Live streaming press conference now:

http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

Huge mountains made of the water ice “bedrock” in a relatively young landscape. Looks like this is an active world, despite the lack of powerful tidal forces. Textbooks are going to have to be rewritten…

Bubblecar said:

Huge mountains made of the water ice “bedrock” in a relatively young landscape. Looks like this is an active world, despite the lack of powerful tidal forces. Textbooks are going to have to be rewritten…

Charon also seems to have recently active regions, in a new picture about the same resolution as the last Pluto image before the flyby.

Only one close-up image of Pluto’s surface released so far but there’ll be more coming over the days ahead.

The heart-shaped region has been officially named Tombaugh Regio.

Screengrab from the press conference of the first close-up image. The mountains are probably made of water ice.

Bubblecar said:

The heart-shaped region has been officially named Tombaugh Regio.

Love this :D

kii said:

Bubblecar said:

The heart-shaped region has been officially named Tombaugh Regio.

Love this :D

It got very prolonged applause at the press conference :)

Bubblecar said:

kii said:

Bubblecar said:

The heart-shaped region has been officially named Tombaugh Regio.

Love this :D

Excellent! We will go to the local museum on the weekend and check out any new displays, info etc. At least it was on the front page of the local newspaper this morning.

It got very prolonged applause at the press conference :)

Some points:

1. Icy mountain ranges, 3500 metres high: the physics of this suggests the age must be less than 100 million years, ie they are “recent”. But how could Pluto possibly be active? Maybe there’s a bunch we don’t know about the cycles in icy planets, or maybe it was related to resiling after an impact. Either way, fuck.

1. Hydra is mainly water ice.

1. Charon has a ravine 10 km deep.

1. The distribution of various ices on Pluto is highly irregular, half the heart is covered with pretty solid methane ice.

Still don’t know what the dark “whale” is made of, and nor is the atmospheric data back.

The images sent back so far are not full resolution. Waiting on playback of all the images and especially the spectro data.

Notwithstanding the arbitrary ruling by the IAU in 2006…

For me, this completes the set of nine planets that I grew up with. Before this, the last addition to the “closely explored planets” list came in 1989, a quarter of a century ago. I remember seeing the fascinating pictures of Triton not long after that.

Here are the first exploration dates of the non-home eight.

Jupiter 1973
Mars 1964 (though a really full picture did not come until 1971 with Mariner 9)
Venus 1974
Saturn 1980 (the Pioneer 11 images in 1979 were low-resolution)
Uranus 1986
Neptune 1989
Pluto 2015

dv said:

Notwithstanding the arbitrary ruling by the IAU in 2006…

For me, this completes the set of nine planets that I grew up with. Before this, the last addition to the “closely explored planets” list came in 1989, a quarter of a century ago. I remember seeing the fascinating pictures of Triton not long after that.

Here are the first exploration dates of the non-home eight.

Jupiter 1973
Mars 1964 (though a really full picture did not come until 1971 with Mariner 9)
Venus 1974
Saturn 1980 (the Pioneer 11 images in 1979 were low-resolution)
Uranus 1986
Neptune 1989
Pluto 2015

You can disagree with it, Pluto remains a planet to me, but it was not arbitrary.

http://earthsky.org/space/pluto-moons-large-moon-charon

AwesomeO said:

dv said:

Notwithstanding the arbitrary ruling by the IAU in 2006…

For me, this completes the set of nine planets that I grew up with. Before this, the last addition to the “closely explored planets” list came in 1989, a quarter of a century ago. I remember seeing the fascinating pictures of Triton not long after that.

Here are the first exploration dates of the non-home eight.

Jupiter 1973
Mars 1964 (though a really full picture did not come until 1971 with Mariner 9)
Venus 1974
Saturn 1980 (the Pioneer 11 images in 1979 were low-resolution)
Uranus 1986
Neptune 1989
Pluto 2015

You can disagree with it, Pluto remains a planet to me, but it was not arbitrary.

It would have been possible to introduce objective definitions that included Pluto as a planet, or for instance left ‘planet’ broad but brought in technical sub-categories.

BTW, about time someone got the stones to set a lander to Venus again. So far the only country to do that doesn’t exist anymore.

dv said:

BTW, about time someone got the stones to set a lander to Venus again. So far the only country to do that doesn’t exist anymore.

Hear hear.

As for Pluto, I don’t care what they call it. I’m just glad we’re getting a good peep at it.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

BTW, about time someone got the stones to set a lander to Venus again. So far the only country to do that doesn’t exist anymore.

Hear hear.

As for Pluto, I don’t care what they call it. I’m just glad we’re getting a good peep at it.

Aye.

No new satellites yet.

dv said:

BTW, about time someone got the stones to set a lander to Venus again. So far the only country to do that doesn’t exist anymore.

Aye. The technology to get there hasn’t changed since they last did it, but what they could do with the latest computing and sensors boggles the mind.

I’ve got $5 microcontroller boards that would contain more computing power than all the Venus probes combined.

sibeen said:

dv said:

BTW, about time someone got the stones to set a lander to Venus again. So far the only country to do that doesn’t exist anymore.

Aye. The technology to get there hasn’t changed since they last did it, but what they could do with the latest computing and sensors boggles the mind.

I’ve got $5 microcontroller boards that would contain more computing power than all the Venus probes combined.

Could probably direct the entire probe with a modern smartphone app.

dv said:

Here are the first exploration dates of the non-home eight.

Jupiter 1973
Mars 1964 (though a really full picture did not come until 1971 with Mariner 9)
Venus 1974
Saturn 1980 (the Pioneer 11 images in 1979 were low-resolution)
Uranus 1986
Neptune 1989
Pluto 2015

That’s seven. Where’s Mercury?

btm said:

dv said:

Here are the first exploration dates of the non-home eight.

Jupiter 1973
Mars 1964 (though a really full picture did not come until 1971 with Mariner 9)
Venus 1974
Saturn 1980 (the Pioneer 11 images in 1979 were low-resolution)
Uranus 1986
Neptune 1989
Pluto 2015

That’s seven. Where’s Mercury?

I looked it up. Mariner 10 visited Mercury in 1974 (twice), then again in 1975. A full picture didn’t emerge until Messenger in 2011.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/rosetta-takes-image-new-horizons-pluto-5-billion-kilometers-away

I don’t trust the French, probably just taken a grainy blurred image of anything and then circled something to try and cash in on some reflected glory.
They can all speak English you know but they pretend they cant, dodgy the lot of them.

they’re selling a dream pwm….

Summary so far:

8 planets visited – none to go (but I agree about Venus)
3 dwarf planets visited – 7 still to go (Eris, Makemake, 2007OR10, Haumea, Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus & 2002 MS4).

The newness of the surface of Pluto is something I expected. For a couple of reasons. I’m delighted to be correct. One recent reason is the observation that Pluto has a strong magnetic field, which suggests a magnetohydrodynamic dynamo similar to Earth’s, which in turn suggests a core of liquid salt water. An older reason is that a core of liquid water was expected from tidal heating because Charon is so large and close. Another reason is, if I remember correctly, an observation from Earth of a colour change of Pluto suggesting recent volcanism.

Note that an ocean of subsurface salt water together with plenty of carbon compounds suggests to possibility of subsurface life within Pluto. The colour of Pluto – a yellowish brown – is unusual, it reminds me of the colour of Saturn. It could be due to organic compounds. Charon is a more normal grey colour.

I suspect that Pluto is only one of three solar system bodies to have a nitrogen-dominated atmosphere. The other two are Titan and Earth.

Methane on Pluto

Next images from Pluto due to be released 3 am tonight Melbourne time on nasatv. http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
(if I have eastern USA daylight saving time the right way around).

mollwollfumble said:

Next images from Pluto due to be released 3 am tonight Melbourne time on nasatv. http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
(if I have eastern USA daylight saving time the right way around).

Seems right.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=20150717&p1=179&p2=47

Dawn continues in its “survey” orbit around Ceres rather than spiralling down for a closer look. More images on http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/ceres.html

Scientific papers on Ceres from Dawn are starting to appear.
“First observations of Ceres by VIR on Dawn mission” by MC De Sanctis, E Ammannito, S Fonte
“Hyperspectral Observations of Ceres by VIR on Dawn: First Data Obtained During the Approach” by MC De Sanctis, E Ammannito, S Fonte
“Dawn Arrives At Ceres: First Observations From Orbit” by C Russell, C Raymond, A Nathues
“Dwarf Planet Ceres: Preliminary Surface Temperatures from Dawn” by F Tosi, MT Capria, MC De Sanctis
“Ceres Two Bright Spots; Discovering What They May Be In Extreme Image Closeups, Before The Dawn Spacecraft Orbits Ceres” by R Stewart
etc.

New pitchers coming in now, lots of surprises.

Bubblecar said:

New pitchers coming in now, lots of surprises.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/bigscience/files/2015/07/Screen-Shot-2015-07-17-at-10.24.59-AM.jpg

Beat me to it. My screen shot of same image is http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o162/DavidPaterson/SSSF/Sputnik%20Planum_zpsso5qtvkm.jpg

This image is of Sputnik Planum is on the heart-shaped Regio Tombaugh on Pluto. This is adjacent to the mountainous Morgay Montes posted above in this thread.

This Sputnik Planum looks like an ice sheet to me. The irregular plates are of the ice that solidified first. The darker regions are of material from below the ice sheets. The hills in the same locations are pressure ridges. The dimples could be from escaping gas bubbles.

I was wrong above about Pluto’s magnetic field. The solar wind shock is due to the interaction between the solar wind and the upper reaches of Pluto’s atmosphere, not due to a magnetic field. That means, amazingly, that Charon is orbiting within the upper reaches of Pluto’s atmosphere.

Pluto’s atmosphere has stable rather than unstable stratification. This means that the temperature decreases slower with altitude than adiabatic.

Bubblecar said:

New pitchers coming in now, lots of surprises.

Fascinating, a little baffling.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

New pitchers coming in now, lots of surprises.

!http://blog.seattlepi.com/bigscience/files/2015/07/Screen-Shot-2015-07-17-at-10.24.59-AM.jpg

Fascinating, a little baffling.

Well, they seem too small for tectonic plates but they also look a little like low dunes with perhaps liquid gathering in some deeper troughs.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

New pitchers coming in now, lots of surprises.

Fascinating, a little baffling.

I’m wondering whether we are seeing convection cells in a solid.

Does anyone else think it strange that the solar system object most similar in colour to Pluto is Saturn?

Europa would be the second most similar.

By the way, the solar system object with the least understood colour scheme is Jupiter. Could it be red-brown because it’s coloured by chemicals similar to that responsible for the red colour of tomatos?

mollwollfumble said:

Does anyone else think it strange that the solar system object most similar in colour to Pluto is Saturn?

Europa would be the second most similar.

By the way, the solar system object with the least understood colour scheme is Jupiter. Could it be red-brown because it’s coloured by chemicals similar to that responsible for the red colour of tomatos?

\

Or is it just a giant tomato?

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

dv said:

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

Shrinkage?

dv said:

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

I reckon they are the subduction boundaries of convection cells. Convecting solids.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

Shrinkage?

Well we see things like that on earth, centimetres or metres across… not 30 km. I mean it might be right, but fuck.

Just that little patch is so complex. Some of the troughs have a dark floor. Some bound the ice mountains Slightly to the sound is the pockmarked area, which they are saying are sublimation wells… so why aren’t they over the whole area?

dv said:

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

The image is not totally unlike a sheet of what they call seam opal. After the overburden is removed from above it. The opal is formed as a sheet then breaks apart. Either from shrinkage or from pressures maybe but I do think shrinkage plays a big part.

Imagine if they found a perfect triangle.

AwesomeO said:

Imagine if they found a perfect triangle.

Photographed some of those this morning on ice in a bucket.

roughbarked said:

AwesomeO said:

Imagine if they found a perfect triangle.

Photographed some of those this morning on ice in a bucket.

You take lots of photos roughie, do you have a favourite camera?

Michael V said:

dv said:

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

I reckon they are the subduction boundaries of convection cells. Convecting solids.

My first thought was brecciation, but that would imply a liquid substratum (which is not impossible, but is unlikely). The sheet sizes are too big, too. So I’m with 1005 on subduction.

btm said:

Michael V said:

dv said:

No srsly, what are those troughs?

They do not look like any drainage pattern i have seen. But if not drainage, then what?

I reckon they are the subduction boundaries of convection cells. Convecting solids.

My first thought was brecciation, but that would imply a liquid substratum (which is not impossible, but is unlikely). The sheet sizes are too big, too. So I’m with 1005 on subduction.

Great… so what is powering subduction? Charon’s tides should not be enough, the sun certainly should not be enough. A planet the size of Pluto should be thermally dead within half a billion years of being formed.

All I can think is that it is a very new planet that got ejected from its own solar system and caught by ours.

And another thing, they have detected a shitload of carbon monoxide ice in the south of heart.

But how is carbon monoxide formed in nature except as a temporary product of thermal excitation?

dv said:

And another thing, they have detected a shitload of carbon monoxide ice in the south of heart.

But how is carbon monoxide formed in nature except as a temporary product of thermal excitation?

How much carbon monoxide is there in human farts?

bob(from black rock) said:

dv said:

And another thing, they have detected a shitload of carbon monoxide ice in the south of heart.

But how is carbon monoxide formed in nature except as a temporary product of thermal excitation?

How much carbon monoxide is there in human farts?

No significant amount

dv said:

bob(from black rock) said:

dv said:

And another thing, they have detected a shitload of carbon monoxide ice in the south of heart.

But how is carbon monoxide formed in nature except as a temporary product of thermal excitation?

How much carbon monoxide is there in human farts?

No significant amount

Good ‘cos I’m getting quite good at this.

bob(from black rock) said:

dv said:

bob(from black rock) said:

How much carbon monoxide is there in human farts?

No significant amount

Good ‘cos I’m getting quite good at this.

farting?

roughbarked said:

bob(from black rock) said:

dv said:

No significant amount

Good ‘cos I’m getting quite good at this.

farting?

Yeah but I have been having lessons from this forum.

bob(from black rock) said:

roughbarked said:

bob(from black rock) said:

Good ‘cos I’m getting quite good at this.

farting?

Yeah but I have been having lessons from this forum.

There ya go

https://fartingforboys.wordpress.com/how-to-win-a-farting-contest/

Back from the exhibition at the Cultural Centre (not the Nature and Science Museum). Lots of items on display that have been loaned by the family of Clyde Tombaugh. Took lots of photos. Tools, telescopes and things.

I’ll post some photos lateronish…..

Well, this is a bit better. 0.7°C. No snow yet, though.

Morning, its a bit frosty outside.

btm said:

Well, this is a bit better. 0.7°C. No snow yet, though.

Sorry, that was meant for chat.

looking forward to it kii.

JudgeMental said:

looking forward to it kii.

Maybe in a few hours? Got to do stuff.

i’ll just have to sit here and wait then.

:-)

btm said:

Well, this is a bit better. 0.7°C. No snow yet, though.

That would be quite a high temperature for Pluto

dv said:

btm said:

Well, this is a bit better. 0.7°C. No snow yet, though.

That would be quite a high temperature for Pluto

I’m still waiting for a temperature report from Pluto. The average temperature on Pluto is hotter than the coldest temperature on the Moon. Grandfather had to shovel a foot and a half of snow off a path in Bowral today.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

btm said:

Well, this is a bit better. 0.7°C. No snow yet, though.

That would be quite a high temperature for Pluto

I’m still waiting for a temperature report from Pluto. The average temperature on Pluto is hotter than the coldest temperature on the Moon. Grandfather had to shovel a foot and a half of snow off a path in Bowral today.

Still I reckon Pluto is colder than Bowral.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

That would be quite a high temperature for Pluto

I’m still waiting for a temperature report from Pluto. The average temperature on Pluto is hotter than the coldest temperature on the Moon. Grandfather had to shovel a foot and a half of snow off a path in Bowral today.

Still I reckon Pluto is colder than Bowral.

So they boffins are saying that they believe pluto is still volcanically active and something something about no creaters being evidence of being young.
But I reckon there are creaters that have filled up with ice.

Re colour of Pluto. New word for today is “Tholin”.

Tholins are a class of heteropolymer molecules formed by solar ultraviolet irradiation of simple organic compounds such as methane or ethane. The surfaces of comets, centaurs, and many icy moons in the outer Solar System are rich in deposits of tholins. Tholins do not form naturally on modern-day Earth, but they are found in great abundance on the surface of icy bodies in the outer Solar System. They usually have a reddish-brown appearance.

The term “tholin” was coined by astronomer Carl Sagan and his colleague Bishun Khare to describe the difficult-to-characterize substances he obtained in his Miller-Urey-type experiments on the gas mixtures that are found in Titan’s atmosphere. The paper is “Tholins – Organic chemistry of interstellar grains and gas” by Sagan, C.; Khare, B. N. in Nature, vol. 277, Jan. 11, 1979, p. 102-107.

Unfortunately, I don’t see any list of the most common tholins anywhere on the web.

Tholins are very large irregular organic molecules, so you would not expect to find a list of them. Quite probably no two tholin molecules is alike.

Slightly off topic. The exploration of Ceres is back on track, after being stuck in the “Survey” orbit for an extra 18 days. The “third science orbit” is to be its final orbit, the closest yet. From http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

July 17, 2015 – Dawn Maneuvering to Third Science Orbit

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is using its ion propulsion system to descend to its third mapping orbit at Ceres, and all systems are operating well. The spiral maneuvering over the next five weeks will take the spacecraft to an altitude of about 900 miles (less than 1,500 kilometers) above the dwarf planet.

The spacecraft experienced a discrepancy in its expected orientation on June 30, triggering a safe mode. Engineers traced this anomaly to the mechanical gimbal system that swivels ion engine #3 to help control the spacecraft’s orientation during ion-thrusting. Dawn has three ion engines and uses only one at a time.

Dawn’s engineering team switched to ion engine #2, which is mounted on a different gimbal, and conducted tests with it from July 14 to 16. They have confirmed that the spacecraft is ready to continue with the exploration of Ceres.

After arrival at its next mapping orbit in August, Dawn will begin taking images and other data at unprecedented resolution.

A KBO flyby in 2019, assuming funding available. New Horizons is now too far from Pluto for any further colour imagery, still taking BW images. Of course, still for download data captured so far. New Horizons has got a significant velocity kick from a slingshot past Pluto.

“Indeed, the flyby is barely the start of New Horizon’s mission. Over the coming days and weeks the probe will study Pluto’s moonlit night side and search for planetary rings backlit by the sun. Beginning on September 14 the spacecraft will download all the encounter data to radio telescopes on Earth. At a rate of about two kilobits per second that will take 10 weeks, even in a compressed low-fidelity format.”

Comparing the tracks of Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and New Horizons.

This is worth repeating as well, from Scientific American, it explains why it will be a very long time before we get even start to get full details back from the Pluto Encounter. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-horizons-emerges-unscathed-from-pluto-flyby/

“Beginning on September 14 the spacecraft will download all the encounter data to radio telescopes on Earth. At a rate of about two kilobits per second that will take 10 weeks.

“The reason the spacecraft has been radio silent is not computer limitations per se. Rather, it cannot transmit and take data at the same time for two reasons. A short version is that (1) the spacecraft has insufficient power both to navigate and to transmit, and (2) the instruments are fixed to the body of the spacecraft rather than mounted on a rotating boom, so when the antenna is pointing toward Earth, the instruments are pointing away from Pluto. A slightly longer reason is that, to power the transmitter at the full data rate, the guidance computer has to be shut down, and to be able to do that, the spacecraft needs to be pointed at Earth and put into a stabilizing spin so that it can be recovered later; and when it’s spinning, the instruments aren’t pointing at Pluto anymore.

“When that is done, New Horizons will spend a year resending a full-fidelity copy. All the while it will be speeding toward an encounter with another Kuiper belt object, probably early in 2019. In fact, thanks to its plutonium power source (an element named for the planet, of course), New Horizons should have enough juice to operate though the 2030s, by which point it will be about twice as far from sun as it is now. Eventually it will escape the solar system entirely, joining NASA’s four other spacecraft that are also headed to or already in interstellar space: Pioneers 10 and 11, and Voyagers 1 and 2.”

You may not have seen this one, the best map of Pluto’s surface so far. It hasn’t been widely publicised. From the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/08/new-map-of-pluto-reveals-a-whale-and-a-donut/

That was published about a week before the encounter.

Hard to believe that it is more than 10 years since we all in here were discussing the first pictures coming back from Titan.

dv said:

Hard to believe that it is more than 10 years since we all in here were discussing the first pictures coming back from Titan.

Yes, it’s hard to believe that 10 years ago it was 2005.

kii said:

dv said:

Hard to believe that it is more than 10 years since we all in here were discussing the first pictures coming back from Titan.

Yes, it’s hard to believe that 10 years ago it was 2005.

Oh you

Weird to think that the entire time since Pluto was discovered makes up about a third of one Pluto “year”. The whole time we’ve known about it it has been relatively close to the Sun.

Any more pitchers yet, or is that all they took?

Bubblecar said:

Any more pitchers yet, or is that all they took?

I think you have to wait ten weeks/months for basic data to be available and 4 years for detail to be analysed.

Postpocelipse said:

Bubblecar said:

Any more pitchers yet, or is that all they took?

I think you have to wait ten weeks/months for basic data to be available and 4 years for detail to be analysed.

data transmission limits.

Postpocelipse said:

Bubblecar said:

Any more pitchers yet, or is that all they took?

I think you have to wait ten weeks/months for basic data to be available and 4 years for detail to be analysed.

What postpoc said. What we’ve seen so far is low-resolution samplers.

dv said:

Weird to think that the entire time since Pluto was discovered makes up about a third of one Pluto “year”. The whole time we’ve known about it it has been relatively close to the Sun.

How long for a circuit of the sun does it take?

Don’t tell me don’t tell me, I’ll work it out.
I’ll say 220 earth years or there abouts.
Plutonic elections would come around about 660 years unless there was a double disillusion.

Peak Warming Man said:

Don’t tell me don’t tell me, I’ll work it out.
I’ll say 220 earth years or there abouts.
Plutonic elections would come around about 660 years unless there was a double disillusion.

Don’t give Abbott ideas…….

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Weird to think that the entire time since Pluto was discovered makes up about a third of one Pluto “year”. The whole time we’ve known about it it has been relatively close to the Sun.

How long for a circuit of the sun does it take?

~90,000 earth days?

plutons must get tired waiting for christmas holidays, and very long days I notice, but it’d be long sleeps I suppose

“Pluto’s rotation period, its day, is equal to 6.39 Earth days”

transition said:

plutons must get tired waiting for christmas holidays, and very long days I notice, but it’d be long sleeps I suppose

“Pluto’s rotation period, its day, is equal to 6.39 Earth days”

Except when they’re enjoying Daylight Saving Time. Shorter sleep periods, but more to do outside.

dv said:

btm said:

Michael V said:

I reckon they are the subduction boundaries of convection cells. Convecting solids.

My first thought was brecciation, but that would imply a liquid substratum (which is not impossible, but is unlikely). The sheet sizes are too big, too. So I’m with 1005 on subduction.

Great… so what is powering subduction? Charon’s tides should not be enough, the sun certainly should not be enough. A planet the size of Pluto should be thermally dead within half a billion years of being formed.

All I can think is that it is a very new planet that got ejected from its own solar system and caught by ours.

Possibly radioactive decay…

From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

Internal structure

Pluto’s density is 2.03±0.06 g/cm3. Because the decay of radioactive elements would eventually heat the ices enough for the rock to separate from them, scientists expect that Pluto’s internal structure is differentiated, with the rocky material having settled into a dense core surrounded by a mantle of water ice. The diameter of the core is hypothesized to be approximately 1700 km, 70% of Pluto’s diameter. It is possible that such heating continues today, creating a subsurface ocean layer of liquid water some 100 to 180 km thick at the core–mantle boundary.

Michael V said:

dv said:

btm said:

My first thought was brecciation, but that would imply a liquid substratum (which is not impossible, but is unlikely). The sheet sizes are too big, too. So I’m with 1005 on subduction.

Great… so what is powering subduction? Charon’s tides should not be enough, the sun certainly should not be enough. A planet the size of Pluto should be thermally dead within half a billion years of being formed.

All I can think is that it is a very new planet that got ejected from its own solar system and caught by ours.

Possibly radioactive decay…

From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

Internal structure

Pluto’s density is 2.03±0.06 g/cm3. Because the decay of radioactive elements would eventually heat the ices enough for the rock to separate from them, scientists expect that Pluto’s internal structure is differentiated, with the rocky material having settled into a dense core surrounded by a mantle of water ice. The diameter of the core is hypothesized to be approximately 1700 km, 70% of Pluto’s diameter. It is possible that such heating continues today, creating a subsurface ocean layer of liquid water some 100 to 180 km thick at the core–mantle boundary.

Well that is a big core for such a small body.

Bit like me really. The big core causes a bulge in the middle of the small body.

Michael V said:

dv said:

btm said:

My first thought was brecciation, but that would imply a liquid substratum (which is not impossible, but is unlikely). The sheet sizes are too big, too. So I’m with 1005 on subduction.

Great… so what is powering subduction? Charon’s tides should not be enough, the sun certainly should not be enough. A planet the size of Pluto should be thermally dead within half a billion years of being formed.

All I can think is that it is a very new planet that got ejected from its own solar system and caught by ours.

Possibly radioactive decay…

From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

Internal structure

Pluto’s density is 2.03±0.06 g/cm3. Because the decay of radioactive elements would eventually heat the ices enough for the rock to separate from them, scientists expect that Pluto’s internal structure is differentiated, with the rocky material having settled into a dense core surrounded by a mantle of water ice. The diameter of the core is hypothesized to be approximately 1700 km, 70% of Pluto’s diameter. It is possible that such heating continues today, creating a subsurface ocean layer of liquid water some 100 to 180 km thick at the core–mantle boundary.

I’m more inclined to think Charon’s tides rather than radioactivity. Pluto’s density is low to start with, suggesting only a small amount of radioactive material, and the small diameter would tend to let the heat escape fairly readily. Callisto is more heavily cratered than both Pluto and Charon despite its higher density and larger size.

I wonder how the thermal insulation of ice differs from that of rock? Hmm, rock at room temperature has half the thermal conductivity of ice at -100 degrees C. So that’s not the answer.

> higher density

Oops, Callisto has lower density.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/new-horizons-scientists-admit-they-were-completely-wrong-about-inert-pluto-10400272.html

Stupid scientists. Can’t they get anything right?

The Pluto flyby has had quite a bit of interest in mainstream media and gotten those not normally bothered with such things admiring the hard work and effort, not sure how interested they are in the scientific data though.

So even Pluto might well have liquid water beneath the surface.

Bubblecar said:

So even Pluto might well have liquid water beneath the surface.

It makes it exciting for space colonisation in the distant future if so, liquid water or any water really could mean humans can live there.

dv said:

Someone done there is waving.

Pluto from Hubble

Everything down there is waving.

Ian said:

That’s a bit out of date.

> 3 dwarf planets visited – 7 still to go (Eris, Makemake, 2007OR10, Haumea, Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus & 2002 MS4).

Haumea used to be called 2003 EL61.
Makemake used to be called 2005 FY9
Eris used to be called Xena 2003 UB313

Another large one with a real name is Salacia, formerly 2004 SB60.

———————————————————————

LOL at self.

I was pondering the unusual yellow colour of Pluto and into my head popped the phrase “don’t eat yellow snow”.

Let’s follow up on that. The yellow color in urine is due to chemicals called urobilins. The primary chemical urobilin contains four pentagonal nitrogen-containing rings. Urea and uric acid are white. The urine of vertebrates other than fish is yellow. Since the yellow colour is both large and vertebrate specific – the likelihood of that being the source of the yellow colour of Pluto is vanishingly small.

Confession Bear time: I thought Eris was a Kuiper Belt object.

Turns out it is a Scattered Disc Object.

dv said:

Confession Bear time: I thought Eris was a Kuiper Belt object.

Turns out it is a Scattered Disc Object.

Yes. Eris is far enough out to be an SDO, but that’s far from obvious. The only way I know of to distinguish between the two is to look up the Minor Planet Centre lists.
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/MPLists.html
The KBOs are included in the “List of Transneptunian Objects” and the SDOs in the “List of Centaurs and Scattered-Disk Objects”

The SDOs include (in decreasing order of aphelion) Sedna, Ceto, Eris, Typhon. All the other familiar ones are KBOs. I’m not exactly sure of the difference in definition of the two, but the KBOs have more circular orbits that are more in the plane of the other planets.

Another thing I did not know about Eris is that it was discovered relatively close to aphelion which is a bit unusual. Two hundred and forty years from now it will be at perihelion, and not much further from us than Neptune.

Well, I knew nowt of SDOs, plutinos, centaurs, cubewanos, etc.

Seems the classification of many of these objects is still up for debate.

(If they thought that Xena was too daggy, how about Sharon eh?)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattered_disc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubewanos

Venetia Burney, mostly famed for naming Pluto, was also the three-time champion Princess Leia cosplayer.

There are probably thousands of dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt and Scattered Disk.

One thing about the “new” “dwarf planet” definition is that it is pretty hard to apply without getting a good look at something, except in very extreme cases.

Right now there are only 5 certified dwarf planets, and about 200 known objects in the “might be a dwarf planet, hard to say, check with MZL” category.

—-

Here is Mike Brown’s page on the number of possible DPs, which he updates r-r-r-regularly.
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/dps.html

—-

It’s a bit weird that we still consider Jupiter to be in the “outer solar system” considering what we know now. It’s a bit like Qlder’s saying Rockhampton is in North Queensland.

dv said:

Here is Mike Brown’s page on the number of possible DPs, which he updates r-r-r-regularly.
http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/dps.html

—-

It’s a bit weird that we still consider Jupiter to be in the “outer solar system” considering what we know now. It’s a bit like Qlder’s saying Rockhampton is in North Queensland.

Yeah, that’s quite a list.

As of Wed Jul 22 2015
there are:

10 objects which are nearly certainly dwarf planets,
23 objects which are highly likely to be dwarf planets,
48 objects which are likely to be dwarf planets,
86 objects which are probably dwarf planets, and
376 objects which are possibly dwarf planets.

I was thinking the same thing about the Outer Solar System.

Ian said:

Yeah, that’s quite a list.

As of Wed Jul 22 2015
there are:

10 objects which are nearly certainly dwarf planets,
23 objects which are highly likely to be dwarf planets,
48 objects which are likely to be dwarf planets,
86 objects which are probably dwarf planets, and
376 objects which are possibly dwarf planets.

I was thinking the same thing about the Outer Solar System.

Plenty of places to live when the sun goes red giant.

Bubblecar said:

Ian said:

Yeah, that’s quite a list.

As of Wed Jul 22 2015
there are:

10 objects which are nearly certainly dwarf planets,
23 objects which are highly likely to be dwarf planets,
48 objects which are likely to be dwarf planets,
86 objects which are probably dwarf planets, and
376 objects which are possibly dwarf planets.

I was thinking the same thing about the Outer Solar System.

Plenty of places to live when the sun goes red giant.

With so much to explore its a pity space travel is so slow

In case you missed them. Two more image releases from New Horizons. Nix and Hydra.

And more mountains on Pluto adjacent to the heart.

Slightly off topic, the Dawn spacecraft blog says that Dawn has so far taken 1,600 images and 5 million spectra of Ceres.

mollwollfumble said:

In case you missed them. Two more image releases from New Horizons. Nix and Hydra.
!http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-nix-hydra-no-captions1.jpg?itok=RxO96j9p
And more mountains on Pluto adjacent to the heart.

!http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-pluto-mountain-range.png?itok=DU9MS85A

Slightly off topic, the Dawn spacecraft blog says that Dawn has so far taken 1,600 images and 5 million spectra of Ceres.

No sign of life there, as more photos come in from the various probes it’s looking increasingly likely that it’s just us.

Peak Warming Man said:

mollwollfumble said:

In case you missed them. Two more image releases from New Horizons. Nix and Hydra.
!http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-nix-hydra-no-captions1.jpg?itok=RxO96j9p
And more mountains on Pluto adjacent to the heart.

!http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-pluto-mountain-range.png?itok=DU9MS85A

Slightly off topic, the Dawn spacecraft blog says that Dawn has so far taken 1,600 images and 5 million spectra of Ceres.

No sign of life there, as more photos come in from the various probes it’s looking increasingly likely that it’s just us.

So it’s all ours?

Peak Warming Man said:

mollwollfumble said:

In case you missed them. Two more image releases from New Horizons. Nix and Hydra.
!http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-nix-hydra-no-captions1.jpg?itok=RxO96j9p
And more mountains on Pluto adjacent to the heart.

!http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-pluto-mountain-range.png?itok=DU9MS85A

Slightly off topic, the Dawn spacecraft blog says that Dawn has so far taken 1,600 images and 5 million spectra of Ceres.

No sign of life there, as more photos come in from the various probes it’s looking increasingly likely that it’s just us.

In fairness, the Kuiper belt is not where I would be looking for life.

Pluto revealed raises questions about its origins

Well now. Monash’s Andrew Prentice goes balls out and proposes rotational fission as an explanation for the creation of Charon and for the heart shape.

Read the article. But briefly; the common theory is that Pluto-Charon formed by collision. Prentice is suggesting that instead, exsolution and separation of lighter materials occurred within a rapidly spinning proto-Pluto, to the extent that it became unstable and released a bolus that in part became Charon and the other satellites, leaving the large pale scar which is the heart.

Rotational fission was once a popular Earth-Moon genesis theory but isotopic composition analysis eventually led to the current impact theory being accepted.

Official verdict: Pluto tasted like Key Lime tart on 24th July 2015……..

It occurs to me that the ten biggest “planets” (ie primaries) are nicely paired. Here they are on a log number line of diameter.

Two gas giants, two ice giants a bit smaller, two large rocky planets, two someone smaller rocky planets, two transneptunian objects.

dv said:

It occurs to me that the ten biggest “planets” (ie primaries) are nicely paired. Here they are on a log number line of diameter.

Two gas giants, two ice giants a bit smaller, two large rocky planets, two somewhat* smaller rocky planets, two transneptunian objects.

Interesting…..

*fixed. You’re welcome.

“Flowing nitrogen ice glaciers seen on surface of Pluto after New Horizons flyby”

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-25/flowing-nitrogen-ice-glaciers-seen-on-surface-of-pluto/6647636

Flowing nitrogen ice glaciers have been glimpsed on the surface of Pluto, along with an unexpectedly thick layer of haze in the atmosphere, NASA scientists have revealed.

—-
-NASA said that in this area, informally named Sputnik Planum, “a sheet of ice clearly appears to have flowed — and may still be flowing — in a manner similar to glaciers on Earth”.

“We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” said mission co-investigator John Spencer.

The ices in that region are made of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane.

“At Pluto’s temperatures of minus-390 degrees Fahrenheit, these ices can flow like a glacier,” said Bill McKinnon

—-

There are two distinct layers of haze — one about 80 kilometres above the surface and the other at an altitude of about 50 kilometres.

“It really is a mystery,” Mr Summers added.

Previously, scientists thought the temperature around Pluto would be too warm for hazes to form at altitudes higher than 30 kilometres.

“We’re going to need some new ideas to figure out what’s going on,” said Mr Summers.

—-

kii said:

dv said:

It occurs to me that the ten biggest “planets” (ie primaries) are nicely paired. Here they are on a log number line of diameter.

Two gas giants, two ice giants a bit smaller, two large rocky planets, two somewhat* smaller rocky planets, two transneptunian objects.

Interesting…..

*fixed. You’re welcome.

Thanks.

The patter does break down after that as the next three are clumped together.

kii said:

dv said:

It occurs to me that the ten biggest “planets” (ie primaries) are nicely paired. Here they are on a log number line of diameter.

Two gas giants, two ice giants a bit smaller, two large rocky planets, two somewhat* smaller rocky planets, two transneptunian objects.

Interesting…..

*fixed. You’re welcome.

Thanks.

The patter does break down after that as the next three are clumped together.

This is a “looking back” shot. The lit ring is the atmosphere.

Enhanced colour image

dv said:

Enhanced colour image

Purdy.

dv said:

This is a “looking back” shot. The lit ring is the atmosphere.

Also purdy.

Natural colour image, somewhat higher in resolution that the tweeted heart picture from last week.

dv said:

Natural colour image, somewhat higher in resolution that the tweeted heart picture from last week.

It’s well rounded.

I’m in love with Pluto.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Natural colour image, somewhat higher in resolution that the tweeted heart picture from last week.

It’s well rounded.

Square planets and moons are rare.

CrazyNeutrino said:

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Natural colour image, somewhat higher in resolution that the tweeted heart picture from last week.

It’s well rounded.

Square planets and moons are rare.

How about cubeoidal?

bob(from black rock) said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

Peak Warming Man said:

It’s well rounded.

Square planets and moons are rare.

How about cubeoidal?

Now you’re just being silly.

party_pants said:

bob(from black rock) said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

Square planets and moons are rare.

How about cubeoidal?

Now you’re just being silly.

Well I have to be good at something.

kii said:

I’m in love with Pluto.

And it’s in love with you.

Mosaic of southern end Tombaugh Regio, with south up, because the topography makes more sense that way:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07211628-new-horizons-pluto-encounter-plus-one-week.html

dv said:

kii said:

I’m in love with Pluto.

And it’s in love with you.

Awww…shucks

The heart of Pluto in high-resolution

This is a link to a big image