http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/pluto-sputnik-planum-young-surface-new-horizons-ice/7097574

Pluto’s heart-shaped Sputnik Planum region is only 10 million years old — far younger than the rest of the dwarf planet, according to a new study.

The findings, reported in the journal PLOS One, is based on a survey of impact craters over Pluto’s frozen surface seen by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its visit to the distant world last year.

“When you look at the data from the Sputnik Planum region, it has all these interesting pits and other shapes in it — but there aren’t any craters at all,” study author Dr David Trilling, of the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, said.

“I would say this is right now the biggest mystery about the Pluto system.”

Astronomers can determine the age of a surface by the amount of impact craters on that surface — the more craters, the older the surface.

Almost every object in the solar system is covered in impact craters, except for places like Earth where tectonic plate movements, weathering and erosion erase impact craters and a thick atmosphere destroys small meteors before they reach the ground.

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more in link

Would there be a timeline from the sun to the outer planets

did they all form at the same time?

or the inner ones forming first then the outer ones?

or at all different times?

CrazyNeutrino said:

Would there be a timeline from the sun to the outer planets

did they all form at the same time?

or the inner ones forming first then the outer ones?

or at all different times?

They sort of all formed at the same time, but the outer ones took longer. The inner ones out to Jupiter, including the asteroid belt, all formed in a remarkably short period of time, geologically speaking, about 100,000 years. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formation is still a bit of a mystery because they’re bigger than would be expected at that distance from the Sun if they formed using the assumed method of cold accretion. I have my own ideas about that.

As for timeline for Sun’s formation, also startlingly fast. See “Hayashi track”, by 10 million years it’s onto the main sequence.

mollwollfumble said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

Would there be a timeline from the sun to the outer planets

did they all form at the same time?

or the inner ones forming first then the outer ones?

or at all different times?

They sort of all formed at the same time, but the outer ones took longer. The inner ones out to Jupiter, including the asteroid belt, all formed in a remarkably short period of time, geologically speaking, about 100,000 years. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formation is still a bit of a mystery because they’re bigger than would be expected at that distance from the Sun if they formed using the assumed method of cold accretion. I have my own ideas about that.

As for timeline for Sun’s formation, also startlingly fast. See “Hayashi track”, by 10 million years it’s onto the main sequence.

Mind you it seems Pluto’s history is quite different from any of the inner planets or gas giants.

dv said:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/pluto-sputnik-planum-young-surface-new-horizons-ice/7097574

Pluto’s heart-shaped Sputnik Planum region is only 10 million years old — far younger than the rest of the dwarf planet, according to a new study.

The findings, reported in the journal PLOS One, is based on a survey of impact craters over Pluto’s frozen surface seen by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its visit to the distant world last year.

“When you look at the data from the Sputnik Planum region, it has all these interesting pits and other shapes in it — but there aren’t any craters at all,” study author Dr David Trilling, of the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, said.

“I would say this is right now the biggest mystery about the Pluto system.”

Astronomers can determine the age of a surface by the amount of impact craters on that surface — the more craters, the older the surface.

Almost every object in the solar system is covered in impact craters, except for places like Earth where tectonic plate movements, weathering and erosion erase impact craters and a thick atmosphere destroys small meteors before they reach the ground.

—-

more in link

Not so much of a mystery, the tidal effects of Charon must be keeping Pluto’s interior hot. The whole heart-shaped region flowed out of a fissure like the maria of the Moon and the flood basalts of Earth. There are similar features on the large moons of some of the outer planets.

Latest colour photo of Pluto. Note the unexpected and unusual many small red patches.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

Would there be a timeline from the sun to the outer planets

did they all form at the same time?

or the inner ones forming first then the outer ones?

or at all different times?

They sort of all formed at the same time, but the outer ones took longer. The inner ones out to Jupiter, including the asteroid belt, all formed in a remarkably short period of time, geologically speaking, about 100,000 years. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formation is still a bit of a mystery because they’re bigger than would be expected at that distance from the Sun if they formed using the assumed method of cold accretion. I have my own ideas about that.

As for timeline for Sun’s formation, also startlingly fast. See “Hayashi track”, by 10 million years it’s onto the main sequence.

Mind you it seems Pluto’s history is quite different from any of the inner planets or gas giants.

Yes and no. If, as many now believe, Pluto formed at the same time as the periodic comets, then its formation is not too different to that of the icy asteroids like Ceres. On the other hand, this differs from the older view that periodic comets are derived from the Oort cloud which would have formed earlier than Pluto.