New Horizons Mission to Pluto
Discussion
Going for catchup TV to watch it later. And we have a red moon. Edit. Silly me, enhanced colour, read the information.
New one out. One or two impact craters. The one just off centre south west looks like it has part of the process on the planet starting to deal with it.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-views-comp...
Better link
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.p...
Notation and credits from web site.
A newly discovered mountain range lies near the southwestern margin of Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), situated between bright, icy plains and dark, heavily-cratered terrain. This image was acquired by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) and received on Earth on July 20. Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
New one out. One or two impact craters. The one just off centre south west looks like it has part of the process on the planet starting to deal with it.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-views-comp...
Better link
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.p...
Notation and credits from web site.
A newly discovered mountain range lies near the southwestern margin of Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), situated between bright, icy plains and dark, heavily-cratered terrain. This image was acquired by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) and received on Earth on July 20. Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
Edited by jmorgan on Wednesday 22 July 07:14
Hasn't there been some postulation that a recent collision gave rise to Charon?
Perhaps the energy dissipated by an impact was enough to melt the ice a long way down, hence the convection current appearance of the plains.
Perhaps Charon itself collided with Pluto in a heavy but glancing blow prior to being captured. It certainly has some interesting scars of its own.
Perhaps the energy dissipated by an impact was enough to melt the ice a long way down, hence the convection current appearance of the plains.
Perhaps Charon itself collided with Pluto in a heavy but glancing blow prior to being captured. It certainly has some interesting scars of its own.
Eric Mc said:
Very. The assumption has to be that the dark surface is older and was overlaid by some process which results in the white surface.
Did they announce whether or not Pluto had the postulated atmosphere and whether it was frozen or gaseous- prior to this visit it was assumed Pluto's tenuous atmosphere went through that cycle?Perhaps the dark surface is actual Pluto and the white layer is (part of) its frozen atmosphere, certainly looks a bit like a giant ice field...
ash73 said:
Depends how much energy is required for what we are seeing. Is it plate tectonics, or is it methane sublimating and freezing in a cycle to hide surface features? Could Pluto's 100+ degree axis tilt, combined with an eccentric orbit, create enough variation in temperature to do this? A quick Google suggests it's too cold.
It will be interesting to see what temperature data New Horizons recorded.
Hmm, one of the articles I read recently indicated that the 10C temp shift (-223C to -233C) between hottest and coldest would allow the sublimation process to happen. It will be interesting to see what temperature data New Horizons recorded.
Searching indicates the freezing point of Methane (@ 1 atmosphere) is -182C so that would indicate you're right unless some other process beings the energy to the equation.
Twitter has the image he was referring to with a name Bill McKinnon
https://twitter.com/NASANewHorizons/with_replies
https://twitter.com/NASANewHorizons/with_replies
Edited by jmorgan on Friday 24th July 19:51
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