Pluto Surface Observations 3: NH Post-Encounter Phase, 1 Feb 2016- TBD Options

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This topic is for all New Horizons Pluto surface observations received after 1 Feb 2016.

[Daniele_bianchin...]

I do not know if this is the right place. I watched this Pluto area. What is these like rivers?
nitrogen ice flows?

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&id=42956

Sputnik planum could be in the past an exposed ocean of liquid Nitrogen as is the case with Titan\'s methane oceans?
can a planet or dwarf planet exist with an exposed ocean of liquid nitrogen?
how big must a planet be to have a liquid nitrogen ocean??
Grazie

Back in 2011, there was a suggestion that rivers of liquid nitrogen might be stable on Pluto
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda.../2011/3182.html

That was followed up by 2016 announcements that when Pluto\'s orbit and rotation are just right,
Pluto\'s atmosphere should support an atmosphere thick enough for liquid nitrogen to flow.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...mp;#entry229510


That means surface temperatures must be fluctuating enough to mess with the nitrogen on Pluto’s surface, driving it from a frozen solid into a gas. And sometimes, the temperature and pressure occasionally rise high enough for liquid nitrogen to flow on the surface.

The last time temperatures were sufficiently high to melt nitrogen was around 800,000 years ago, when Pluto’s orbital alignment led to its most extreme warm climate, says MIT’s Richard Binzel.
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To be rivers and lakes of Nitrogen there must be a cycle of Nitrogen like that of Methane on Titan? So there was a dense atmosphere with clouds and rains of nitrogen over Pluto?
Sputnick planum was a surface liquid nitrogen ocean that is frozen today?

Chemistry and physics manage to create surprising little worlds, like Titan and Pluto.
We find many more features of movement and geological activity in cold worlds than in hot worlds. When I look at Pluto I see the characteristics of a great world ..
I am surprised when I remember that he is smaller than our Moon.
I like to think that the cold does not give life, but the too cold, inconceivable, start strange processes.

[HSchirmer]

So there was a dense atmosphere with clouds and rains of nitrogen over Pluto?
Sputnick planum was a surface liquid nitrogen ocean that is frozen today?

Clouds and rain, probably.
Dense is relative 18-280 millibars might be considered dense in astronomic terms,
but humans need a pressure suit (IIRC) below ~50 millibars or your body temperature boils you blood into vapor.

As to Sputnick planum, I tried a basic estimates (e.g. an order of magnitude) that the amount of nitrogen locked up as ice in sputnick planum
seems to be roughly equivalent to the amount of nitrogen that a warm period Pluto would need for an atmosphere to be in thermal equilibrium.

If the real scientists estimates are 18-280 millibars, then I'll defer to them that there is enough near surface N2 to support a 280 millibar atmosphere.