Charon has Geysers too |
Charon has Geysers too |
Jul 18 2007, 04:08 PM
Post
#1
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 531 Joined: 24-August 05 Member No.: 471 |
----------
The only mechanism that explained the data was cryovolcanism, the eruption of liquids and gases in an ultra-cold environment. This action could be occurring on timescales as short as a few hours or days, and at levels that would recoat Charon to a depth of one millimeter every 100,000 years. ---------- - Charon: An Ice Machine in the Ultimate Deep Freeze -------------------- - blue_scape / Nico -
|
|
|
Jul 19 2007, 01:44 PM
Post
#2
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 509 Joined: 2-July 05 From: Calgary, Alberta Member No.: 426 |
Hmm. This is interesting.
I wouldn't have thought that something as small as Charon could still have liquid water in its interior. This isn't like Enceladus or Miranda where a big gas-giant planet is available to power tidal heating. Just to speculate: My understanding is that a lot of the Earth's uranium floated to the crustal layer during the planet's formation. You'd expect such a heavy element to sink, but uranium likes to combine chemically with oxygen, and that provides it with a lot of buoyancy. On a body like Charon, though, the uranium would only be able to float to the top of the core -- where it would remain, insulated by a 500-km-deep layer of ice. So should we expect ice/rock bodies like Pluto, Charon and Triton to hold onto their radiothermal heat more efficiently than similarly-sized rocky bodies? (Assuming we could find any similarly sized rocky bodies, of course.) |
|
|
Jul 23 2007, 05:54 PM
Post
#3
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 153 Joined: 14-August 06 Member No.: 1041 |
Just to speculate: My understanding is that a lot of the Earth's uranium floated to the crustal layer during the planet's formation. You'd expect such a heavy element to sink, but uranium likes to combine chemically with oxygen, and that provides it with a lot of buoyancy. There is also the chromographic soil effect: At a nuclear facility near Hanford, Washington, extremely low concentration radioactive wastes were dumped in an evaporative sludge pond. Over time (probably decades), elements were chomographically separated in the clay, and a layer of high energy waste was concentrated naturally near the surface to an unnatrual level - almost self sustaining. I also have a questionable account about how the problem was discovered: rabbits managed to get through the fence and nibble on grasses growing in the pond. Routine radioactive measurements taken outside of the fence uncovered radioactive rabbit pellets... |
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 28th March 2024 - 11:53 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |