Pluto - Ice volcanoes and twirling moons

Pluto seems to be a live planet, they even said Pluto is becmong a star of the solar system, would that push down the Sun from the number one spot?

"The New Horizons mission has taken what we thought we knew about Pluto and turned it upside down," said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It's why we explore—to satisfy our innate curiosity and answer deeper questions about how we got here and what lies beyond the next horizon

"It's hard to imagine how rapidly our view of Pluto and its moons are evolving as new data stream in each week. As the discoveries pour in from those data, Pluto is becoming a star of the solar system,"

"After all, nothing like this has been seen in the deep outer solar system," said Jeffrey Moore, New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team leader, at Ames.

Pluto's surface varies in age—from ancient, to intermediate, to relatively young —according to another new finding from New Horizons.

Maybe its time to reconsider things in our solar system

Link

Howsabout a link

originally posted by: rajas
Pluto seems to be a live planet, they even said Pluto is becmong a star of the solar system, would that push down the Sun from the number one spot?

"The New Horizons mission has taken what we thought we knew about Pluto and turned it upside down," said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It's why we explore—to satisfy our innate curiosity and answer deeper questions about how we got here and what lies beyond the next horizon

"It's hard to imagine how rapidly our view of Pluto and its moons are evolving as new data stream in each week. As the discoveries pour in from those data, Pluto is becoming a star of the solar system,"

"After all, nothing like this has been seen in the deep outer solar system," said Jeffrey Moore, New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team leader, at Ames.

Pluto's surface varies in age—from ancient, to intermediate, to relatively young —according to another new finding from New Horizons.

Maybe its time to reconsider things in our solar system

Looks like a jailbreak!

Told ya the surface temp was climbing. And I'm not even an astrophysicist.

Winged Disk of Hours vs. Pluto? Clash of the Titans!!!

/popcorn

a reply to: rajas

Are these volcanoes communist? If so, the U.S. just might have to democratize this dwarf planet, as they call it



In all seriousness, very cool article. Up until recently pluto was mostly seen as a small icy, desolate planet with very little activity. It sounds geologically active and I'm sure we will be learning much more in the next several years

a reply to: Mr Headshot

fixed

a reply to: trifecta

Well its apparently ancient also

a reply to: FamCore

Wondering how a Dwarf planet got upgraded to a Star, that pluto sure has some weird s*** to it.

Chilll, its not a midget, its a member of the land of Ort.

Damned upstarts…

a reply to: intrptr

To determine the age of a surface area of the planet, scientists count crater impacts. The more crater impacts, the older the region likely is. Crater counts of surface areas on Pluto indicate that it has surface regions dating to just after the formation of the planets of our solar system, about four billion years ago. But there also is a vast area that was, in geological terms, born yesterday—meaning it may have formed within the past 10 million years. This area, informally named Sputnik Planum, appears on the left side of Pluto's "heart" and is completely crater-free in all images received, so far. New data from crater counts reveal the presence of intermediate, or "middle-aged," terrains on Pluto, as well. This suggests Sputnik Planum is not an anomaly—that Pluto has been geologically active throughout much of its more than 4-billion-year history. "We've mapped more than a thousand craters on Pluto, which vary greatly in size and appearance," said postdoctoral researcher Kelsi Singer, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "Among other things, I expect cratering studies like these to give us important new insights into how this part of the solar system formed."

Variables, not a jailbreak.

a reply to: rajas

I'm pretty sure by star, they mean something like celebrity, the main attraction etc... not literally a star with nuclear fission happening. They used star poetically not scientifically.=

a reply to: AudioOne

I know =)

a reply to: rajas

oh, sorry..
my humor detection engine is in sleep mode.

Maybe Pluto should be upgraded to "Planet status" again, even if it hasn't cleared its orbital path of debris. Hopefully some are talking of this behind-the-scenes (and by behind the scenes, I mean where Jade has gone off to, sigh).

originally posted by: Aleister
Pluto should really be upgraded to "Planet status" again, even if it hasn't cleared it's orbital path of debris.

It's not the debris that's the biggest obstacle, in my opinion. It's Neptune, whos orbit Pluto crosses, being locked in an orbital resonance with it. If anything, Pluto is the "debris" in Neptune's way, except it avoided impacting it or getting flung out by its gravity.

a reply to: wildespace

Please continue =)

Pluto and Neptune are in different orbital planes with Pluto being tilted at 17 degrees to the other planets., so they will never collide. But they swap places as Pluto moves in an elliptical orbit that lasts 248 years.

Strange to think that despite the billions of miles between Pluto and the Sun, there is enough gravitational force to keep Pluto in orbit.

I guess I have to do more reading on planet aging... I just don't get how number of meteor impacts has anything to do with age. Too many variables to say that impacts should be a main contributor to aging a planet. example: what if a meteor shower on hits half the planet? example two: what is the timing of the meteor shower or density?


so... yea, I need to do a bit more reading.