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Could Pluto and Charon be geologically active?


Whirligig Girl

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The eccentricity of Pluto and Charon's orbits around one another is exceedingly close to zero. Neither would really move relative to the other. Thus, there's likely not much tidal stress going on between them. But Triton is on a minimal-eccentricity orbit as well, just retrograde around Neptune. The solar system likes to surprise us...

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The Pluto-Charon system is tidally locked for both bodies. They do not rotate relative to each other, hence no tidal effects. And I seriously doubt that any of the smaller moons have enough tidal pull to do anything noteworthy.

So I doubt we'll see any cryovolcanoes when New Horizons arrives in 2015.

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