mottled orange surface detected by the HST but it's a complete unknown until all the remote sensing data is returned to Earth.

BLPH Featured By Owner Feb 17, 2014 Digital Artist

I'm no expert in solar powered devices but solar cells aren't that efficient. Recently, I read about the record being less than 50%. Common efficiencies are well below that (by a factor of 2).

Then again, I don't know the power-consumption of such spacecrafts, so I can't guesstimate the usability of this power source. Coming to think of how weak fully solar-powered cars perform in comparison to such with batteries or even gas, I can just imagine that probes for deep-space-explorations are probably relying on a mix of energy-gathering close to the sun, a hibernation-phase for most of the time, and a nuclear power source or an ion thruster. Sorry, I can't really provide any numbers for that.

In my childhood, I had a book which contained a picture of Pluto consisting of maybe 10 gray pixels. Since that time, I have wondered how it actually looks like. Hubble's photos are certainly a good step into that direction but I'm really expecting a whole lot of the New Horizons-mission!

morbiusx33 Featured By Owner Feb 18, 2014 Hobbyist Photographer

I have a sneaky suspicion that the "orange" stuff on Pluto means hydrocarbons a la Titan. We'll see next summer if all goes well...

morbiusx33 Featured By Owner Jan 3, 2014 Hobbyist Photographer

Considering the slow creep of humans out into space, let alone a return to the Moon (which is nearby and not too difficult to reach), if we ever choose to visit distant planets such as Pluto in person, it will likely occur 1,000 years or more from today.

Space exploration will progress in fits and starts, fits and starts, without much infrastructure in place to sustain much of anything.

Who will travel to space? Nations are too obsessed with costly social programs, while corporations are logically uninterested without a return on investment. China's lunar rover is a stunt and not like to be sustained (besides, China faces serious social and environmental upheavals in the coming decades).

Alas, space travel will remain nothing more than a novelty for decades to come; the much anticipated 'space tourism era' will be nothing more than the wealthy class's plaything (much like their need for global travel is today--it earns them bragging rights, while feeding the feeling of personal accomplishment, fashionability, trendy globalism, as well as a need for class superiority). However, space-science research will continue using ever more sophisticated robots, and no doubt rendering the use of humans in this harsh environment superfluous (this outcome is already clearly evident).

Consider the predictions of humans moving onto the sea floors or the dreams of private aviation with personal gyrocopters, flying cars, etc. Aside from the high-skill level and training required in these pursuits, the expense of personal air transportation continues to rise (pardon the pun), and the requisite attentiveness skills of drivers is on the decline.

I am not the least bit optimistic about man in space beyond what we're already do close to home. For without substantial funds and compelling reasons to explore, I am afraid mankind's dreams of sustained spaceflight beyond Earth orbit will remain mired in the realm of science fiction for many centuries to come.

BLPH Featured By Owner Feb 16, 2014 Digital Artist

I agree with you! I think that no manned flight further than Mars will happen within this century (and even that is a really optimistic thought). Considering the vast distances of space, the ratio between cost and advantage will just skyrocket (in any way this can be interpreted).

Landing on other planets is nowadays more a mission for robots anyway. I just calculated the travel-time between Earth and Pluto to be at least 14 years. Not only would it be pretty much physically impossible to carry that many resources up in space to nourish a living being for that long (not to mention the same time for getting back), but the psychological part would play another major role in there. Living with a few others for that long in a small spacecraft definitely cannot be healthy.

Also, it becomes debateable if there is really any worth in sending humans around the solar system. If there are no monetary gains, pretty much nobody would be interested in participating financially. Considering how most planets are just some clumps of (at least what we think as) dead rock floating around in space, this interest will be fairly low.

Nevertheless, the source of the unknown is what fuels our imagination. And Sci-Fi-novels make use of exactly that. The less we know, the more we can fantasize. Even though reality might never give us anything that great, there is still a place for dreaming. And as long as we can do that, there will be hope

Scorpidilion Featured By Owner Jun 10, 2013 Professional Photographer

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 10, 2013 Digital Artist

Alkraas Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Student Digital Artist

Looks truly amazing!
Awesome work!

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 5, 2013 Digital Artist

Thank you so much!

MasterMitosi Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

So beautiful... The God of the Dead's (the true God of Death is Thanatos, while Pluto is God of the Dead) probably pissed that his planet is no longer a true planet.

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Digital Artist

Oh, good point! Thanks for the correction!

Also, not only he is pissed off but I am as well

BRING BACK THE PLANETARY STATUS

MasterMitosi Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

And the world went to Hell ever since. NICE JOB, SCIENTISTS!

Perturabo93 Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013

One of the places I'd like to be in my life, perfectly interpretated

Also, the lore is great too!

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Digital Artist

Thank you!

Although, I wouldn't particularly spend the rest of my life there

Perturabo93 Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013

Hehe I doubt I would... but perhaps on other places, with a good habitat and people ^^

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Digital Artist

Haha, good point! Guess that'd solve the problem pretty easily

XIGRAHAMIX Featured By Owner Jun 3, 2013 Student Digital Artist

I really like the bit of lore in the description. I feel it makes much better than it would be by itself.

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Digital Artist

I'm glad that you think so

Bicnarok Featured By Owner Jun 3, 2013 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Excellent job. Really makes me feel sorry for the astronaut, must feel so lonely and small here and not really an ideal final destination,

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 4, 2013 Digital Artist

I fully agree! Thank you

ouzo216 Featured By Owner Jun 5, 2013

But if he wanted to reach Pluto at any cost, then perhaps this is his "ideal final destination"? Besides, it's good to feel small sometimes, makes us remember what it means to be human- that's why I and many others like to stand at the edge of the ocean or a mountain range or gorge.

BLPH Featured By Owner Jun 6, 2013 Digital Artist

...or staring at the stars late at night. At least I find that incredibly calming. A tiny speck looking at other tiny specks veiled in the black velvet of the universe