Pluto Predictions, What will NH find? Options

[Juramike]

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

[Pavel]

A planet

Well, I guess we'll see something like Europa, but heavily cratered and much dirtier.

[3488]

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.