Thursday, November 17, 2016

Pluto Has Slushy Ocean, New Horizons Data Reveals

The BBC reports that data from NASA's New Horizons mission indicates the presence of a slushy ocean below part of Sputnik Planitia, the region on the dwarf planet's surface facing it's largest satellite, Charon, with which it is tidally locked. Two papers published this week in Nature discuss the formation of Sputnik Planitia, how a viscous, incredibly cold, hyper saline and ammonia enriched ocean developed beneath it, and why these events led to Pluto and Charon becoming tidally locked (always showing the same side to one another).

"If you were to draw a line from the centre of Pluto's moon Charon through Pluto, it would come out on the other side, almost right through Sputnik Planitia. That line is what we call the tidal axis" said James Keane, from the University of Arizona, co-author of one of a pair of papers published on the subject in Nature journal.

This is strongly suggestive of a particular evolutionary course for Pluto. The researchers contend that Sputnik Planitia formed somewhere else on Pluto and then dragged the entire dwarf planet over - by as much as 60 degrees - relative to its spin axis.

Link

Pluto 'has slushy ocean below surface

16 comments:

  1. Can't say as I quite understand the indented quotations, but is sounds like good fun! Will have to read the story!

    Thanks, Cat.

    --Alan

    P.S.: Note on previous thread--I haven't seen any fake news on TPM, unless you count some of the clickbait advertising.

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    1. I have a feeling Republicans get to decide what is and is not 'fake news.'

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  2. Now I understand, and thus to bed.

    Alan

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  3. "dwarf planet"

    !!!
    Aha! Soooo, Pluto *is* still a planet! :-D

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    1. "Planet" and "dwarf planet" are distinct terms. Both, unlike asteroids, have differentiated cores. But a planet has cleared its orbit of other bodies and a dwarf planet hasn't.

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    2. I consider "Planet Nine" to be Planet Ten; so there!

      --Alan

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    3. I'm still gonna call Pluto a planet.

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    4. All the best people do. *grin* Neil DeGrasse Tysonhas many fine qualities, but he is a Pluto hater. He is also a hater of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Kind of clouds his judgment.

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  4. So they are talking about a water ocean. But even with lots and lots of salt and ammonia, I'm having a problem wrapping my brain around the idea of liquid water at that temperature. I'd have to see the phase diagram for that sort of water-selt-ammonia mixture to really believe it. Although people who should know aren't questioning the idea, so I guess it holds up.

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    1. The concept blew my mind too. Maybe a more accurate term would be liquid? Though how anything could be liquid at that temperature still beats me.

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  5. Replies
    1. I don't think Senate minority leader is a big deal. There is no way he "steers the party."

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    2. They put him in as "Outreach" only hoping to lure his supporters back to the Party. Seeing Chuck Schumer appointed made the chances of that VERY slim. I know I won't be going back.

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    3. "So the Democratic Party understood that after their losses in the 2016 election they really needed to find a new direction..."

      Put me down as an old fogey, but I think that rather than progressives we need regressives. Instead of a new direction, we need an old one--the New Deal, or something very similar. Consider the age of the writer, and when his political leanings were established--well before the "New Democrats" (who have always seemed to me to bear a striking resemblance to the Old Republicans). My main objection to the Old New Deal was the compromises that had to be made with the racists to get it in place for anyone. I have in mind a non-racist, non-sexist Green New Deal.

      Alan

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  6. The Democratic Party has learned *nothing* and prefers to continue to represent corporations rather than people. We cannot win seats in the midterms with this corporate mindset.

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    1. I agree. Republican lite doesn't cut it. But this is no surprise. On Election night they were talking about Schumer being Minority Leader. We just have to bypass the whole corporatist enterprise with plans like Brand New Congress.

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