New Horizons

[Shpaget]

Thanks Aqua.

Now I wish we had an orbiter around Pluto. I know, I know, they give us a finger and we want the whole arm, but it would be amazing to see how the relief changes with the obit, as Pluto gets closer and further away from the Sun (I'd wait 100 years).

[Frida Space]

Beautiful 3D flyover of the Pluto close up image.

[spudman2]

I'll just leave this here.

[Frida Space]

To ease discussions on Plutonian geology and surface features, I made this map with the official unofficial names used by the New Horizons team. Still working on a Charon one.

[Kryten]

Here's the above image, with fixed URL;

[spudman2]

still broken, kryten.

EDIT: I fixed it?

EDIT 2: whyyyy

EDIT 3: Just follow this link, everyone:

Here~!

Edited July 16, 2015 by spudman2

[Frida Space]

Thanks!

New image of Charon, can't find the source yet other than a tweet

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Apparently NASA removed the Charon pic I just posted here. Well, too late NASA, the KSP Labs have it!

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Here it is, finally

www.nasa.gov/image-feature/new-horizons-close-up-of-charon-s-mountain-in-a-moat

Edited July 16, 2015 by Frida Space

[regex]

http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/comparisons/20150714_the-not-planets-widescreen-version-2.png

I'll just leave this here.

This is rad.

[LordFerret]

Thanks!

New image of Charon, can't find the source yet other than a tweet

https://scontent-mxp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t31.0-8/11221616_1593630307568082_6948228201870769799_o.jpg

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Apparently NASA removed the Charon pic I just posted here. Well, too late NASA, the KSP Labs have it!

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Here it is, finally

www.nasa.gov/image-feature/new-horizons-close-up-of-charon-s-mountain-in-a-moat

That's an interesting feature. Too bad we can't shed a little more light on it. Do you think they got a better shot of it better illuminated?

[Kerbart]

Apparently NASA removed the Charon pic I just posted here. Well, too late NASA, the KSP Labs have it!

Conspiracy theorists will claim there was an alien spacebase visible that our illuminati overlords demanded to be shopped out, lest we'd find out about who put them in power.

[regex]

Conspiracy theorists will claim there was an alien spacebase visible that our illuminati overlords demanded to be shopped out, lest we'd find out about who put them in power.

Don't go there, I'm already fighting a fire on Facebook over the Ceres spots...

[Frida Space]

That's an interesting feature. Too bad we can't shed a little more light on it. Do you think they got a better shot of it better illuminated?

I'm not really sure, although looking at the observation tables and comparing them with the NASA Eyes simulation, it looked like LORRI took some images of that same region on Charon at around 8:40 and 9:20 UT with a resolution of 870 and 710 meters/pixel. The image just posted by NASA should have a resolution of around 430 meters/pixel. However, from what I understood, both of the two other Charon images (8:40 and 9:20) will be received only starting from September.

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Also, NASA just confirmed: new images tomorrow @ 1 pm EDT (1700 UT)

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What the crap is going on? NASA has released two images showing the same inset (flipped) in two different locations on Charon's surface. Good PR right there

First image:

Second:

Edited July 16, 2015 by Frida Space

[LordFerret]

Don't go there, I'm already fighting a fire on Facebook over the Ceres spots...

That's your own fault - for being on Facebook. lol

[regex]

That's your own fault - for being on Facebook. lol

It's better than Reddit.

[Aethon]

Beautiful 3D flyover of the Pluto close up image.

*Speculation*

After watching this, and the way the original image sits on Pluto, it looks to me as if the mountain chains run longitudinally away from the pole, which makes me wonder whether warm, young, juicy, bloated Pluto shrunk as some volatiles were lost to space, and these ice mountains were sort of wrinkled up as the body got smaller. Almost like what compression does to planetary poles in KSP.

What say ye?

[Frida Space]

Just got confirmation that the correct image is the first one, the one with the inset towards the bottom.

[Shpaget]

Are those fractures?

[LordFerret]

*Speculation*

After watching this, and the way the original image sits on Pluto, it looks to me as if the mountain chains run longitudinally away from the pole, which makes me wonder whether warm, young, juicy, bloated Pluto shrunk as some volatiles were lost to space, and these ice mountains were sort of wrinkled up as the body got smaller. Almost like what compression does to planetary poles in KSP.

What say ye?

Earlier I mentioned what looked like 'dunes', and then later about how that 'rippling' was over all the structures; Your speculation makes sense to me ... and thinking on it, it kind of compares to piles of melting snow I've seen - sort of. Interesting.

[PB666]

Conspiracy theorists will claim there was an alien spacebase visible that our illuminati overlords demanded to be shopped out, lest we'd find out about who put them in power.

Of course, in discussion amongst the lads yesterday, we though it best to hide the spa, bath and massage retreat in the northwestern canyon since it was already booked until the plutonian periapsis. You can hardly call it a base, given the fact we don't allow our minions to know of its location (riff-raff and all that, chap), the landing site remains fairly understaffed and in roughly a cobbled ice landing pad. Its amazing how people can make a mountain out of a methane pile, next thing you know they will be wanting us to show them where their lander is on 67P, its not like we gave in permission to land there, that personally was my favorite site to tan and now it has screw holes punctured in it. The lay gives absolutely no thought how long it took to select and covertly turn the comet into a path that would steer it closer to the sun, and now its location is known by all. The Cometary Inc stock dropped 50% when that lander finally landed in that alcove, its all now tainted merchandise.

We are not greedy per-say, but it takes decades to find secret sites to take your mistresses and now we have to worry about spying from the lessor lifeforms, if they had pictures of the spa, egads it would be hell to pay when the wives found out. Keep quite about the whole thing and NH may avoid suddenly finding a errant snowball in its path.

Just keep repeating....There is no cabal...There is no cabal....

[Frida Space]

*Speculation*

After watching this, and the way the original image sits on Pluto, it looks to me as if the mountain chains run longitudinally away from the pole, which makes me wonder whether warm, young, juicy, bloated Pluto shrunk as some volatiles were lost to space, and these ice mountains were sort of wrinkled up as the body got smaller. Almost like what compression does to planetary poles in KSP.

What say ye?

Sound plausible, however from what I heard, if Pluto had/has an underground ocean (which the new images seem to suggest), it would slowly be freezing into ice, so the planet should actually be getting slightly larger if anything. If you account for the volatiles escaping into space then maybe they balance each other, but I don't think it's getting smaller. Not sure tho.

[rkman]

Wow, someone's been doing some fancy 3D renderings.

Beautiful 3D flyover of the Pluto close up image.

Looks like those are not corrected for the fact that that part of the surface is seen at a shallow angle because it is close to the rim, making circular features look like flat ellipses.

Those mountain range ridges are in reality much broader and farther apart than as seen in the image.

It's better than Reddit.

I see more references to conspiracies in this thread here than in r/space

Edited July 16, 2015 by rkman

[PB666]

It is impossible for any of the ices there to experience a liquid phase on the surface at encountered pressures. You'd need five orders of magnitude more pressure to get the triple point. I couldn't find a carbon(II) oxide phase diagram, but here's one with data on methane and nitrogen. CO is very much like nitrogen.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~hubbard/PtyS206/Lectures4/combo_phase_diag.png

There might occasionaly be some precipitation in the form of very tiny particles in the atmosphere, probably forming parhelia like in this photo.

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/Photography/Images/POD/p/polar-phenomena-rosing-749109-sw.jpg

Rate of falling would be abominably low. Direct ground deposition of atmospheric gases (reverse sublimation), therefore frost, is much more likely.

I do agree that the mountains most likely aren't very young. It's the regolith, being transported around by sublimation and deposition, that should be the main reason for fresh looking surface. Impacts into Pluto would be spectacular because a huge amount of volatiles would turn into gas.

Think about what is liquid and were it might come from. Water could be liquid transiently because in deep crevaces bound by rocks maintaining pressure. The other liquids are methane, nitrogen, oxygen, and even hydrogen. Look at those photos carefully, although the erosion is not like on earth, there are signs of wearing on many of the complex features, although the pattern could also be explain by volcanism, it exhibits features of running liquid.

I work with water under vacuum, and you can have circumstances where it does not boil right off even at room temperature, if the flux is great enough then the cooling rapidly cools water to near freezing were further boiling is inhibit, it can run a while before freezing.

If we imagine pluto's atmosphere not as our own, but an atmospheres that expands and contracts as geological energy is released or as it approaches the solar maximum (or both) then you could have a situation were an expansive atmosphere, slightly warmer than present and heat upwellings bring water that the flows over the surface before it has a chance to freeze solid. The water would be boiling, yes, but transient stability is all that is needed.

Pluto is not a place for humans to go, I have serious doubts about life on pluto, the rate of evolution would be incredibly slow with long periods of complete dormancy. The fact that you have high rates of turnover to the frozen surface would indicate there is a reasonable chance that anything ends up spending most of its existence trapped in a solid. To top this off, were are the energy sources, very little chemosynthetic compounds as a result of heat, and so little sunlight you could not keep a well adapted house plant alive. Basically life would have the complex organics that arrive from accretion and once their gone it dies. I suspect most of these compounds ended up in the core of the planet and we have no chance of sampling there.

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I'm really fascinated by the mysterious source that is powering (or has powered recently) resurfacing activities on Pluto. I don't think radioactive decay is strong enough to make tens of 11000 feet tall mountains in just a 150x150 km area and wipe out a great part of the craters (although this latter thing could also be explained by the surface-atmosphere interaction)

Think about a process that because of high levels of insulative fluff, the latent heat from decay accumulates and then its release as convection is triggered and then rapidly released. Then long periods (millions of years) of no activity and the process starts over again. The mountains may be much much older, I think they are talking about the majority of the surface, not the entire surface.

Edited July 16, 2015 by PB666

[rkman]

I don't think radioactive decay is strong enough to make tens of 11000 feet tall mountains in just a 150x150 km area and wipe out a great part of the craters

Perhaps a large impact and its ejecta field could do both.

[Frida Space]

I've been talking to a planetary scientist who worked @ SwRI until a few years ago and man, the Charon-Pluto relationship is fascinating. I mean, their being tidally locked to each other means that whenever, say, an impact strikes one body and gives a torque to it, or there's mass redistributions in one of them, the tidal forces are automatically transfered to the other body. A guy on another forum called this "some sort of positive-feedback resonance".

[lajoswinkler]

What the crap is going on? NASA has released two images showing the same inset (flipped) in two different locations on Charon's surface. Good PR right there

At first I thought they were two images a bit different because of the flyby, but then I've realized it's the same one. Took a few burned out neurons while trying to stitch them together.

But it's beautiful.

*Speculation*

After watching this, and the way the original image sits on Pluto, it looks to me as if the mountain chains run longitudinally away from the pole, which makes me wonder whether warm, young, juicy, bloated Pluto shrunk as some volatiles were lost to space, and these ice mountains were sort of wrinkled up as the body got smaller. Almost like what compression does to planetary poles in KSP.

What say ye?

Pluto shrinking in the past actually was mentioned as a hypothesis during one of the press conferences. The mechanism you propose is a possibility. Well done, have some rep.

Think about what is liquid and were it might come from. Water could be liquid transiently because in deep crevaces bound by rocks maintaining pressure. The other liquids are methane, nitrogen, oxygen, and even hydrogen. Look at those photos carefully, although the erosion is not like on earth, there are signs of wearing on many of the complex features, although the pattern could also be explain by volcanism, it exhibits features of running liquid.

I work with water under vacuum, and you can have circumstances where it does not boil right off even at room temperature, if the flux is great enough then the cooling rapidly cools water to near freezing were further boiling is inhibit, it can run a while before freezing.

If we imagine pluto's atmosphere not as our own, but an atmospheres that expands and contracts as geological energy is released or as it approaches the solar maximum (or both) then you could have a situation were an expansive atmosphere, slightly warmer than present and heat upwellings bring water that the flows over the surface before it has a chance to freeze solid. The water would be boiling, yes, but transient stability is all that is needed.

Pluto is not a place for humans to go, I have serious doubts about life on pluto, the rate of evolution would be incredibly slow with long periods of complete dormancy. The fact that you have high rates of turnover to the frozen surface would indicate there is a reasonable chance that anything ends up spending most of its existence trapped in a solid. To top this off, were are the energy sources, very little chemosynthetic compounds as a result of heat, and so little sunlight you could not keep a well adapted house plant alive. Basically life would have the complex organics that arrive from accretion and once their gone it dies. I suspect most of these compounds ended up in the core of the planet and we have no chance of sampling there.

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Think about a process that because of high levels of insulative fluff, the latent heat from decay accumulates and then its release as convection is triggered and then rapidly released. Then long periods (millions of years) of no activity and the process starts over again. The mountains may be much much older, I think they are talking about the majority of the surface, not the entire surface.

There is of course no pure water on Pluto. Water in nature is always a solution because it's such a good solvent. On icy worlds it's bound to have ammonia in it because ammonia is a polar molecule and dissolves easily, although it's not very good at hydrolysis so the resulting solution is not very basic no matter how much of it is inside.

I'm very well aware there is a possibility of liquid briny solutions deep inside, and it is possible to have a transient occurence on the surface in a case of some object impacting the surface and dislodging water ice crust, or as you mention, heat, latent or due to radioactive decay, causing tectonic tensions and spilling some of the "juice" out only to boil and freeze fast.

However, for ices to melt at the surface because of reasons, that's a no. Simply won't happen because of the very low pressure. It's either solid or gas.