New Horizons: A mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt

[Rick]

At Pluto, New Horizons Finds Geology of All Ages, Possible Ice Volcanoes, Insight into Planetary Origins

From possible ice volcanoes to geologically diverse surfaces to oddly behaving moons that could have formed through mergers of smaller moons, Pluto system discoveries continue to surprise scientists on NASA's New Horizons mission team.

"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."

More: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20151109

[Rick]

An ammonia-water slurry may swirl below Pluto's icy surface

Researchers propose an ammonia-water slurry as the basis for Pluto's newly discovered geologic activity and possible volcanism, and offer a new method to predict planetary vigor.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society on Monday (Nov. 9) in National Harbor, Maryland.

Graduate student Alex Trowbridge, under the guidance of Jay Melosh, a distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, and professor of physics and aerospace engineering, performed the research in response to data reported by NASA's New Horizons mission to the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt that revealed a surprising amount of geologic activity on the dwarf planet's surface.

"We wanted to know why this small, icy cold dwarf planet is so active and to find a way to predict such activity for planets and other planetary bodies for which we have little information," Melosh said. "The New Horizons mission has already provided an astounding amount of new information, and its surprises remind us how little we know about the far reaches of our solar system and the depths of outer space beyond it. This is why these missions are so important."

A geologically active surface that buries craters and raises mountains means the mantle that lies below is moving.

Read more...

[Rick]

Pluto's Close-up, Now in Color

This enhanced color mosaic combines some of the sharpest views of Pluto that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft obtained during its July 14 flyby. The pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto, with resolutions of about 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel – revealing features smaller than half a city block on Pluto's surface. Lower resolution color data (at about 2,066 feet, or 630 meters, per pixel) were added to create this new image.

See here...

[Rick]

Pluto's 'Hulk-like' Moon Charon: A Possible Ancient Ocean?

Pluto's largest moon may have gotten too big for its own skin.

Images from NASA's New Horizons mission suggest that Charon once had a subsurface ocean that has long since frozen and expanded, pushing out on the moon's surface and causing it to stretch and fracture on a massive scale.

The side of Charon viewed by the passing New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015 is characterized by a system of "pull apart" tectonic faults, which are expressed as ridges, scarps and valleys—the latter sometimes reaching more than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) deep. Charon's tectonic landscape shows that, somehow, the moon expanded in its past, and –like Bruce Banner tearing his shirt as he becomes the Incredible Hulk – Charon's surface fractured as it stretched. 

More from NASA

[Rick]

Science Papers Reveal New Aspects of Pluto and its Moons

A year ago, Pluto was just a bright speck in the cameras of NASA's approaching New Horizons spacecraft, not much different than its appearances in telescopes since Clyde Tombaugh discovered the then-ninth planet in 1930.

But this week, in the journal Science, New Horizons scientists have authored the first comprehensive set of papers describing results from last summer's Pluto system flyby. "These five detailed papers completely transform our view of Pluto – revealing the former 'astronomer's planet' to be a real world with diverse and active geology, exotic surface chemistry, a complex atmosphere, puzzling interaction with the sun and an intriguing system of small moons," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.

More from NASA

[Rick]

Pluto: On Frozen Pond

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft spied several features on Pluto that offer evidence of a time millions or billions of years ago when – thanks to much higher pressure in Pluto's atmosphere and warmer conditions on the surface – liquids might have flowed across and pooled on the surface of the distant world.

More: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20160324

[Rick]

Pluto's 'Halo' Craters

Within Pluto's informally named Vega Terra region is a field of eye-catching craters that looks like a cluster of bright halos scattered across a dark landscape.

The region is far west of the hemisphere NASA's New Horizons spacecraft viewed during close approach last summer.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-halo-craters

[Rick]

New Horizons: Possible Clouds on Pluto, Next Target is Reddish

The next target for NASA's New Horizons mission -- which made a historic flight past Pluto in July 2015 -- apparently bears a colorful resemblance to its famous, main destination.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope data suggests that 2014 MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) about a billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, is as red, if not redder, than Pluto. This is the first hint at the surface properties of the far-flung object that New Horizons will survey on Jan. 1, 2019.

Mission scientists are discussing this and other Pluto and Kuiper Belt findings this week at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) and European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) meeting in Pasadena, California.

"We're excited about the exploration ahead for New Horizons, and also about what we are still discovering from Pluto flyby data," said Alan Stern, principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "Now, with our spacecraft transmitting the last of its data from last summer's flight through the Pluto system, we know that the next great exploration of Pluto will require another mission to be sent there."

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6651