Pluto Predictions, What will NH find? |
Pluto Predictions, What will NH find? |
Oct 3 2008, 04:50 PM
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
Dunes.
And basins. Maybe not as thoroughly chemically processed as Titan's basins, but basins. What do you think New Horizons will find at Pluto? How will Pluto surprise us? -Mike -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Oct 3 2008, 07:35 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 160 Joined: 4-July 05 From: Huntington Beach, CA, USA Member No.: 429 |
A planet
Well, I guess we'll see something like Europa, but heavily cratered and much dirtier. |
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Oct 3 2008, 09:30 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 47 Joined: 27-June 08 From: Ashford, Kent, United Kingdom. Member No.: 4244 |
I think Pluto will be ancient & cratered with little else.
Triton was most likely a captured Dwarf Planet by Neptune. During capture the orbit was very elliptical, thus raising huge tides that heated up the interior (much like Jupiter with Io), initiating massive cryovolcanism that resurfaced Triton. When the orbit settled down, tidal flexing reduced & a new surface froze. Pluto, as far as is inferred, has never undergone such heating. I think a Triton, Europa, Enceladus, Dione, Ganymede, etc type surface is just wishful thinking. Sure there are ices present & these ices may migrate dependent on the season & the point of the elliptical solar orbit, but Pluto & for that matter the larger & more massive Eris do not appear to have been subjected to violent heating that Triton had. I think Pluto will look more like Callisto, Rhea or Iapetus. Mostly craters, with perhaps a few fractures. I may be wrong, but that's exploration. Andrew Brown. -------------------- "I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before". Linda Morabito on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.
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