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Pluto's Expanding Atmosphere Confounds Researchers, Pluto Atomosphere
bagelverse
post Apr 19 2011, 08:26 PM
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Pluto's Expanding Atmosphere Confounds Researchers

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011...onf.html?ref=hp

Could these be evidence of geyers like on Triton?
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Drkskywxlt
post Apr 20 2011, 01:32 PM
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Pluto's atmosphere is (almost certainly) hydrodynamically escaping. Basically, the solar wind blows the atmosphere off the planet. So, that leads to a very large height for the exobase of the atmosphere (several Pluto radii potentially). That coupled with the seasonal cycle when the atmosphere is thicker anyway, and you get a very extended, low density atmosphere.
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AndyG
post Apr 21 2011, 10:03 AM
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QUOTE (Drkskywxlt @ Apr 20 2011, 02:32 PM) *
Pluto's atmosphere is (almost certainly) hydrodynamically escaping.

And therefore Charon, almost certainly, will have a ex-Plutonian transient atmosphere.

Fascinating!

This solar system just gets better and better. smile.gif

Andy
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Posts in this topic
- bagelverse   Pluto's Expanding Atmosphere Confounds Researchers   Apr 19 2011, 08:26 PM
- - tasp   Interesting. A tenuous atmosphere extending almos...   Apr 19 2011, 11:53 PM
|- - Greg Hullender   QUOTE (tasp @ Apr 19 2011, 04:53 PM) Just...   Apr 21 2011, 04:40 AM
|- - Den   QUOTE (tasp @ Apr 20 2011, 12:53 AM) A te...   Apr 21 2011, 10:08 AM
- - Paolo   see also the paper Discovery of carbon monoxide in...   Apr 20 2011, 05:12 AM
- - brellis   This is fascinating stuff! The Pluto system is...   Apr 20 2011, 10:41 AM
|- - Floyd   QUOTE (brellis @ Apr 20 2011, 05:41 AM) W...   Apr 20 2011, 11:30 PM
- - machi   This idea is theoretically possible (you must ...   Apr 20 2011, 12:39 PM
- - Drkskywxlt   Pluto's atmosphere is (almost certainly) hydro...   Apr 20 2011, 01:32 PM
|- - Rob Pinnegar   QUOTE (Drkskywxlt @ Apr 20 2011, 06:32 AM...   Apr 21 2011, 12:39 AM
||- - Drkskywxlt   QUOTE (Rob Pinnegar @ Apr 20 2011, 08:39 ...   Apr 21 2011, 12:47 PM
||- - Rob Pinnegar   QUOTE (Drkskywxlt @ Apr 21 2011, 05:47 AM...   Apr 22 2011, 03:39 AM
|- - AndyG   QUOTE (Drkskywxlt @ Apr 20 2011, 02:32 PM...   Apr 21 2011, 10:03 AM
|- - Drkskywxlt   QUOTE (AndyG @ Apr 21 2011, 06:03 AM) And...   Apr 21 2011, 12:35 PM
- - nprev   That sort of begs the question of whether Pluto ha...   Apr 21 2011, 12:45 AM
- - Paolo   may someone with some time to spare and Pluto and ...   Apr 21 2011, 10:18 AM
|- - AndyG   I get L1 for Pluto lying around 5050km from the ce...   Apr 21 2011, 11:30 AM
|- - Paolo   QUOTE (AndyG @ Apr 21 2011, 01:30 PM) I g...   Apr 21 2011, 05:24 PM
|- - Greg Hullender   QUOTE (AndyG @ Apr 21 2011, 04:30 AM) I g...   Apr 22 2011, 04:57 AM
|- - Paolo   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Apr 22 2011, 06:5...   Apr 22 2011, 05:19 AM
||- - Alan Stern   QUOTE (Paolo @ Apr 22 2011, 06:19 AM) tha...   Apr 22 2011, 12:49 PM
|- - AndyG   QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Apr 22 2011, 05:5...   Apr 22 2011, 09:36 PM
- - brellis   I'm confused. Does the L1 point of the Pluto s...   Apr 21 2011, 10:41 PM
- - nprev   Yes, it does; just like the Earth-Moon Lagrange po...   Apr 21 2011, 11:15 PM
- - Paolo   thanks Alan. I know I will spend a large part of t...   Apr 22 2011, 06:42 PM
- - Greg Hullender   So Andy and I worked through this offline, and we ...   Apr 29 2011, 02:57 AM
|- - AndyG   Never too keen on terms to the fifth power, and al...   May 1 2011, 07:01 PM
- - Greg Hullender   Grin. Terms in the denominator are just as bad as ...   May 2 2011, 01:39 AM
- - tasp   My thanks to the folks who can do the math. I am ...   May 3 2011, 07:05 PM
- - algorimancer   It was studying the mathematics of space travel th...   May 4 2011, 04:56 PM


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