Talk-Polywell.org

You gotta have heart!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... lanet.html

The final view (until next mission) of Pluto's "far" side (side opposite closest encounter), unprofessionally enhanced to emphasize details.

The latest

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589

The very latest.

http://nypost.com/2015/07/15/first-clos ... discovery/

No craters, suggests geologically active, internal heat!?!?!

Just speculating, but if there's warm enough oceans under ice, possible life?

choff wrote:The very latest.

http://nypost.com/2015/07/15/first-clos ... discovery/

No craters, suggests geologically active, internal heat!?!?!

Just speculating, but if there's warm enough oceans under ice, possible life?

Pluto could have an underworld? Venetia Burney would have laughed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetia_Burney

What could provide such heat in such a small body? radioactive decay and/or tidal interaction with Charon?

I was thinking tidal interaction creating heat via pressure, albeit extremophile life, like with vents along ocean ridges. Charon is a good sized moon for such a small sized planet, I'm sure the Plutonians will agree with me.

Tidal heating is not a contributing process, at least not for a long time. This according to one of the NASA scientists at the July 15th news conference. Charon is smaller than Pluto and perhaps more importantly, the two bodies are tidally locked, the same faces face each other always. There is no dynamic tidal flexing of either world. I presume this tidal locking occurred far enough in the past that resurfacing processes- crater elimination has occurred sense then. The scientist briefly speculated that internal heat from radioactive decay and the heat of fusion of liquid water converting to ice might provide the heat, though he stressed the preliminary nature of this conjecture. They additionally pointed out that tidal heating of some of the moons of the major planets was believed to be the driving force for the geology of those worlds, but the preliminary findings at Pluto challenges that model, at least in this case.


Dan Tibbetsl

D Tibbets wrote:Tidal heating is not a contributing process, at least not for a long time. This according to one of the NASA scientists at the July 15th news conference. Charon is smaller than Pluto and perhaps more importantly, the two bodies are tidally locked, the same faces face each other always. There is no dynamic tidal flexing of either world. I presume this tidal locking occurred far enough in the past that resurfacing processes- crater elimination has occurred sense then. The scientist briefly speculated that internal heat from radioactive decay and the heat of fusion of liquid water converting to ice might provide the heat, though he stressed the preliminary nature of this conjecture. They additionally pointed out that tidal heating of some of the moons of the major planets was believed to be the driving force for the geology of those worlds, but the preliminary findings at Pluto challenges that model, at least in this case.


Dan Tibbetsl

OK, without tidal heating, we have a real mystery!
Perhaps the outer solar system is richer in elements and isotopes that decay.

Wish we could get some drilling and core samples of Pluto. Not in my lifetime I suspect. Sigh.

First high res photos in from Pluto
https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveSc ... 40/?type=1

More Pluto stuff.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... eveal.html

Back to Ceres. Weird.

The "ice mountain" threw me for a few minutes. I looked at it and a nearby crater and decided those radial bright rays looked just like the features in the crater walls, which looked like slide features (very straight). Then I slapped my head when I looked at the illumination angles. Yeah, that's a mountain, not a crater. And if you look at the shape, it is almost like a divot somebody chipped out of the crater and laid upside down. The shape and size almost match, but not quite.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/ ... ?id=369192

I refuse to speculate. This will be fun to watch.

Is it possible, with the very low gravity on Ceres, that some explosion of volatile material could have flipped a divot out leaving a matching crater and mountain, and the mountain did not crumble to gravel when it hit? On Earth, volcanoes do blow plugs out. Not a speculation, just a question. My suspicion is that it is not possible but I await closer images. Or preferably a landing, with astronaut selfies.

Regarding PIA19881 above, it's not clear if the big structure next to the crater is elevated or depressed, until you look at the lighting of surrounding smaller craters. It's a "trench", not a "mesa".

@Tom
The "lonely mountain" below sort of looks like a 14 mile wide dusty snowball got deposited on the surface, slow enough to not make an impact crater itself, but fast enough to make the walls of the nearby large craters partly collapse. Note the normal eroded appearance of the bottoms of the two nearby craters, ringed by the collapsed walls.

Or a fusion rocket taking off from the hill :)