[X] My Assistant

[Gladstoner]

Indeed these images are stunning.
I spent most time looking at the boundary between the terrain types, where the rugged terrain appear to be resting on top.

The sharpness of that boundary is striking. I can't help thinking of oceanic crust subducting beneath a continental margin.

[Bill Harris]

Indeed these images are stunning.
I spent most time looking at the boundary between the terrain types, where the rugged terrain appear to be resting on top.

And that image of the mountain--ice plain boundary is amazing. The debris fans from the mass-wasting of the mountain blocks are clearly resting on top the ice of the plain and this speaks volumes about relative ages of these units and their history. I shudder to think about higher resolution imagery on Charon, my choice of study.

And, thanks again to the NH Team for sharing this.

--Bill

[Gladstoner]

The debris fans from the mass-wasting of the mountain blocks are clearly resting on top the ice of the plain and this speaks volumes about relative ages of these units and their history.

The stuff between the blocks and along the margins seems more like floating flotsam being constrained by 'currents', kind of like this:



What would mass wasting look like when involving the various ices on Pluto? It may not resemble what we see in much of the solar system.

[HSchirmer]

The stuff between the blocks and along the margins seems more like floating flotsam being constrained by 'currents'
...
What would mass wasting look like when involving the various ices on Pluto?

Well, it's not just mass wasting, but mass redeposition. Bizarre think to consider,
pluto has 2 conflicting forces- global heat flow and atmospheric heat buffering.
IIRC, at pluto's conditions, H2O ice conducts heat significantly better than N2 ices.
But, because pluto's atmosphere is N2 and it has large areas of N2 ice, they are in equilibrium, and
the surface should be like a giant constant temperature bath.
So, just like a pitcher with many ice cubes slowly turns into a pitcher with one giant ice cube,
the mass will not just waste, but redistribute.

Wow, several interesting things about the convection cell images, and the paper.

First, the assumption that the N2 ice is going through the A-B phase transition.
That should essentially shatter the bulk ice into small grains which are then small enough to convect.
It appears that small grain size is a prequestite for bulk convection.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/25...LUTO_AND_TRITON


Another thing, convection is generally better than conduction at moving heat. Convection should actually concentrate the
heat flow towards the center of the convection cells. Perhaps the pits are a result of that locally increased heat flow.

Flip side, the subducting edges of a convection cell will have less heat flow than adjoining conduction areas.
So, the 'cold' subducting edge of the cell should pull heat out of adjoining area, perhaps that why CO ice is there.

[Bill Harris]

What would mass wasting look like when involving the various ices on Pluto? It may not resemble what we see in much of the solar system.

It would be alien and otherworldly. Terrestrial analogs may not hold up but they are about the only template we have now. See what fits, then modify to conform with reality.

The stuff between the blocks and along the margins seems more like floating flotsam being constrained by 'currents', kind of like this:

Good analogy. WaterIce-ite has an SG of 0.927 and Nitrogen an SG of 1.026 so the debris might tend to be somewhat "floaty". We see some debris collected in the downwelling "subduction zones" between convecting cells Remember the physics experiment where a block of dry ice could float frictionlessly on a tabletop, supported by a film of sublimating CO2? A chunk of water-ice may behave frictionlessly on a surface of N2 ice. And remember the "racetrack boulders" on Western US playas that R.Lorentz studied a few years ago.

Well, it's not just mass wasting, but mass redeposition. Bizarre think to consider...

And very good points to consider. The surface of Pluto could be considered to be balanced in a precarious state of equilibrium. Even insolation, which has a very small energy input, has to be considered in the thermodynamics equation.

I'm waiting for someone to look at The Hubble imagery of Pluto and make a quesstimate of the conditions on Pluto backtracked from today's conditions over the last 25 years (10%, 1/10 of Pluto's orbital period).
I found a press-release montage with 2002-2003 imagery at longitude increments of 30deg which provides an overview:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/r...010/06/image/h/

And conditions on Pluto and Charon are not dissimilar to thousands of other Kuiper objects so this is more the rule than the exception in our Solar System.


There. No arm-waving, my hands were carefully folded in my lap...

--Bill

[Herobrine]

Do the two strips (mine and Herobrine's) overlap at all?

No. I just noticed volcanopele's posted mosaic and it shows the gap between them: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/imag...IC_LORRI_CA.jpg

[eliBonora]

Late but my two mosaics, too

[alan]

Now in color

Zooming In

Student Dust counter

[Saturns Moon Tit...]

The downlink's a little slow today?

[ZLD]

Its usually been uploaded by an hour ago. Probably won't get anything today.

[Bill Harris]

Nice. Especially when the saturation on the color image is dialed up 2-3x.

--Bill

[Gladstoner]

Its usually been uploaded by an hour ago. Probably won't get anything today.

Is there a way to know if any non-LORRI data was downlinked instead? It would be nice if some new MVIC imagery came down.

[Saturns Moon Tit...]

https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/...468075810947072

"We accidentally released all images of last wk last wk & there have been none since. More landing tmrw though!"

[Habukaz]

Since no new imagery was released yesterday, and since no one appears to have discussed this P_LEISA_HIRES image from last week, I'll torture it a little to bring out some features:


A trail of ice leading from outside a crater to inside it (is it streaming?):



A branched feature:



A narrow fracture cutting through a crater:



Ice-filled crater (one of several mini-Sputniks?):

[Gladstoner]

Since no new imagery was released yesterday, and since no one appears to have discussed this P_LEISA_HIRES image from last week.......

Are we sure they didn't accidentally slip in a HiRISE image of Gale Crater?